Would you take this back to court?

[Justonedayatatime11]

Exh took me to court a few years back and obtained a CAO for our dd(4). CAO states EOW and 50% of his annual leave. Exh has rarely adhered to the CAO and can get very aggressive if I can’t change plans to accommodate him wanting to swap and change weekends. I’ve received a message from him last night saying that every weekend for the next 4 months is going to have to change, but he doesn’t know how or when.
FWIW, he’s blaming work. Now he could take the CAO to his commanding officer and have it enforced which would mean he would reliably see dd EOW. However, he’s admitted he won’t do this as ‘it will harm his chances of promotion’.
My plans for the summer are now up in the air because I now don’t know when/if he’ll be seeing dd. Not only will that potentially leave me out of pocket, but more importantly dd is getting no consistency. He’ll go for a month without seeing her and then want her for a week at a time.
To be clear, I am not trying to stop contact. Dd adores him and I wouldn’t want to take that away from her. I just want some consistency for her sake and some reliability for me!

Sadly whilst the contact order forces you to make your D.C. available for contact it does not and can not make him take up contact.
You could rigidly stick to the order, but maybe there is some room for compromise by saying the weekends you absolutely can not swap for him to have D.C.

As above poster says, the court order means only you have to make the children available for contact (he doesn’t have to have them).

Court orders as standard are EOW and half of the children’s holidays (dates to be agreed). Sounds like he is in the forces? Can you compromise? You say your plans are up in the air for the summer - that’s mid July onwards. Have you really made plans for the entire 6 weeks.

No, not the whole 6 weeks. I booked a holiday for a week in August when dd is meant to be with exh, he’s now saying he doesn’t know if he can have her at that time. I feel like he can still control me because any time I make any plans, he can do this and I have to drop everything

So your plans for the summer (6 weeks ) aren’t up in the air - it’s one week.

Ask him to accomadate contact for that week or he needs to make provision.

Going to court breeds resentment - try to resolve it between you.

Have you posted about this before it is very familiar?

Yes I would. There is fuck all point trying to negotiate with someone using contact as a means of control. And I say that as someone with many, many years of experience of it.

I wish I’d taken it back to court.