Child arrangements - sibling priorities

[worriedseperatingmum]

Sorry, it might be complicated to explain.

My ex and I have a son together, he has a little girl aged 9 and I have two boys from previous relationships. Our contact schedule with the children from previous relationships meant that we had all the children on the same weekends s

We are now separating, and he is insisting that our eow arrangement for our son together needs to take into account when he has his daughter as well, so he wants our son on the weekends he has his daughter. However the weekend that he has his daughter is also the weekend I have my other two children, so whilst I do genuinely want to maintain contact between my son and his half sister, I also want to ensure that all of my children get quality time together too. And more than that, the eow arrangement for my other two children, was worked out to marry up with their cousins, and other family, effectively meaning that if I were to agree to his demand, that our shared son wouldn't get any quality time with extended family either.

It's all a mess, and my ex says the court will agree with him and I'm being unreasonable to think that there must be a compromise. Is there any precedent for this? Which way would a court go in this instance?

How about he has 2 consecutive weekend then you have 2 consecutive weekends? Then you get some time with siblings together and some time with just DS. The court recognises the importance of sibling relationships but can't prioritise one set of siblings over another, and can't compel either side to change the arrangements with their other children's other parent. IT's a difficult one.

I am not sure about court but it does unfair on you that he gets every other weekend childfree and you get no childfree weekends.

If he is going to push it and the courts agree with him could you speak to your other ex and see if he would change.

That is a good idea Shrubbery.

Thanks for the replies!

My other children's dad is an abusive nut job, and he wouldn't change with me, plus as I said, the arrangement was agreed to match up with my sisters children, so that as an extended family, we all had them together. Even if my abusive ex would change, we'd never get to do anything as an extended family with all the children (and we do quite a lot!) which would be a shame. My stepdaughters mum would probably be the more amenable parent, but in her defence, she has Work commitments she may not be able to get out of.

I quite like the idea of consecutive weekends, that would seem like a fair compromise perhaps. It would still massively limit quality time with siblings/ extended family, but it's better than his proposition at the moment.