I think my son's dad is deliberately taking him more to avoid paying out in a financial settlement

[Namechange596]

Call me cynical, but my son's dad has started taking him a lot more since he received the divorce petition. I think it has dawned on him that I will require a financial settlement and he is now taking our son on more overnights.
I suspect this is to enable him to pay less if it's 50/50 custody, if it went to Court etc.
Has anyone's ex ever done this? I don't like the idea of him doing this because of financial reasons, like he's trying to thwart me.

And three times I've explained why you can't rely on statistics when you're dealing with an individual case, especially in a notoriously contentious field of study where its possible to cherry pick the experts who agree with you.

You don't know the OP's ex and you don't know mine yet based on statistics alone you believe you can predict what our situations are like better than we can ourselves. In my eyes that makes you a dangerous idiot. That's not an insult, it's my prediction of what you would be like in a family court situation because of your methodology.

Deary me. You need to stop digging, Pal.

I have only ever commented about population-level statistics.

Funnily enough, it's not all about you...

Still a sexist response. It's absolutely not ok for a man - or a woman - to react to a poor relationship by leaving the other parent alone to do everything child-related, only to resurface 2 years later once the primary carer's career is shot and she's exhausted, to announce he's actually a great dad and would like 50/50 and no maintenance. Even in crap relationships, there are plenty of decent dads (and mums) taking their kids out on the weekend, reading bedtime stories, doing the school run.
OP's ex is clearly not one of those dads, and I'm really sorry if your experience has led you to think this is normal, let alone acceptable.

I hear you and congratulate you for battling what is right. The nerve of OP to see her ex as a money machine, how dare he actually be able to have his child rather than pay her to have him. It's always conveniently forgotten that fathers have new homes to procure that need to be sized the same to look after their children. We buy everything for my SSs here, no clothes get bought over other than what they are in and she is now making them wear them back because I have not washed and returned them the same weekend and she's sent them to us with comments about "never getting clothes back"! We have our own holiday with them every year, we also cover half terms etc, and 2 weeks in summer holidays (she works from home so it isn't costing her to put them in clubs), birthday presents, Christmas presents etc as we would expect to. On top of which she takes a further two weeks a year holiday in term time, when she moved an hour away from us, but expects us to do four hour trips a day to collect them from school in that time so she can have cheaper holidays than in school holidays when they could actually spend time with us rather than being woken up at 6am and getting home at 7pm to accommodate her need for a tan, which is exhausting for us all.

At the same time, DP pays £800 a month to her and yet she's the parent that gets to take them to Disney World 3 times a year, that we could never dream of affording but actually pay towards by default with no mention of that to the children. I'm not even sure they have a clue that he pays anything for them. Every time she discusses hobbies, tutoring etc, it's always "I'm paying for this" never "we are paying for this".

So many women see men as nothing more than a cash cow and baby sitter when it suits them.

I absolutely agree with this. The hypocrisy is astonishing- women always moan hear about how expensive it is to raise children as a single parent, the cost of housing, food and all the extras. Yet when a father proposes 50/50 split, ultimately taking on the exact same costs, it is somehow assumed that he’s avoiding paying for his own children. How can that be if he has them half of the time? Is his house cheaper to run, or the food cheaper to buy? Mothers seem to think that their expenses are somehow triple the value and should be subsidised.
And the reality very often is that what they actually want is to match the ex’s lifestyle because they can’t get over the fact that he might be able to afford more.
another thing I notice quite often is how single fathers who have 50/50 split usually work full time yet mothers always quote the difficulty in finding childcare as the reason to continue working part time.
and no- it’s not the new partner helping with childcare in every scenario, I think it’s just the work ethic and men not looking for excuses.

You could see this 2 ways.

The first (and it might be a tad optimistic) is that he enjoys spending time with his son and wants to do 50 50 for genuine reasons. Your son is 2 years older now, so he may feel more confident having him for longer periods.

Alternatively, it could be because at 50 50 he doesn't need to pay maintenance.

Surely it's about what your son wants? If he wants 50 50 with his dad and his dad is happy to do so then I'd say it was the best option.