Husband making custody demands after affair

[ROYGBIVain]

I’m looking for a bit of advice or guidance, or if anyone has experience of similar.

My husband told me a year ago he was having an affair. He moved out straight away, leaving me and our then 5 year old.

He’d been jobless for a while, but had just got a paying job. He paid minimally towards bills from his account (no joint bank account) and I paid for nearly everything, as well as the deposit for the house and the monthly mortgage payments. I supported him fully while he was unemployed and then while he worked on a long term internship for no wages to gain experience for the job he wanted, and eventually got, just before he left us.

He moved out and started living in a van because he wanted to save money on living costs. As far as I know he splits his time living in his van, staying at his affair partners house, and house sitting for her friends and other random people on holiday, with his affair partner. I work part time from home and have had minimal financial help from him, I pay the mortgage, gas, elec, internet, etc and he has continued paying the water bill (£30 per month), the council tax (c£100 per month), my phone bill (c£12 per month) and 2 extra curricular clubs for our child (c £40per month). He gives me nothing extra. He claims he’s generous because he ‘still pays what I used to pay before I left’ but that means nothing because what he paid before he left was based on him having no income, and I’d transfer him the money each month to cover these bills anyway. The bills were never fairly split.

He hasn’t helped with school runs at all this last year. He says he can’t because of his job. He doesn’t care that it affects my job too. Up until 3 months ago he’d visit our child on our home two evenings a week. This allowed me to go to evening classes.

He is continuing his relationship with the person he was having his affair with. It’s been a year since he told me and left, so now he wants to force me to allow him to take our child to the van or any of the random homes he stays in so he can spend time with our child and his affair partner together. Including overnight. (Perhaps including all 3 of them sleeping together in the van - he said this.) I am not ready for the affair partner to be in my child’s life and so I have refused. I’ve told him he’s always welcome to see our child and take them out, but not to his affair partner or the area she lives in.

He’s become angry about this, and has stopped visiting on evenings, saying he’ll only look after our child if he can take them to meet his affair partner. He is also saying that he will initiate divorce because that’s the only way he’ll get to be with our child and do what he wants where he wants with them.

He doesn’t do any of the day to day things like school runs, cooking. Managing the house work and house maintenance is difficult, along with looking after our child and working 4 days per week. I’m not entitled to benefits. Since he left I’m also massively in debt, due to covering the living costs and additional home maintenance (roof needed replacing for years, had to finally do it when the leaks got too much just after he left). I have nothing left of my wages each month and am using credit cards for general spending for the first time in my life.

If he gets his visits on his terms, I’ll still be left with all the hard work, school runs, parenting responsibilities and financial hardship. He’ll just get the fun days/nights out.

Yesterday he said he knows he ended our relationship in the worst possible way, but he has to continue being selfish for his own mental health. He doesn’t want to step foot inside our house he says. And that if I don’t go along with his demands, our child ‘might not have a dad much longer’.

I’ve been kind and decent to him this whole year, arguing and disagreements have been very minimal as I’ve just accepted what he’s doing and tried to get on with mine and my child’s life.

My questions -
Does this situation seem unfair?
Is he contributing fairly as a parent, or even just financially?
Would a divorce really give him the free access to our child he wants on his terms, occasional visits and sleepovers but no parenting duties (eg school runs), taking into account his living situation?
What would you do?

Even without divorce, he will be able to get a court order giving him regular contact with your child. You cannot control who your child sees while they are with your ex. I fully understand you not wanting your child to meet your ex's new partner, but the courts won't support you in this. However, it is unlikely he would get an order allowing him to have contact when he feels like it. He will have to provide meals and, if necessary, deal with the school run if he has your child overnight.

Without knowing how much he is earning, it is impossible to say whether his financial contributions are fair. You can refer child maintenance to the CMS despite the fact you are still married.

There is no reason for staying married to him. Get a divorce.

Thank you for your reply.
He earns £20k and we’re not anywhere near London.

On a salary of 20K a year, he'd have to give approx £190 a month in child maintenance if he never had your child overnight. This figure would reduce if he had your child overnight one night a week.

Considering he gives you £180 already, what he gives you is roughly in line with the maintenance you are entitled to.

And of course this situation doesn't seem fair on you, but from a legal perspective, he's entitled to see your child, and if your Ex wants to introduce his girlfriend to your child, he's allowed to.

If this went to court, the outcome is that he would be given access to your child, and your child would be allowed to met Ex's GF. So there's no point refusing and making Ex take you to court, costing you both time/money/energy/stress.

I hate to say it, because you’re obviously still very hurt by the whole situation but while morally it may be a different story, your ex has no obligation to stick to your rules about where he takes your daughter or who he introduces her too. There should be a set routine in place rather than an as and when set up but you can’t demand he sees her at your house, that’s unreasonable.
equally, I’m not convinced he’d be obliged to pay any more in maintenance even if you were to go through the official channels.
school runs… well if your daughter is with you, they’re your responsibility. Would it be decent and kind for him to help where possible? Of course, but he doesn’t sound very decent and kind so..

Thank you all for your replies. I still love this man and have hopes of reconciling. Am I mad?

What others have said about contact rights is true - The courts generally want children to have access to both parents. However, I'd be surprised if they would look favourably on overnight stays in a van. Do you mean a static caravan or his car?
Get some legal advice asap.

Yes. You are mad. He sounds like a prick. He's cheated on you, left you and lives in a van. He also is trying to use your child as leverage to get what he wants. You can do better. Please try to get over him.

Oh gosh. Yes, quite mad I would say. Don’t do that.

I think you need to seperate out the issues here.

He has every right to see his child, and so long as he safeguards appropriately then when he is with DC then he can introduce the child to whomever he wishes and parent how he wishes.

He needs to start contributing, so go to CMS, find out how much and let them make him handover the money.

You need to consider your situation and life independently now. I know this situation is not your fault, but if your property is too much of a burden on you as a single person, then time to consider moving to something lower maintenance/ smaller.

A year is a relatively short time to have adjusted to such a huge and unwelcome change. It's going to take time, and I wouldn't worry about it still feeling alien and wrong.
I wouldn't be keen for my child to sleep in a van either, but the OW is going to be a part of their life, and it just won't be possible to avoid that. It will be hard and feel really unfair, but you need to think of it as providing something for your child (a healthy, ongoing relationship with their father) and not in terms of something being taken away from you by your husband.
In the long term, it won't do you any good if you are seen to be obstructive wrt access. I think it's reasonable to insist that overnights are in an actual building, though, and not a van. Is mediation a possibility?

As everyone else has said you can’t dictate who he introduces your child to and it sounds like the amount he is paying is about right given his salary

All of the backstory about how you supported him etc before the split isn’t relevant (legally, obviously it is morally)

Living in a van is weird as fuck though

Utterly mad. Don't even consider it.

I get that thinking about divorce means properly letting go of this hope and therefore that's painful, but it is time. Let him divorce you.

If his salary hasn't changed, then yes, it's probably in line with what you'd get from CMS. However, going through CMS would mean that if his salary rose in future, his payments would reflect that as they review it every year (although I've no experience of that in practice). I'm concerned if it stays ad hoc the way it does, that the amount will never change.

And no, you can't control who your DC meets. The one thing that would give me pause for concern is your X's precarious living circumstances. There's no way I'd want a child of mine staying in a random's van. Which is why I think it's better to work with him and perhaps be able to head off talk of overnights. If he goes to court it's 99% likely he'll get overnights - if you negotiate and compromise, there's a chance you can stick to day times, at least for a bit.

It doesn’t seem fair at all and I completely understand your pin and frustration but he has the law on his side unfortunately

Yes you are mad, and also a shining example of what happens when you marry and reproduce with a cocklodger.

Get some self respect, enjoy being with your lovely child and get some professional counselling before you get in to a new relationship.

You can do better than this twat, way better.

I wouldn't be keen for my child to sleep in a van either

Why not?

Where I live every other family has a van (campers or self/partial conversions), they are a bit of a status symbol, and the kids all survive, and thrive on, their many adventures in them. Definetly not an issue, and it won't paint OP in a good light if she persists at trying to make it one.

Yes.
You want to go in for round two??? Don't you have any self-respect. C'mon you can do much better than him, surely!

You need to focus on him having a proper place to take your shared child. Couch hopping or sleeping in a vehicle is not a proper living situation. If he secures a flat and sets up a a real bed for the child, then she would change the parenting arrangement. Note that there is a very good chance that he will choose to live with his affair partner and you can’t do anything about that. You have to solely focus on there being an appropriate, stable environment for your shared child.

It is maddeningly unfair.

I'm in a similar situation, the injustice is actually a physical feeling like heartbreak.

The others are giving good advice, just wanted to send you love

OP hasn't said 'fancy campervan' - her repeated use of 'van' made me think it's a bit of a bodge job. And it's one thing to rough it camping or whatever, when you can live in a onesie and shower when you get home, but the way OP is describing it isn't making me think it's got everything a child needs, like privacy and hot water.

Yes.
what's to love about him ??

In the nicest possible way: yes, you are mad.
Your daughter deserves better than to see this dynamic play out; you need to find out what a self-respectful relationship looks like and model that for her.

Yes.

I suggest you get counselling and legal advice.

The Advicenow website has very helpful detailed guides on divorce, including finances and contact.

You've had good advice from pp op the only thing I'd say is if you were to go through cms they wouldn't count the water bill, council tax, ex curricular activities etc they would be irrelevant to cms as they only look at your husbands income and how many nights he has the children and come to an amount he has to pay so legally at the moment he's not giving you child maintenance as other pp have said he's paying bills for your joint home which he's still half liable for. Is his name on the bills he pays?

Same where we are. I also have a van. It's not fancy like an 8 seater then the six seats in the back fold flat to make a massive bed. Kids really like to sleep in it, we go down by the loch then get an early morning paddleboard in. Lazy food for breakfast. I wouldn't want to live in it but perfectly adequate for a night or two.

The courts and the SS would, however, look unfavourably on a 6 year old girl sharing a room (let alone a van) with her father. I know someone who lost access to his daughter (of a similar age) for a long while because he'd slept in her room (on the floor) one night when she'd been frightened in his new flat.