Access to children when 'co-parented'

[ApricotVert]

My husband's daughter lives with her Mum. Despite the fact that children can move between houses, he chose not to take the risk and she stayed with her Mum throughout lockdown. He is in a high risk job and sure enough we both got Covid, and were floored by it for weeks, so his decision was justified. He's made the same decision during this lockdown but now not even his phonecalls to his daughter, she's 10 so via her Mum, get answered as her Mum disagrees with his decision (usually she will do anything to stop him seeing his daughter) She bubbled with her Mum for childcare and they are going round multiple people's houses during lockdown. We do not mix with anyone and have no desire to make a chain of however many houses mixing. Has anyone got any advice of what he can do to keep a relationship with his daughter?

@MeadowHay

This thread is hilarious and awful in equal measure. OP: My DH is refusing to see his child. What can he do to maintain a relationship with her? Everyone: He should see his child. OP: Not an option as DH is so 'moral' and amazing he can't possibly actually see his own child, you're all bitter and jealous of my amazing DH.

Great summary.

Really weird reasoning from op. Make me wonder how much op is being gaslighted in her daily life that this seems reasonable.

In the first lockdown DH and I both stayed well away from ancient DM and sent ecv teenaged DS to live with DD as we felt very anxious and responsible for potentially passing on the virus. I understand how your DH feels. I do , however, think that his main responsibility is to his DD. He should up his game with all the contact that he can reasonably manage so that she is reassured; multiple texts and little funny videos, a regular FaceTime meeting , consider zoom activities or some sort of joint on line activity eg both take up painting , guitar ,knitting or sourdough baking, and regular meetings at weekends if overnights aren't safe eg cycle rides , walks, take away coffees, picnic etc

Did he up his maintenance to the full amount? With extra given the real costs of caring for a child?

Hes effectively left her mother to do all the parenting. Through a pandemic. And all the added intensity and effort that brings whilst being free to do his job.

Well all of us in high risk jobs would like to see our children safe, but this isn't something that will last a week or two and disappear. And most of us in jobs that are high risk don't just decide to drop our children in the middle of a pandemic. Times like this children need security and love in order to feel secure when everything around then is so unsure, your partner is not giving his daughter any of that and not fulfilling his parental duties, so his ex has every right to feel let down and his daughter. You keep going on about the Nan who you are supposedly protecting but no doubt she is picking up the childcare while your partner is not, wow! I expect this thread is clearly not going as you expected and you cannot take on board any of the feed back!

Oh for goodness sake, OP. You don't have a lovely caring bloke, who just loves his baby so much but can't see her 😭 you have a deadbeat with sloppy excuses which would make a misbehaving 6 year old blush.

It's not Mum's job to facilitate a Disney experience for him. He needs to step up, have regular overnight contact, do real physical parenting work and stop being an enormous whinger. It's not everyone else's fault and he isn't putting everyone else first. He's lazy and it's his fault. All of it. I bet his ex doesn't hate him - I bet she's disgusted with him for being such an utterly rubbish Dad to her child.

The closing advice as always: Don't get pregnant.

Texting, phone calls etc are not parenting and they are not a parental relationship. There is no reason why a father shouldn’t have proper shared care of his child these days. As pp have said, a mother would have rearranged her work rather than only see her child once every couple of weeks.

I think your husband’s behaviour towards his child is appalling and whatever excuses he makes she and everyone will always know that he couldn’t be bothered to see her.

I also think this degree of isolation after you have had Covid is extremely odd and totally undermines any justification he might have had for not seeing his daughter.

This thread is pointless as you just wrote it to get justification for neglecting the child! Regardless of what the majority say you are never going to think you are in the wrong on this.

I think you've had a bit of a rough time here because you're not the child's parent but I do think you're a bit deluded about your husband's parenting.

Even before Covid it doesn't sound like he really parented his child. He didn't see her often enough to be anything but a Disney dad. Going to the park and having her stay a couple of times a month is not being a dad.

I also don't understand the wide-eyed questioning of what can be done to change this when clearly the answer has been for a long time that he needs to go back to court to vary the contact arrangements. He can also raise the lack of phone contact.

None of this is your fault OP but please don't be fooled that he's not a deadbeat dad, he is.

As a parent to DC that went from March until June without seeing their other parent, and then from September until now (local restrictions area prior to lockdown) you can beat the excuses your DH has given you don't wash with me at all.

I'll say this, I haven't bad mouthed their father to them, I haven't said anything at all. I don't need to. They are able to work it out themselves (possibly not the youngest) and I can already see from the indifference in them & the lack of asking about him that they've lost that bond. I'll be surprised if the youngest even really knows who he is once he can drag his backside to actually making an effort with his kids.

If your DH doesn't want to lose the relationship he has with his child, tell him to step up and to do it now.
If it suits you that he doesn't have one with her, you're both going the right way about it.

Is every front line worker staying away from their kids?

God this thread just gets worse!

Too moral to see his DD! Yes of course he is . He's not a parent at all - he's like the fun uncle that turns up with gifts and takes you out for ice cream a couple of times a year.

he changed jobs a couple of years ago which turned out to be worse compared to the access schedule.
I don't understand this. His new shifts were even less compatible with the access schedule (in which case why on earth did he take that job)? Or he found the new shift pattern to be "worse" than not seeing his daughter? It's not clear.

What else can he do after school but go to the park? He isn't ever scheduled to have her for long enough to bring her home.
So presumably he doesn't live near her? If his location is preventing him from seeing her, then why doesn't he move? Regardless of whose "fault" it is that there is a geographical distance, why isn't his need to see his daughter so compelling that it overrides all else?

That's the court and mum's failing I'm afraid. If you want a dad to be a dad you have to give them the chance to be
And he has to sit around waiting for it to be handed to him on a platter does he? Or does he genuinely want to see his daughter? Regardless of whose "fault" it is (again) he has taken no steps to fight any of this.

And during lockdown her Mum was furloughed whilst he was working full time so that's not a fair comment.
Don't know what that's got to do with anything really. He still should have been seeing his daughter, as every other key worker was.

Even with a set pattern his ex wont move from the days set in the court order to allow him to see his daughter. What's he meant to do?
Literally whatever needs to be done. That's what he should do. Challenge the court order. Move closer to his daughter. Change careers. Literally whatever it takes to make sure he can see his child. I don't understand what is difficult about this.

No decent parent would throw up so many excuses. Good God. I would live in a 2 man tent under a motorway bridge if that was the only way to see my child. There is no career, no job, no house, no relationship that I wouldn't give up to be with my children, whether or not it felt "fair". It's very clear that he's not committed to his daughter and perhaps his ex wife can see that, hence not bending over backwards to facilitate contact on his terms.

No decent parent would throw up so many excuses. Good God. I would live in a 2 man tent under a motorway bridge if that was the only way to see my child. There is no career, no job, no house, no relationship that I wouldn't give up to be with my children, whether or not it felt "fair". It's very clear that he's not committed to his daughter and perhaps his ex wife can see that, hence not bending over backwards to facilitate contact on his terms.

This with bells on.

Meant for that to be in bold but my phone hates me today🤷🏻‍♀️

Great post by @IWantT0BreakFree