Am I being unreasonable - ex husband dictacting when he will see his children

[fifi67]

I have been divorced from my ex husband for 8 years - we have two children. When divorce was being sorted nothing formal was arranged in respect of access/contact.

Ex husband works shifts/weekends and because of this I agreed to an arrangement of one weekend in every five weeks and some week nights.
His work and sleep always came before his kids. He has never tried to be flexible, accomodate, nor make arrangements which is fair to all parties. He simply says "I wish I could help you out but I'm working".

Ex husband is now retiring early and reluctantly agreed to an alternate weekend arrangemend. When I tried to discuss this further, he responded by saying that he was applying for another job that involved shift work and would probably be on the same shift pattern. He hasn't even been offered the job yet!

I have always felt that he dictates when he will see the children and I feel that he is getting away with taking responsibility for his childrens upbringing.

He pays me maintenace which is supported via a Court Order. I fear that he will make things difficult for me financially if I seek legal advice about his unwillingness to have the children every other weekend.

Do the children want to see him every other weekend?

You can't enforce his 'unwillingness' to have the children! You can't force a parent to have access

Yes they do want to see him every weekend.

Does he not have responsibilities? I work - when I am unable to look after my children due to work commitments, I have to make arrangements for their care.

There is no way of forcing him to take up his responsibilities tho, sadly.

So he gets to pick and chose when he feels like being a dad ... and now that he has set up home with his girlfriend (and her son) ... he will be more of a dad to him than to his own children.

It stinks.

No yanbu

But unfortunately, the state supports him.

3/5 of Non Resident Parents don't bother to pay maintenance. So it's something NRP's can use as a way of controlling their ex partners - if the state was interested in forcing NRP's to discharge their duties as parents, 100% of NRP's would pay, not 40%.

And they talk about children's rights to see their NRP's, but again, they only enforce those rights if the NRP's want them. If the NRP's don't want to see their children, the right to have regular contact with your NRP, is suddenly not spoken about any more and everyone simply pretends it doesn't exist. That's because it doesn't, of course, only NRP's have rights in reality, not children.

So tbh I would let sleeping dogs lie. It's shit for you, but it's better to recognise the shit that you're not going to change, than spend hours and energy, which could be more profitably directed. You can't control your xp's behaviour, you can't force him to be a good father. You can control your responses to it though.

Not wishing to hijack the thread - but EleanorRathbone where does that figure come from? the 3/5's one? I've never heard that before. In any case, the OP's husband does pay maintainance, so I'm not sure how relevant it is? In fairness, working round shift patterns is notoriously difficult in relation to contact with children, or indeed childcare - how would forcing him to take on a contact routine that he can't possibly manage if he gets another shift work based job going to help the kids? Courts generally prefer that a parent looks after children (if available) rather than childcare; time with Dad is meant to be for their benefit, not to be spent in a nursery or whatever.