How much are you allowed to know?

[onlyone]

My Ex and I both have complicated jobs.
Me requiring child care over night on a regular known basis and working certain weekends - known well in advance. ie, I know which weekends I am working for the whole year.

He has a six weekly roster, that varies massively and requires him to be overseas every week - works for aviation industry.

Now we could go down the these are your days and weekends for the DCs and like it or lump it and in the mean time you sort out your own childcare / pay for someone to look after them, then you do not see your kids for sometimes weeks on end and this applies to both of us. We decided to not go down that route and were accommodating each other, it was working well and then there was a spat with the OW.

He now says I can never know his roster and where he will be ever again.
Anyone know where I stand on an Ex who wants 50% residency, has parental responsibility but will not let me know how to get hold of him in an emergency(I know mobile phones but in some of the places he goes to coverage can be shite for days) and absolutely no way of planning contact sessions.

I am well aware that this about face is being driven by OW who wants well child but not disabled child as he is too much effort. Personally would rather not know where he is and what his life is doing but there do have to be practicalities on this and this is not a once a month out of the country this is every week. I am happy to work on the six week roller for the sake of the DCs but I do need to know something in advance in terms of no you will not be having on these days as youa re out of the country but would like to exchange that for these days.

Tired Tired Tired

We both have stressful jobs involving a lot of travel and we have a calender that we exchange and update with requests by e mail. It used to work really well but recently since ex has remarried none of the changes I propose ever get agreed. Apart from the dates he has committed to seeing the children, I have absolutely no interest in where he is and wouldnt dream of giving him a run down of my whereabouts. We both have mobiles and if we need to talk use those

Agree with you entirely but I am now not allowed to know that next week he is away for the two weekdays and the weekend which is his - so I will of course have them - but no notice until he either does or does not turn up on the doorstep for the next visit. which may be next week for the agreed two days or not. I get them ready, they get excited and then I let them down and end up spoiling them rotten to make up for dickhead. I only know he is away because his brother phoned to invite DCs to cousins birthday bash an dI said that it was his weekend so no problem - this is not a way to run our DCs lives.

Aaagh - got yelled at last week for phoning him to let him know DC2 was ill and needed to go to hospital on his day of care. It was 2000 here but 0400 where he was and oh incidentally he would not be back for his days and not to phone him at such a stupid time. Well yes dickhead for the last 17yrs of our married life I knew what country/time zone you were in and thus worked it out but now I do not know my ESP is just no that good enough.

It was all going well until OW stuck her oar in and I know where this is headed.

I give up!!

Just wondered if anyone knew the legal requirements.

sorry you're going through this,no advice i'm afraid but hope you get it sorted.

sorry your going through this, legally - he doesn't have to tell you diddly squat or turn up to have his dc when he says or not there is no legal requirement for dc to have access to their fathers or mothers if they are not resident parents

It is such a crying shame though when things were going so well for the dc and the two parents where happy with their time.

he is being put in an awful position by the OW and you bear the brunt of it.

Could you email him and say you appreciate that calling him at 0400hrs isn't good, but you wanted to give him the information that his dc was sick enough to be in hospital and next time something like this happens you will call again if he wants - or you can text or email, but you don't want to end up not calling and then getting the brunt of that on top of stress with a dc in the hospital. This is awful to be in the position of him not seeing his dc and the dc not seeing their dad, ask is there something you can do to assist their relationship?

there aint much more you can do but try to help and therefore help everyone at the same time

Will see what happens on his return. I think he knows he is being ridiculous but is so obsessed with OW he can not see the wood for the trees.

I do not want to get into silly mind / one upmanship games with him. We both accepted our jobs were difficult to manage when we were together and the calendar was a military operation in planning.

It is so sad that our children are the only ones who suffer during this. So bearing in mind he spends 50% of the time with them, who nominates resident parent. We have not been near a court/lawyer etc, we just want to keep it amicable but sensible.

do you need to? you are both parents does it matter - I am resident parent but that doesn't make me parent i or anything we both can sign for school stuff etc

In theory - no , practically yes.
Eldest DC is now at the age where speaking to Daddy on the phone is a highlight of the day, to wish him good night and tell him of his day. Ex still expects this and I realise at the moment I need to facilitate that by use of the phone and the timing.
I can not be expected to know the time zone in a place that I do not know.

May be I should just give DC the phone when he asks for it and say go for it regardless, can imagine it will lose its novelty after a while. Am not sure he realises how often DCs want to speak to him during the day and I stop them knowing he may well be asleep!

The access days, I am happy to change them dependent on rosters but do need some notice to facilitate this. He wants to change his days but not tell me until he turns up and not tell me he is not taking them. The reason OW is insisting on this is because she wants eldest DC to live with them and then she could ignore younger DC who is disabled and before anyone flames me, she has already suggested this arrangement as it "would mean contact would be less frequent and family life be better for all concerned" ie, her and her image of a perfect little family life.

personally, I would let the dc's ring him. if they wake him apologise and say you were not awaer of him not being in the country and if he had told you..

it is aweful that the dcs are suffering. could you have stuff packed permanently so you aer not getting it ready and getting their hopes up? not sure how it works really.

im not sure if i got wrong end of stick (tis early), have you thought about mediation, or even solicitors, whAt you are saying sounds terrible.....fine you dont need to know what he is doing but i personally feel you need to know in where he is ( from a work point of view..) if he isnt turning up and letting kids down, my 1st move would be to protect the kids.Apply for full custody then at least you know where you are, and he can then fight you for access to kids......... maybe this is me been bitter, but if he doesnt show up, and lets them down and your picking up the pieces on a regularly basis, sod him..do whats best for you and kids without him in the picture and he can sort out with you when he can see the kids........... if you dont want to go down this route at the moment then mention it to him that is is something you are thinking of, and tell him why!!!! remind him of his responsibilities!!!

GOOD LUCK..X