Shared residence order: 4 and 2 yr old DCs

[WishIWasRimaHorton]

I was in court this week for a residence case. The magistrates have ruled there must be shared residence. The chilren are DS (4) and DD (2).

The split of nights is 8 with me; 6 with their dad.

I am in the pits of despair, but this isn't about me. It's about the kids.

I have to try and make it work, even though I can see the anxiety and distress this causes them. In particular I have to accept that, every other week, they are with their dad for 4 nights (5 days). This means that they won't see me for 5 days in a row.

I am terrified of the impact of the constant upheaval and to-ing and fro-ing on the children. I am dreading my daughter's anxiety and distress whenever she separates from me or when she thinks I am leaving the room. I am dreading my son's face pressed up against the car window, tears streaming down it, when it is time to go to daddy's.

Can anyone tell me how I can make this work? I feel like I have failed the children by not being able to give them a permanent stable home when they are so little. If they were 12 and 14, or even 8 and 10, it wouldn't seem so bad. But they are tiny still. What will all this upheaval and uncertainty do to them?

We have a shared residency situation and have done so for the past 6 years. My DSSs have two homes and very much feel that way. I would, however, like to point out that we have never expected them to carry their own belongings to and fro: they have belongings at both homes, and their clothes are ferried back and forth by the adults that care for them.

We worry about the level of care that their mother provides (clearly very much less great than the level of care we provide) but have to live with that.

Personally, I think a shared nanny is a really dreadful situation for everyone concerned as it is a gross invasion of privacy for another adult to be seeing everything that goes on in both homes, and I don't think continuity of care ought to be provided by a third party. It can create great tensions between parents and children to know that another adult shares the whole of their children's lives. Why don't you decide to change your childcare arrangements? The courts might then rethink the decision?

also - he said that he wanted the children to spend an equal amount of time in his house to mine because he didn't want them to decide that they wanted to live with me just because they had spent more time with me than they had with him. therefore what he is doing is not ensuring that he is available to spend time with his children. he is making sure that i get no more than he does. not because that is the best thing for the children, in my opinion. but because he doesn't want me to have something that he hasn't got.

unfortunately this is the way he was in our marriage. it was about making sure he came out on top and that no-one else seemed better off in any way than him. when i was on maternity leave and suffering from PND, he refused to let me take DS down to stay with my parents (2 hours away) for 4 nights one week because then my parents would get to see DS and he wouldn't. never mind that i was depressed, having a terrible time breast feeding and that he was out of the house from 7am to 8pm, came home for half an hour and went out training again until 10pm. he didn't want my parents to have something that he didn't have, so i had to stay at home, waiting for his half an hour of attention between 8pm and 8.30pm every night.

latemates - my solicitor has seen the photographs and, although he was disgusted by them, he says that the threshold for these things is so low, that shit on toilet seats, cat sick in the children's beds, mouldy food in cupboards and fridge, bath with snot, mud, slime and sand in it, slime in bathtoys (which DD drinks from obviously) is not bad enough for SS to be concerned. there has been a piece of pizza on the bathroom floor for 3 months. he put christmas decorations up and has not taken all of them down. there are broken fairy lights trailing out of a box in DD's room. it is a wonder she hasn't tried pulling them out and wearing them round her neck.

i hate it. it breaks my heart. it is still my home, after all, until he buys me out. and i can't do anything about it. i doubt very much that SS would bat an eyelid. they see far worse every day. and the children might get an upset stomach but it's nothing bad enough for them to care.

i can't bear my beautiful children to live in this squalor. he doesn't tie DD's hair back so it sticks to her snot. her face is covered in food - he never wipes it. then he sticks them in the filthy bath (all the grot rises to the surface of the bath) and she drink from the slimy bath toys.

bonsoir - the children don't have to organise their own things. yet. i do it, and the nanny does it too. she is the only reason this arrangement is working. if she hands her notice in (and she may well do if the squalor continues at the ex's house - she is not paid to clean the house), then he really will struggle. she does his washing (which she is not meant to do), and she has to clean the kitchen and wipe the toilet seat before she can use them or let the kids use them.

she is an absolute gem, and the children love her to bits. i don't actually need to employ her as i no longer need the long hours (which is the reason we employed her in the first instance - so that ex could work his usual long days without having to leave 'early' to pick up children from nursery at 6pm. at that point i used to work away from home 1 or 2 days a week, so i wasn't always back by 6pm either. i don't do that now,so i could use a nursery for wrap-around for DS and for DD, too. but i love having DD around during the day while i am working from home. and for now i think she is vital for the kids.

by next spring it won't make sense to have her any longer. and that's when things will get really tough for ex.

What you can usefully do is document precisely the amount of time your exH spends with his DC (awake) and the childcare functions he performs (choosing schools, doctor visits, homework, buying clothes, making meals, entertaining grandparents, hosting playdates, ferrying to activities etc) and the amount of time you spend performing childcare functions. Such comparative documentation (with written witness statements, proofs etc) might be crucial evidence at a later hearing. Don't tell you exH you are doing this, of course.

It does seem extremely unfair (and pointless) if they are to spend so much time at his house whilst he isn't even there.

I don't have any advice to give you but just wanted to say that I feel very sorry for this crappy situation.

I would sack the nanny, nothing personal to her but she is what is making the courts believe this will work.
What happens if you moved house. I assume you are renting and therefore flexible, could you be tempted to move nearer your parents and make this difficult for him ?

bonsoir - that's a good idea. i will do that.

i have started writing a behaviour diary for the kids. i know i worry too much that every little blip is a sign of a major emotional breakdown as far as they are concerned. but if i keep a diary of their reactions to situations and the things they do / say, then i can keep a track of how things develop.

for instance, today, ex told me that DS had had a huge tantrum, over nothing. he said to me 'it is the first time in months that he has done anything like that' and then he said 'he has been crying at everything all day.' so - either he is tired, and / or having a bad day. but in case it is more than that i am going to document it.

I understand your desire to demonstrate that your DC are emotionally disturbed, but actually that will be hard to prove unless they are severely disturbed (which is both unlikely and undesirable). What you want to prove, materially (which is easier and more objective) is that you are the better, more responsible parent who actually does all the hard work of parenting.

thanks all. i am very grateful that so many of you understand where i am coming from. i was expecting to be told to put up and shut up (which is incidentally what my dad thinks i should do).

yes - i am renting. i'm not sure where i would stand if i moved. there is no need for me to be in this geographic location for work - i could work anywhere. but given the court have mandated shared residence and a contact schedule of 8 + 6 nights, how would that work if i moved 150 miles away, as DS is in school here?

bonsoir - i don't think the courts will be swayed about the fact that i do all the ferrying / organising etc. i don't think i have an argument, tbh. and of course i don't want my kids to be emotionally disturbed. but that is my fear...

you cant really move if there is an order like this in place,you would need to go back to court

you are then at risk of it being changed to you having them every second weekend.....bit of a gamble isnt it?

best you can hope for is that he see's himself that it isnt working well and he either hands more time back to you,or wants to work something new out in court

If I were you [voice of experience] I would concentrate on being a model parent. Once you have a few months/years cumulative proven experience of doing all the parenting (while your exH is proven to wing it big time) you will be in a much better position to get your children back.

Latemates I did feel like a belonging. I was also very aware that I could not let my parents know this because then i would have to "choose" between them. Until I told my parents how i felt, they thought i was doing OK, and that I viewed myself as having 2 homes and that all was rosy.
I spent my time 50/50 from the time i was 3, until I was 18, when i finally moved out to live with my aunt rather than chose between mum and dad.
I did crave spending time with my parents, and i wanted for feel welcome at both places, but I didnt want to be split between them.
When i say crave one home, no i dont mean not see the other parent, i just wanted one home. I wanted 1 room, 1 bed, 1 set of clothes, etc. I didnt want to get to 1 house and realise id left my homework/school project/reading books or whatever at the wrong house. I would have still wanted to see the "other" parent, but I know i would have liked it to be less. By the time I was older, i certainly didnt need to be split equally. My relationship with both was fine. I loved them to pieces, i would have loved them no less for spending less time with them. It would have not mattered which parent, both were as good as the other.
In all fairness they did their best, i had stuff at each house, both little stuff and big stuff, but I just hated it. Im not saying all kids do, but i certainly did. My brother too although to a lesser extent than me.

Courts will be swayed by the fact that you have an 8:6 night split but you do 95% of the parenting. Believe me!

You can even argue that with "only" 8/14 nights, you are unable to actually do all the parenting that falls to you. It's a good strategy.

Well a friend of mine moved 300 miles enrolled the children in
the local schools and said to ex if you want them 6 days come and get them, he didn't it went back to court but by which time the children had been settled for 6 months and the courts awarded the father alternate weekends again. Extreme measures but it worked and very recently too.

Couldn't read and run, are you sure your solicitor is good enough?
I am totally shocked by the circumstances you find yourself in, your ex sounds like he is all about contol and winning rather than the kids.
I can't believe I am suggesting this but could you bear to live with him again in order to be there for the kids???

has health visitor seen his house? let her decide if SS should see or not.

i set out in my submission all the things i had done in parenting the kids thus far. how all the major things in the children's lives had been done by me. when the nanny started working for us (feb 09), DS had been going to pre-school for over a year. on the day before the nanny started work, i had to drive ex to the village where the pre-school was and show him how to get to pre-school, as he didn't know. his child had been going there for over a year, and was due to start in the school that year, and he had never been to the school or the pre-school and didn't know where it was.

while i lived with him, everything was done by me. all the children's activities were organised by me, every last thing was done by me. and even now, i am the only one who fills in forms, writes cheques for activities, ensures DS has dinner money, ensures that the nanny gets paid and gets her petrol money. he paid her tax incorrectly in april, and i have had to sort that out, including the interest payment due to the underpayment.

none of these things counted for anything. as far as the courts are concerned, as long as these things happen - that's fine. there are 2 parents, and between them they make sure these things happen. dad does next to nothing, and mum picks up the pieces. great. shared residence in operation. why would they change their ruling?

fannybaws - believe me. i have considered it. we have a decree nisi though, now, so i suspect he wouldn't have me back. and i would need to have a lobotomy to get myself back in that house on a permanent basis. but i do regret leaving. if i had realised what it felt like to live out this regime, i would never have left. the grief is unbearable. i am suicidal.

cestlavielife - no she hasn't been there. he had the gall to put in his submission that the HV couldn't give evidence as she had never met him and had never seen him with DD. not particularly clever really, i thought. given that he was asking for shared residence, to admit he had never met the HV, in whose care his daughter is, is not particularly smart. unforunately, the magistrates obviously thought that was fine.

oh and allegedly my solicitor is one of the best. i am no longer quite so sure. but reading up on the law around shared residence, there isn't much i can argue really. if the courts are bend on ruling it (which they are now), i don't have much of a case really.

I really thought that shared residence had to be an agreed state between the parents. Personally I would concentrate on being Mother of the year and documenting everything and challenging it in court. I agree with you that this is not an ideal state for two such young children and it sounds as if their Father has asked for half their time because he feels entitled to it rather than because it is best for them. Decisively moving to make things hard is a bad idea - the court are wise to these tricks and moving because of your job might be the only way to do this legitimately.

This is tricky but really try and get it back in court - your status as working from home and being available for them is a strong one and the court relying on an employee (because that is what she is no matter how close she is to the children) seems a very daft idea.

Mostly I am so sorry for you - you sound so angry and in my opinion you have every right to be. The system has let your children down and cafcass need to be involved.

no - shared residence doesn't have to be agreed. it can be ruled, and is now more and more.

if i want to appeal, i need to it quickly, within a week or so. i will speak to my solicitor, who has suggested a barrister to me already. i don't know how the appeal would work. if it's another 20 minute job based on a few bits of paper, it is pointless. i need someone to take into consideration the details of my children's lives.

I think you need to appeal on the basis that the full information has not been available to the court. To rule something as not agreed shared residence it seem absurd that they would rule without a longer investigation into the whole picture. Call cafcass and ask their opinion on how they could help your children. If your children are disturbed by all this perhaps you need a child psych to be involved and report on their behalf to the court.

pinky - i have asked a friend who is a psychologist if she can recommend me a psychologist to chat to. i am principally concerned about the DC's emotional development, although i appreciate this is a harder one to call. i just don't think the courts will care about the whys and wherefores of their lives - they certainly didn't seem to care on thursday. they thought we were wasting their time.

i will speak again to the HV. i need to spend some time trying to work out the best way forward, i think.