Contact, what's my best approach

[supercali77]

Hello all, I have been seperated from dd's dad for 6 years and she is currently 9. We have no contact order in place but agreed to 50/50 at mediation. That's been mostly the case with me tending to take her more overall but unofficially if that makes sense

I want to reduce contact and I know if it went to court id have an uphill battle. He has been through a contact situation before and won so he has experience. (Until his 12 Yr old son decided he didn't want to see his dad)

Ok so...the reason why I want to reduce it. As background. Her dad is emotionally and financially abusive (to me and his mother). He basically refuses to get an actual job. I pay for everything for dd except the food she eats while with him. Uniform, clothes, activities, bike/scooter. He owes me money. A lot of it. His situation improved after he got an inheritance. Then he blew that and now he's broke again and abusing his mother over the phone to give him money. This has been going on for a long time and is reaching fever pitch. He is v unstable when broke. im starting to become very worried about his mental stability around dd. He has form for kicking in doors etc when he was with me and under stress. He's never done something that radical with dd before but...the situation for him atm is dire. He is also exceptionally manipulative and devious, this has become very obvious over the years

The main thing is though, my dd just does not like him at all any more. I was always her favourite, but she got used to being away from me and we mosied along like that and she seemed to have an alright time with him. Now though, she openly says she doesn't want to go to him. Various reasons, he's controlling just generally. Even down to the movies they watch. She says they rarely watch what she wants to watch. And that ripples through everything. She feels like she has no say at all in his house and says he shouts at her

I know that the older a child is, the more say they have over contact. I had read 12 was the age and certainly that was the age his son was when the court took his opinion into account. What are my options here? Am I actually going to have to wait till she's older? She is on the waiting list for autism assesment if that makes a difference.

Currently my approach is to say she wants to stay an extra night with me for this or that reason here and there. So far he's never argued about that. But I'd like it to be more regular with me

How are you off financially?

It sounds to me from your description of him that there is a real possibility that he’s doing 50/50 so he doesn’t have to pay child maintenance. Is that a possibility?

If that might be the case I’d say to him “dd is asking if she can change to having school nights at mine for a bit because she needs more help with her homework. Would that be ok? So she’d come to you for a long weekend every other weekend plus half the holidays. Maybe you could still take her for tea or something one night in the week?
I suggest we stick with no child maintenance so that she’s got the option to go back to 50/50 if she wants to. Happy to sign something about that if you want.”

@Namechangedforthis2244 I'm OK financially and would never bother trying to get CM off him. His sons mum tried that and never got a thing over the 12 years.

I could try the thing with school and homework as a reason....that will make more sense now she's older. Sadly I don't think it's about CM. He's managed to dodge that enough before that I really don't think he even considers it!

(I will say it anyway) but as a background, back when the contact with his son was going through court. The sons mum had moved him to Scotland and he lived in London. He sold his flat in London to move to scotland (he was at one time years ago financially ok) and spent a fortune on solicitors.

He actively wants to see his kids essentially, whatever other shit qualities of his, this is one thing I can say about him

The money is not relevant to contact

are yiu sure you’re not ‘encouraging ‘ her to make you ‘her favourite’?

how did you go from a no contact order to 50:50 - seems quite a leap

what are you looking to reduce it to ?

if he doesn’t agree you’d have to show specifically that it was in your child’s best interest to reduce contact, and that is not about parenting differences or that he chooses movies - it’s about her welfare, schooling, health

Ah, if it’s not about child maintenance then that won’t work unfortunately. I had hoped from your op that it was money driven and that sort of approach would work.

I guess you could try the same thing in reverse? A sort of “she’s having music lessons on Friday in school please could whoever has her on Friday morning send her with the money “ type approach?

@millymollymoomoo
Oh we never went through court, it was all done through mediation. At the time I was happy with 50/50. It seemed fair. She was OK with it.

I try never to influence her preference. This isnt about preferring me. I always knew that, and still encouraged her to stay with her dad since she was always happy once there. She was the same about going to school iyswim. Now it's that she actually doesn't like him. Occasionally says he hates him.

My preference would be eow and 1 night a week

@Namechangedforthis2244 Yes that's more likely to work. I could also move her gymnastics class in the week after school rather than the weekend. He doesnt have a car so he can't get her to these things easily.