Changing to 50/50 contact post divorce agreement

[PilgorTheGoat]

This is a theoretical question at the moment.

My ex and I divorced 3 years ago. We agreed he would have the children every other weekend Friday 8pm - Monday 8am (I do after school Friday and before school Monday). I receive around £1200 pcm based on 3 nights per fortnight.

ExH is a very high earner. I am unemployed due to ongoing disability.

When we divorced all assets were split 50/50. I have bought a 3 bedroom house (I have 2 girls and a boy) with around 50% equity. I planned to downsize when the children were old enough to move out.

If my exH decided he wanted the children 50/50 then he would no longer pay maintenance but I would be absolutely screwed. Without the maintenance I would struggle to support the children for the time I have them, I could not (for example) run a 3 bedroom house full time.

Does anyone know if legally I’d have any claim for maintenance in this situation? I naively agreed the 50/50 asset split despite my poor health/ moving around the world for his job before divorce because I thought I would always have this maintenance to fall back on. He has now remarried and is having a new child and is murmuring about his new wife being able to take on some of the child care this enabling him to share custody 50/50.

Thanks.

I give up. I've only lived true 50/50 for a decade so what would I know?

And I’ve been involved in several true 50/50 cases where the income disparity was so large maintenance was still awarded by courts.

It happens. Just because it didn’t happen in your case doesn’t mean it did.

One of the cases I worked on the chap came to CMS 12 months and a day after the court award for the third time. His ex wife was taking it back to court again in the basis that he was very very high earning, as she had on the previous times.

@ARichtGoodDram You've hit the nail though...disparity has to be HUGE. My ex-husband earned in excess of £100k, myself £16k as I was looking after pre-school child.
Both courts and CMS ruled no maintenance. It was incredibly, incredibly tough.

Agreed. But it doesn’t mean she can work as you said she should

@Notamum12345577 So the reality is if it does go 50/50 she will need to manage on what she has in the way of benefits (disability/CB etc) because there will.be no maintenance payable.
I still can't get my head around why she wasn't awarded Spousal Maintenence as part of her settlement if she has a disability meaning she is unable to work in any capacity? The courts must have had a idea of how she was going to adequately support herself and the children?

I don't mean this in a rude way but if you do a good job of looking after your own children, is there scope for you to work in childcare? Babysitting / childminding / nursery - anything to ease yourself back in to work and start making your own money. As you said - you are overly reliant on his maintenance payments and the situation will only get more tense in the future as his new family grows. 120k is a lot but it's not an endless amount of money, sooner or later he's going to have to pull back. Now that your youngest are school age you will have some time to reskill yourself if needed and I think you should try your best to do that. But anyway, good luck with it. I'm sure you will make the right decisions.

For starters the standard is the best interests of the child not fair division of kids between the parents. Secondly on the hours he works I doubt best interests of the children is to see a lot less of mum while only seeing a tiny bit more of Dad. This would be unfair to their DC. It sounds like you got a raw deal, that doesn't mean the OP will definitely get that too. Courts do screw up. OP has already said her disability wasn't factored into the settlement and she made a decision that she realised wasn't good in hindsight partly on incomplete information and partly because she was scared of her XH. She also has a child with SEN and had a lot to deal so maybe you can cut her some slack.

@EliflurtleAndTheInfiniteMadness Again I return to the question of why so many mothers are against 50/50 with fathers?

I think that people's responses to this are based on their own experience perhaps. Eg. Perhaps they've had years (from birth to present) of the father doing very little parenting who then decide 50/50 is fair because it means they probably won't have to pay child maintenance rather than because they want to spend time with their kids. They then may get other family members to do that childcare etc. It's unfair on the children.

I don't think this is always the case but it does sound like it in OP's case. Meanwhile his new wife will be picking up the childcare. Lucky her, a newborn and three school aged children to look after!

I do more like 70/30 but it's very flexible and changes all the time depending on the activities the kids do, whether they have to be in school early etc. It is very much adapted to the kids' needs. They genuinely have two proper homes and they see their dad a lot even when they don't stay over (eg. We share the ferrying to sports etc).

I still don't accept that the courts would award no Spousal Maintenence if the OP cannot work at all indefinitely due to disability. How does she pay the mortgage in that case?

Which would work against her in court as surely the father stepping up to have them 50/50 would be helpful in that she has less to do in looking after them and therefore that benefitting her physically.

The law is in the children's side, not yours or your dh side.

You might be eligible for CM via CMS even if he has them 50/50. I'd discuss with them first

I'd also speak to the dc regarding what they want, and take this into consideration.

As for what he does during his time and who looks after the dc, that's up to him to decide, you have very little control and simply saying, his new wife looks after them and I'm not happy about that, won't make any difference.

If you truly think it's not in the dc best interests (regardless of CM), then tell him no and he can take you to court, if your leading concern is money, that's not a good enough reason in my book. It's not up to your exdh to fun your lifestyle any longer. You divorced him and his future earnings. As for what you settled on it sounds like you could have got more, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed.

Don't forget, if he did have them 50/50 your food bill, hobbies, clothing etc for the dc would be halved and you could look at downsizing. I'm not sure if your disability allows but you could also look at PT work.

@WoodBurningStov I couldn't agree with you more.

@PilgorTheGoat my friend had her day in court this week. 4 years post split her ex wanted 50:50 custody in the end, even though he had been doing minimum parenting to date. He couldn’t show in court how he could do it with his job and hours and judge wasn’t interested in his new partner being available to do childcare to support 50:50.

So outcome was, every other weekend and one night in week. These judges aren’t stupid and can see who cares about the kids and who just cares about the money. At the end of the day it should all be about children’s best interests.