Sigh…..co parenting

[Nightninjj]

I’ll try and make this short as possible. Ex has children every other weekend and every other Monday. We spoke yesterday regarding the approaching school holidays and as it is his Monday he should have the kids from Monday morning, however, his plan is to pick them up Monday night and drop them Tuesday morning as he just wants that overnight stay.

his house is a 40 minute drive away, the whole thing seems absolutely pointless.

you can stop them. He can take you to court where you can say I’m very happy for him to have her in the holidays, it just needs to be proper time. If he picks her up after dinner and drops her back before breakfast it’s just disruptive to her, I still do the whole holiday period and he is only doing it to pay less. Happy to sign a child arrangement order that holidays are 50/50 so he gets some proper parenting time but if he doesn’t want that, he can have as many nights as he wants as long as he collects by 9am. Otherwise it’s canceled and he can pay cms. And you will get a child arrangement order saying collect time. You can very much do this.

He sounds like a dick. You would think as he gets so little time with them he would take Monday off win-win for everyone.
I would let it go. It's only one day in the grand scheme of things and in the long run your children will know who is the better parent.

I see you don't have a proper parenting orders, get one as PP advised.
Then you wont be at beck and call. What if you had plans Monday afternoon? Would you have to cancel for him?

Obviously now he has told my eldest DD that I’ve stopped him from seeing them more. It couldn’t be further from the truth, I want him to see them more but the current arrangement was absolutely pointless.

dont let this get to you- say to eldest daddy is welcome to have you for days, I’ve offered half the holidays. I’m sorry but he’s not telling the truth about this. He is not welcome to just pick you up to sleep there, I don’t think that’s reasonable.

So sick of being made out to be the bad guy, I would love him to have them so much more as they miss him so much, I would love 50/50. I just hope the kids realise that I tried.

Another thing my daughter told me his sister was crying when they went for a meal yesterday as I was being unreasonable about the whole thing. She apparently told my daughter that I can drop them off at her house whenever I like……I have tried that once and her partner came out and shouted at me saying I was taking the piss and I didn’t just turn up their dad told me to take them there as he was going to be late!!!

Be as honest as feasible with your daughter. In this case you say ‘silly aunt sally! She should know that we did that and dropped you over and nasty face shouted at you, it was awful. You’d think aunt sally would tell nasty face not to treat any child ever like that if she knew.’

Thanks for all your replies, feeling really deflated about it recently as it breaks my heart that my daughter comes home crying as she misses her dad and there is literally nothing I can do about it. He manages to get time off work when it suits him but can’t be arsed to spend a day with his children. Sorry but I just feel so fed up.

This was his response when I changed the CMS

I have received your message.
To be clear, your claim about my collection times is inaccurate. Aside from a recent single occasion due to traffic that youre referring to, I routinely collect the children between 4:00pm and 4:30pm—not 5:30pm.
Child arrangements cannot be changed unilaterally by text message. Our established routine—including Monday overnights during term time—has been in place for a long time, works well, and provides the children with consistency and active involvement with both parents.
I will be at your house to collect the children on Monday at 4:30pm as scheduled, and will continue with our established contact routine.
If you feel our arrangement needs to be formally varied, the appropriate step is family mediation so it can be discussed constructively with a professional. Unilaterally withholding the children on scheduled days is unacceptable and not in their best interests.
Regarding the CMS, the recorded overnights must accurately reflect our real arrangement, rather than being altered to fund separate childcare. I have submitted full, accurate details of our schedule directly to the CMS. I will not be discussing this further

He's used chat gpt / copilot to write that. What an absolute dick. You're not wrong at all OP but CMS isn't fit for purpose.

So can I tell him he isn’t having them u less he picks up at 9am as picking them up at tea time when he lives 25 miles away is pointless, they also have to set off early in the morning to come back. He just doesn’t want to pay.

Yes you can! Of course you can. You reply
‘In the holidays the children don’t have school and someone needs to look after them all day. On your contact days that is you, or you arrange childcare. You can collect her by 9:30 or not at all, and of course you can arrange mediation if you’re unhappy with that, I will explain that she doesn’t go to school in the holidays and so you get the whole day, and I will go to work like you do every other day of the school holidays even though we are both parents. If you don’t want to spend holiday time with your daughter then don’t collect her. I’m sure you’re across the concept of school holidays, and if managing your work is a challenge I’m sure you realise that I care for our daughter every minute that you don’t and I have a job too. Would you like to collect her Monday by 9:30?’

He is telling me to adjust the cms claim immediately as he will be collecting them on Monday evening

Op. You don’t have to do what he says. I would make plans to go out Monday from 4:30 if he doesn’t collect, which sucks but you had better do that the first few times. If he turns up on another day instead you call the police as soon as you see him.

and to reply you just say ‘She is available before 9:30. She isn’t available at 4:30, please don’t waste the drive, I know that will annoy you. She’s on holidays and needs the whole day, if you want to spend time with your daughter is one whole day such an awful thing to have?’