Hi All, please share your thoughts and advice on this. Ex-H won't budge on childcare arrangements so I don't get weekends off to have a social life or personal space.
I divorced my ex-H 7 years ago. There was honour based domestic violence in the marriage - he's inflexible and manipulative and comes from a male dominated family culture. I divorced him when ds was 9 y/o. I arranged a mediator and we agreed maintenance so that I have custody/primary care. I have ds from Tue-Sat and ex-H has Sun-Mon. At the time, this worked, but circumstances have changed and I want to review it. I want to keep the 5 days/2 days arrangement but get a full weekend to myself every other week.
Ds is supposed to leave after breakfast on Sundays but he exacerbates my downtime by faffing around, getting up late and being immature and silly until before finally leaving at 5 or 6pm. I end up not having a proper break over the weekend and the teenage arguments with ds wear me down. There's issues with ds too but I'd have more patience if I could have some space.
Ex-H won't even discuss alternating weekends. He taunts, teases, laughs, swears or just hangs up. Every year, he goes away for about 6-8 weeks at a time to India but refuses to let me have breaks because he knows I can't afford holidays, "If you aren't going anywhere why can't you be a mother and look after your child, why do you need breaks?" I'm not joking.
I have depression and I'm on meds - warring with my ex-H usually makes me ill and he relies on this because he knows I have to hold down my job. But I rung a mediator today, who emailed ex-H mediation details. Ex-H rang me about it and we had another row and answer was no, but I could tell he was scared (authority/officialdom always scares him because he can't play manipulation games). I'll let him digest it. But are there any other agencies or organisations that can give me practical advice or help me negotiate? Any advice would be really appreciated. Thanks a lot.