Can my step children stay with me when their dad is working abroad

[Plantlife101]

My partner has a child contact order in place that clearly states when he has time with his children. He is a serviceman and is about to be deployed abroad for a month. 3 of the 5 weekends he is away are on his court ordered time. We live together and have a wonderful and settled blended family, I have been in his children's lives for 3 years and they are 10 and 5. I do not pretend to be their mother but I do have a very loving relationship with them and do everything for them that I do for my own. We respectfully gave their mother notice that my partner was being deployed for a short time and on his weekends they would be looked after by myself. She has said it is not up for discussion and no one but her will look after the children whilst he is away. I had planned to take them to see their grandparents so contact with their wider family would be maintained, they have clubs and activities that they were meant to be attending that we pay for and most importantly I was going to be faciliting daily video calls to their father so they could maintain contact with him. The court order is written in such a way that we are unsure of our rights in this situation:

The mother must make sure that the children spend time with their father as follows :

Then it outlines the every other weekend arrangement. Many years ago when I sought legal advice over my own children, my solicitor informed me that when the children were residing with their father I had no input or control over who looked after them. The way the court order is written makes it sound like no one but the father can have care of the children but surely that is not correct as how would anyone hold down a job when you need your families support sometimes to cover childcare, is his ex-wife just taking the wording literally, surely it is not meant literally.

If it is the case that only he can care for the children on his court ordered time then we would not contest the issue but return to court to have the court order better worded, but this not an expense we can really afford, therefore if anyone can give me some feedback on this it is much appreciated. He is leaving tomorrow and I am due to pick the children up from school on Friday!

My understanding is that a CAO sets out the child’s right to spend time/live with the mother and father. It is generally accepted that either parent can use reasonable childcare after school/clubs in their time but that the parent should be present over night generally.

If the father isn’t there (or even in the country) for the whole weekend, then the children should stay with their mother since that relationship is more important than yours (sorry if that’s not what you want to hear). I am sure that their Dad can request that the children can call him while he is away? And see Grandparents when he is around?

I am unsure that a Court would write it in any other way since it’s the children’s right to spend time with their parents (not step parents), and any attempt for children not to spend time with the Mum when the Dad isn’t available on his entire weekend could be viewed unfortunately as Dad undermining the children’s relationship with the Mum in favour of a stepmum when he is absent (which is not in their best interests).

I would enjoy the time with your own children for these few weekends (if usually it is all children together) and, by agreeing they can go to their Mum’s, would reduce unnecessary conflict for the children and really help relations long term. You could ask if you could take them to their clubs etc to help out, or take them over to their grandparents for a few hours if that is agreeable to Mum.

I think @Bumblebee47 is right.
The order is for the dad to have contact, if he isn't there, mum isn't doing anything wrong.

It would be different if it was for the odd night but consistently for a 5 week period the kids should stay with their mum.

Put a-side the court order, what do the children want to do? Granted I don't have a court order, but there is no way either of my children would want to spend a full weekend with Dads girlfriend when they could be with me.

Can you look for some day time contact of they want to see wider family?

If dad isn’t available then it’s only natural that mum wants the children home wih her.

No I'm sorry but there is a vast difference between dad having his partner babysit a bit and dad being out of the country for weeks on end. Their contact time is with their dad and if he's working away then it would be at the mum's discretion which she has the right to exercise and say no.

Yeah I think their mum is right. Though if the children want to spend time with you and do the things you have planned she could allow it.

I take it she won't?

You want to go to court to get access to his children when he is abroad?

Good luck

She is abiding with the court order. He isn't available to spend time with his dc so they stay with her. The wording will be specifically because he's in the armed services and taking account of him not being available.

You sound lovely, but if I was their mum, absolutely I would want the kids to stay with me in this situation.

Looking at this another way, you are possibly/legally (not sure) lucky that the mum is prepared to look after them during their dads contact time.

A single parent wouldn't have the luxury of choosing a job which takes you abroad for weeks at a time, and would have to switch jobs.

Is this a new role, as I'm surprised this hasn't come up before. If it is a new role, it is a strange choice as a parent.

What is in the children’s best interests? What do they want?

I think their DM is probably correct, It is better for them that they stay with their mother. If they usually only see their paternal grandparents on “dad’s time” though, perhaps a visit or stay with them.

Do they have step siblings or half siblings they want to see?

I think this is something you need to sit down and plan for in the future. What would happen if your DH were deployed overseas for a much longer period, say 6 months? Although I think it would be best for the DC to stay with the DM, you need an agreed plan of how they will maintain contact with their DF, paternal grandparents, step/half siblings, and you. 6 weeks is fine but 6 months without contact with a step parent would damage the relationship.

Why are you even thinking about this?
Of course it's better for them to spend this time with their mother.
You aren't a close second that's just nature.
You sound lovely so maybe you're a distant second.
But of course they should be with their mother.

Would you send your kids off to your ex's current girlfriend for days?

Sounds like a control / power play by you and your DH. if their mother wants them why wouldn’t you agree? How would you feel if it was your kids?

no one but the father can have care of the children but surely that is not correct

Yes, that is correct and the children’s mother is right to interpret it that way. The court order is about contact shared between the parents. If one parent is away for months, the other parent has the children.

You as a stepparent don’t have rights to contact. It’s lovely that you want to have the children, it really is. But if their father is out of the country it’s their mother, not you, who has them.

This isn't the hill to die on. She's their mum, she's available and wants to have them when their dad is away. That should be the end of it.

It's lovely that you want to see them OP. However they probably want and would be best with their DM. It's also what any court would likely decide

I don't know the legalities of this, but I just want to say how refreshing it is to see a post about children who are truly wanted by everyone in their lives - so often, we see the opposite scenario where parents/step parents are each trying to palm the kids off on each other. How lucky are these kids that their mum wants as much time as she can have with them, and that their step mum wants to have time with them and facilitate their relationships with extended family etc.

Really?

It reads to me like they are stuck in the middle of some weird power play instigated by dad and OP

You may be right, but that isn't how I read it. I guess we all come at these things with different preconceptions.

What makes you think that it's some sort of power play rather than both families genuinely wanting time with the children?

FWIW, I think the kids should stay with their mum if dad isn't around and that's what mum wants (unless the dc want something different, that is, but I assume that they will be happy to stay with their mum). I just don't see any malicious intent from the OP and I can understand where she and her DH are coming from.

Hi OP, the way that your message is written suggests that the order in place is a ‘lives with mum’ and ‘spends time with dad’ order, rather than a ‘lives with both’ order? If this is the case then, based on my experience with the family courts I think your DP would struggle to enforce this via the courts, given that he is not actually going to be there at any point to spend time with the children that the court order states. It also doesn’t seem that child focused to say that even though dad isn’t there to spend time with the children, they still have to go because that’s what dad feels the order says. It would be different if he was going to be there for some of the time at least, as they would still be spending some time with him.

I do think that the point about seeing grandparents and hobbies is child focused. Can the children’s mum facilitate this if this is what the children want whilst your DP is away? Same with phone calls to Dad?

As a general point, your post does have a hint of a SM being used as a ‘flying monkey’ by dad to excerpt control over mum. I may be jumping to conclusions, but that is just how it reads to me.

It’s not for 5 weeks it’s for 3 weekends out of the 5 weeks he is away

Probably depends on your set up and how amicable you are as well as the length
of time. We’ve had this once on both sides but it was only for a night. DSD stayed with her stepdad when her Mum was in hospital for one night following a minor procedure. She stayed with me when her Dad was away for one night for a job interview. Any longer and we would probably default to the other biological parent but in those circumstances it fitted in with planned school runs, clubs, etc. Could you offer to take the children to their already planned and paid for activities during those weekends but return to Mum to sleep? Then fit in calls to Dad during that time?

I think it’s terribly sad that some of the respondents have seen myself trying to facilitate the children’s time with their grandparents and their father as a power play rather than having two children that I love very much best interest at heart. I have my own 2 children so I do not need to monopolise anyone else’s. My partner has been through a terrible time with his ex wife, he is kind non confrontational gentle man, he has been persistently alienated from his children, bullied my her and had the children weaponised against him if he does anything that she does not agree with. Despite that he has always been respectful to her during their communications, has never raised his voice to her, called her names of even been the slightest confrontational because it is not in his nature to be like that, he is caring, gentle, playful father who goes above and beyond for his children. Our decision for the children to be in their home with me and their step siblings was not made to alienate the mother but to facilite other important relationships in their lives. If we had been able to foster a good co parenting relationship with her we would have had a discussion with her about this and found a compromise that worked for all parties involved and more importantly took the children’s needs into consideration, unfortunately she has demonstrated on many occasions that she would rather just keep quoting the court order at us.

For the person who thought I would be taking the mother to court whilst my partner is away may need to read my post more carefully. On my partners return we will be seeking to change the court order so there is better clarity, there are many flaws in it that have caused more conflict than actually helped and I think a revised order that spells things out in a more concise way would help both parties.

for those questioning what I would do with my own children in this situation, my children’s step mother who doesn’t even live with my ex husband is a lovely woman, she treats my children with kindness and her children get on reasonably well with my own, I would have no issue with my children staying with her especially if my children lived with her, I would be grateful of the help and support. I respect that my relationship with my children is not the only important one in their lives, having lots of kind supportive adults in my children’s lives who love them is only a good thing, it takes a village to raise children. I also respect my ex husbands choice of who he decides to have in my children’s lives and how they spend their time with him. It is not my right to interfere with that. So yes I would allow my children to stay with my ex husbands girlfriend if that was his choice and my children were in agreement, I can see she is caring mother to her own children and she is a positive influence in my children’s lives, just as I am in my partners children’s lives. Children are not pieces of furniture to be possessed, it is a privilege to be a parent.

We could have come to agreement whereby she facilitates regular video calls to dad and drops them to their grandparents for Sunday lunch and it would have been nice for myself and my children to have had a couple of calls with them too. Sadly over the next six weeks the children will not be allowed to see or hear from any of us how is that in the best interest of the children?

for the person who thinks being in the armed forces is a luxury is sadly mistaken, it’s awful, he can be deployed at anytime, they basically own you, your family circumstances are not taken into account and you cannot just leave, you are signed into a contract, he has another 3 years before he can leave. He has been fortunate enough in the past to have been on squadrons that didn’t spend much time abroad but he is now frontline so has spent a few spells abroad this year, we were not in this situation when the court order was put in place so it never got taken into consideration.

Its a sad situation because we want to work with the children’s mother to find an amicable way forward for the sake of the children.

For the person who thought I would be taking the mother to court whilst my partner is away may need to read my post more carefully. On my partners return we will be seeking to change the court order so there is better clarity,

You might mean me, but that isn't what I said. I meant taking it to court at all. There is an order in place and while I don't doubt you want to have the children and you are a good stepmum, part of that role is recognising it's actually fine for them to remain with their mum when dad isn't available. I do think it's a bit power gamey when the result is the children see neither parent.

I would hope the courts wouldn't give access to dad's girlfriend while their mum is available and wanting to have her own children and dad is away. That would be an absolutely travesty to parents everwhere. As for seeking clarity I would think the order is very clear with mum and dad, not dad's girlfriend.