Contact Order

[TigerlilyGlitterball]

Hi everyone, I'm just wondering if anyone is in a similar situation to mine and if you could offer any advice??

My ex-husband has dragged me through the courts for months regarding contact with our 5 year old daughter.

He has been successful in obtaining orders - they began at supervised contact (with me present for 2 hours every other week), increased to 4 hours unsupervised and have now gone to 9 hours every other saturday with his "new" partner (who he was having an affair with before he left me). This will increase again to over night stays in 6 weeks time :(

Last weekend was the first time that he has taken my daughter to his home to meet his partner and their child(!) and is putting pressure on my daughter to sleep over even though she burst into tears when I first told her the court had said yes to the over night visits. Breaks my heart.

My daughter, being a normal 5 year old with lots of friends has lots of parties coming up for school friends birthdays etc and my ex husband is now saying that he will not take her to these parties and I "should know by now what dates he is having her" and should "stop making arrangements for her on his weekends"!!! He has demanded that his weekend visits with my daughter are completely "uninterruped". Like I was the one that has booked these parties?!?! NOT!

So now, my daughter is potentially going to miss out on things she wants to do (that all her other friends are doing together) because it does not fit in with him and his plans!!! He wants me to keep swapping weekends so that he doesnt have to take her to parties...anyone with young kids will know - there is a party nearly every weekend at this age!! My daughter also really wants to start swimming lessons on a saturday morning, which are every week, but this will be the same thing - "disrupting" his time with her!!

Am I being unreasonable?!?! I really don't think I am. There must be someone out there whose going through something similar?! Help!

I can understand why you are upset but unfortunately this is what happens when you have shared care and your x has weekend access. You sound annoyed about it and your daughter may well be realising that hence the reaction.

I would just explain or ask your ex that she is allowed to honour the parties she has already committed to and that you discuss any upcoming ones. And discuss the swimming.

It took me a good year to get used to the your/mine weekends but now actually its fine. They enjoy the relationship they have with their dad and I refuse some invitations. It WILL get better. He obviously wants to see her or wouldn't go to the expense of court. So........ yes I do but I do understand as one who has been in the position.

I agree with the above. For all future invitations for parties on his weekend, I suggest you pass them on to him to respond to. You never know - he might actually agree to take her.

As for swimming, could she not do midweek lessons? How about you speak to him about the Saturday morning lessons? Maybe if you start arranging things to do when it's his time with her you're simply going to rub him up the wrong way. Just think how you would feel if it were the other way round.

Thanks for your post.

I just thought the whole point of the contact was that he could be a normal parent and do the things that dads should be doing with their kids i.e. taking them to parties that they want to go to!

He wants my daughter to fit in with him! Not the other way round. And the Children Act is all about putting the child first, which he is NOT doing!

Saturdays are the only day the lessons run unfortunately.

I just think that I am not the one arranging the parties, they come up randomly from school friends, so if daughter wants to go, it's her choice.

As the mum, I have always arranged MY life around my daughter and her events and would expect him to do the same!

I can completely understand why you are upset about this. However, I can also understand why your ex would want to have quality time with his daughter without having to take her to various things that have been arranged during 'his' time with her.

Try to look at it if it were the other way around. How would you feel if he dictated where you should take her when you were having time with her. I can completely understand you not wanting your daughter to miss out on parties and other activities, however unfortunately this is what happens on divorce.

Why not try to compromise and hope he will agree that she can go to some parties. I appreciate it is very difficult trying to explain to 5 year olds why they can't do something (I have a 5 year old DD) but hopefully you will find a good compromise.

Would your ex not agree to take her to swimming lessons on his days?

x-post with collaborate as I was typing rather slowly today

Thank you. Understand what you mean.

But I just don't see why my daughter should miss out on anything cos of our divorce.

I ALWAYS put my daugher first, just wish he could manage the same, but he's never been able to! Before this court order, he hadn't bothered to see her at all for nearly three years! No birthday, xmas cards - nothing!
And now he has his precious order, he wants DD to fit in with him!

Look at it another way - if YOU only saw your daughter for one day/overnight every 14 days would you be happy at having things arranged on your only day??

You are going to have to come to terms with it - difficult and shitty though it is for you.

And I do recommend that instead of saying to your 5 year old "the court has decided you will stay overnight at daddy's" you say say "FANTASTIC, you get to go and stay with Daddy overnight" in a very cheery voice.

It is your job to try and encourage her to be happy about it and not make out it's a bad thing.

it is annoying but as you point out "there is a party nearly every weekend at this age" . so she will still get to go to parties every oher week wih you.

as she gets older she can ask dad herself why she cant go to xx's party.

I think spending time with an otherwise absent parent is far more important than a kids party tbh. She is NOT missing out - she is gaining from having a relationship with her father, far more beneficial to her health a well being than Casper the clown in a drafts church hall.

I disagree Titchy. I think it is extremely important that the NRP gets involved in their childrens life with their friends & extra-curricular activities. This is a very important part of the child's life & emotional & physical development & I don't believe they should miss out because of their parents not living together. Obviously I can understand there will be times when it doesn't suit the NRP to bring the child to a party or swimming, etc, but in general they should make the effort where possible. That doesn't diminish the child's love for the NRP, in fact it should benefit their relationship whereby the child has both parents involved in these aspects of their life.

I'm in a similar position to TigerlilyGlitterball whereby my ex is refusing point blank to bring the children to their activities on his weekend & it's purely spite to somehow try and annoy me. Where is the benefit to the children in that? ? Stupid nonsense that in the end disadvantages the children.

So - he wants to have uninterrrupted time with her and is willing to swap so that she can go to parties? TBH that doesn't seem entirely unreasonable. Even if he lives very locally, if he only has 6 hours then taking her to a party is a huge chunk of his time. And in fairness, if DH and I have organised something, say, for all our children - a weekend away or something, then we would politely decline a party invite - it isn't the end of the world.

I also managed to get alternative swimming arrangements for DSS - have you tried ringing round other local pools? If you can't find an alternative, give them a ring and explain the situation - my local pool is very good about working with shared care situations and you can take DC's every other week.

Generally you'll find things are much easier to find solutions for if you try to be a bit positive.

Rubin, I completely agree with you. I only now have my daughter every other Saturday so I could take the same stand as the ex and say no sorry, I only see you every other Saturday now so you can't go do the things you want to with your friends... And then my daughter totally misses out, but I would only be doing the same as him!

But yet again, it's mum who does the right thing and picks up the pieces and puts daughter first, as it has been all her life!

Why not allow him more than nine hours contact a fortnight?

Then he'd have more time with his daughter and perhaps be more amenable to taking his daughter to parties.

Right.

Perhaps you are not very good at maths.

There are 336 hours in a fortnight.

Your DD sees her Dad for 9 hours.

So there are 327 other hours. So he and you are not quite in the same position, no. If you think parties are so important, why are you bitching instead of just swapping the weekends?

He is offering to swap weekends so she gets to build a relationship with him and not miss parties.

If you want him to be a normal parent then he has to have normal parenting time, not 2.6% of her time.

Parties? No way, time with dad is so much more important.....and THAT is putting your daughter first! She may not know or realise this yet, but one day when she is older ( and she can't even remember all these partygoing friends) she will be thankful she has a good strong relationship with her dad! Friends will come snd go all her life but you only get one dad!

Balla - I put this post on in the hope of receiving some constructive comments, not abuse from people like you. "not very good at maths".

You obviously have no idea of what I am going through and thousands of other mums like me.

Your comments are NOT welcome.

Tiger I'm sorry but Balia has a point. You can not possibly think that you and your ex dh are in the same situation.

Your ex dh quite clearly only gets to see your dd for a very short amount of time and so expecting him to then give up hours of that time to do things that you have pre-arranged is a ridiculous thing to expect.

Your daughter will have so many parties to go to missing one or two won't bother her at all, trust me my three have missed many parties due to prior comitments, it's just part of life and a goos lesson for your dd to learn.

Spending time with her dad should be a good experience that she looks forward to and enjoys and I get the feeling from your posts that you haven't been very positive in front of your daughter about contact and so obviously this is going to be having an effect on your dd. As the previous poster said you should have been saying 'how exciting you are going to get to sleep over at daddy's house. Think of all the fun you are going to have' etc etc etc.

It does not matter what has gone before now with regards contact unless you think your dd is in danger or that contact is not in her best interest and if that is the case then you need to be challenging the court decision.

If not you need to work with these arrangements and keep a positive attitude in front of your dd otherwise you will be doing more damage to your dd than your ex dh.

Sorry if you don't like my reply but it is the truth and the sooner you realise this the better for all of you no matter how much it hurts/annoys you.

It's the truth as you see it honey. Not everyone has the same opinion.

There is a lot that has gone before, he wouldn't see my daughter for three years, despite my offers. So is it any wonder I question his motives now??

Also, your daughter now has a brother/sister as well as her step mum... So staying over with them is the natural progression here.

Your ex has got everything he has applied for.... He can't be all bad

Have you considered that he may want to do things with his daughter in the very limited time he is allowed to see her?

We have my DSD one overnight a week (also court ordered, following years of attempted negociation) we work very hard to try and help DSD attend every party she is invited to, but its just not possible, all thr time. We rarely get much notice, just a text saying 'DSD has a party at x tomorrow'.

Its not fair on us as a family to be unable to make plans so that she can have fun when she's with us. We make plans that actually include going to birthday parties, she has cousins and DH has friends with similarly aged kids, as do I, even when there's a clash, we do our best but we can't promise to say yes everytime. That's part of being a family, compromise.

You have your DD the vast majority of the time, but you wouldn't like it if you got a text from your ex saying 'btw, next week she has a party at x time, in x. Either you take her or you can't see her then'.

IMO its not a bad thing fir a five year old to learn that she can't do what she wants 100% of the time. She is part of two families and as such needs to learn to act as part of those families. That includes occasionally missing out on parties, or attending things she doesn't want to attend.

Tigerlily, you say you posted on here to receive constructive comments. Well, you have received constructive comments, several of which were from qualified family lawyers who deal with this type of matter day in day out.

It is clear that you are still upset and resentful about the breakdown of your marriage and possibly that your ex has moved on but you must not let this cloud your judgement and what the bests interests of your daughter actually are.

I do hope that you can reach a compromise for the sake of your daughter.

I would not wish to upset anyone going through this process, Tigerlily so I apologise. I was trying to illustrate that your rationale was flawed. I don't doubt that you have been hurt by the behaviour of your ex towards you, by cheating, and towards your daughter by not seeing her for such a long time, and you feel entirely justified in behaving the way that you are. My ex also cheated (with numerous women, including those he introduced DD to whilst we were still married) and when I wised up and got rid, went AWOL for a good 6 months leaving DD broken hearted. I do know what you are going through.

But I also know what your DD is going through. Whatever you feel like, it is worse for her, and when you do anything that makes contact with her Dad more difficult, it confuses her more and causes her more upset. You haven't responded to any of the practical, constructive advice offered.

I am saying this in a genuine way - perhaps you should consider counselling for your anger. It helped me no end. You need to let go of the past and allow your daughter to have a relationship with her father because that is what is best for her.