Child Sick and soon to be ex-wife behaving unreasonably

[MK42]

My wife and I are divorcing. We are still in the same house with our two beautiful children (girl 10, boy 8). We normally split child sick days between us (as we should). My wife is self employed. Over the past couple of months she keeps saying that she will leave our 10 year old daughter unattended when she is off sick to either go to work, or other appointments for hours at a time. I have said that this cannot, and will not, happen. She says that she needs to work, she says it is perfectly legal and that our daughter has a phone if she needs to call. I have then taken the day off when she has said she would do this- I do not believe that this is anything more than abandoning a vulnerable child. She says I am ‘mad’ and shouts at me when I object. I have always remained calm- but have said that I now need to phone her school to inform them of this. I have kept her texts saying she is going to do this, with my responses. I have also texted myself a record of the day of other aggressive and, frankly, crazy behaviour. I am terrified that when we split, she is going to try to go for sole custody.

Bbq 1- thanks. I’ll sign off then. I am at the end of my tether really. I’m trying to do the right thing- but this is clearly the wrong place to be. Thanks for giving me the heads up.

@MK42
I hope you return.
At year 5, I'd agree too young to be left alone.
The game playing I refer to is the fact that you seem more to be more interested in accruing evidence and contacting the school.

I don't say that having evidence is a bad thing, but it seems as though you've purposely set this up by having the discussion on text as evidence.

If you are going to go down the route of needing to safeguard your child, then you need to be proactively protecting her. You won't be able to say it's such an issue and then be complacent.

What is the intended split of the children's time?

@ChatterMonkey @Bbq1, the reality of childcare is very different for mums and dads.

It is likely that OP has benefited from his ExW's unpaid labour in her being the default parent to the benefit of his career.

If they are no longer on that same team, it could be that the mum is saying, that the contract is broken, it's your turn.

We could say that she shouldn't bring the children into it, but that's another way of saying 'shut up and carry on supporting this man' s career at your own detriment '.

Gathering evidence and using it for potential court action is hardly in the children's best interests.

@MK42, is your ex wife trying to give you a message that you are not getting?

Would a' thank you for all you've done for our children and sorry it hasn't worked out' resolve the problem?

10 is far too young to be left alone when ill, if she doesn’t want you taking the day off to care for your little one then she needs to arrange alternatice childcare herself.

Part of parenting is days off due to sickness, she needs to consider whether she wants paid childcare for sick days or whether she would be better placed finding different employment.

You are right about not leaving child alone. But the way you and your wife are behaving must be very upsetting for your child please do not try and drag the school into your dispute. They will know full well you are trying to drag them into a future custody row. It is not their issue. Your dd is being supervised by you or your wife.

The responses for a women would be.

Sympathies, op, it's shit, but there's nothing you can do. There is no minimum amount of time that a court can mandate a NRP to spend with his children.

You can't make him live up to his responsibilities, but at least the DC have you.

woman

I think as the parent in employment you should bf the one to take the time off.

Leaving a sick 10 year old isn't ideal but these are the decisions single parents have to make all the time.

It would be nice if you could step up rather than drive your ex to this decision.

It's only a year or so and the child will be old enough to leave under most circumstances

@wedswench

I think as the parent in employment you should bf the one to take the time off.

Leaving a sick 10 year old isn't ideal but these are the decisions single parents have to make all the time.

It would be nice if you could step up rather than drive your ex to this decision.

It's only a year or so and the child will be old enough to leave under most circumstances

That's not a fair assertion, given he says he has taken 9 days off work for the 2 children in the last 12 months. Especially when arguably, it is far easier for a self employed parent to take such leave. .@Velvian Whether the mother's career ha sor has not been impacted is irrelevant to this discussion though. And if was, was a decision taken jointly during a marriage, when she would have been fully financially supported to do so. A choice made, for which repercussions needed exploring beforehand. Its not a decision that now, should be used as an excuse to justify bad parenting on the mother's side. Let's not forget, if she was left alone on a school day, Social services would be in their rightful place to investigate and certainly if the child ended up in hospital unaccompanied in such circumstances as this would most definitely be flagged with social services and the child not discharged to their care without investigation.

I think it really depends on whether the ex wife is actually leaving the child or just trying to get the other parent to take their turn.

A working parent will financially benefit long term from a sahp, being financially supported at the time is not acceptable compensation for a long career break. That's before you take into account the structural inequalities, social pressure and biological realities of having children as woman.

If you do separate you then have to deal with such gems as 100% responsibility for childcare costs in your time, while the NRP is granted eow.

As a parent if the other parent is not looking after the child, you have to. No need for Social Services involvement when there is another parent. You pick up the slack. Mum's generally learn that lesson very early.

I agree with you. Ten is too young to leave a sick child alone in a house.

@Velvian, I agree that the situation you describe of a woman’s career taking a back seat to the man’s is common. Often this is a joint decision, sometimes it’s not - whether that’s because the dad refuses to play his part by doing a fair share of childcare or the mum refuses to go back to work or do a longer hours job so the dad has no choice but to work long hours to bring in enough money to pay the bills. We were lucky enough financially that either of our salaries would have been sufficient so DH and I made our own choices - he works almost FT, I work PT. I choose to attend school events he often chooses not to. But when it comes to children being sick on the days we both work, we share it. I can only think of one occasion in 15 years when he just assumed I would cover it and that was after we had had a row about something else.

But we have no reason here to assume that is the case here so you can’t blame OP for problems in wider society.

@Velvian

I think it really depends on whether the ex wife is actually leaving the child or just trying to get the other parent to take their turn.

A working parent will financially benefit long term from a sahp, being financially supported at the time is not acceptable compensation for a long career break. That's before you take into account the structural inequalities, social pressure and biological realities of having children as woman.

If you do separate you then have to deal with such gems as 100% responsibility for childcare costs in your time, while the NRP is granted eow.

As a parent if the other parent is not looking after the child, you have to. No need for Social Services involvement when there is another parent. You pick up the slack. Mum's generally learn that lesson very early.

This is adding no value to this thread.

The impact of not working, needs considering before choosing to do this. That's when it needs "compensating", if it were going to be!

You have no idea whether she chose to work or if the op, the father took the biggest career hit. It certainly sounds unsustainable for him to be having 13 days off a year for sick children! And by the sounds of it, the mother doesn't intend to cover any moving forward. Yet arguably she's in a stronger position career wise being SE. And she sounds pretty crap for even remotely suggesting she'd leave a sick 10yo alone! But you can gloss over that however, you like! As for suggesting that he should just pick up the slack when she's being clearly neglectful is utter tripe! If she was going to go through with such poor parenting choices, then I understand why the father's concerned and actually potentially that sort of neglect could lead to supervised only contact.

All I'm really pointing out is that OP finds himself in a situation that mainly mum's are forced into and no one bats an eyelid.

9 times out of 10 it has been me to take time off work for sick DCs as DH and ExH would not.

There is actually no indication that the child's mum has left her home alone, she has 'threatened to'