Negotiating contact

[wirral]

Hi. For those that remember a previous thread of mine, my holiday in Portugal went well. Ex brought daughter out to Portugal and she spent the latter part of Whit with me. Thanks all for your advice - She went to Dad's and spent time with me and Grandparents abroad - Win Win!

Now for latest advice please. Ex picks up daughter from school every Mon, Tues and Fri. He has her until 6.30pm on Mon and Tues and overnight Friday if he isn't working Sat.

Daughter has just started sailing lessons on Monday for which she needs to come back home an hour earlier - 5.30pm. Yes he could take her himself but I don't really want him to as she goes with my friends and I have bought the things she needs for this passtime. Ex is insisting that I repay him the time at a later date. To be honest I don't really have a problem with this however I am concerned that as time goes on daughter will have more and more things to do after school and I will be constantly asked to make up the time my ex loses.

What do you think? Am I being irrational? I did try to offset the time against Father's Day but he won't have that. I do think she should spend Father's day with her Dad I am just not sure about making up for the time she spends on extra curricular activites in his contact time.

You are not being unreasonable. As children develop lives of their own parents have to be flexible and a Cort would recognise this. You are only asking for her to be brought home earlier-not to end Monday night contact entirely.

Sounds like he is having a good level of contact. Contact may need to move more to a weekend as your child develops after school activities.

Just a thought - but it is your daughter wishing to do an activity instead of time with either of you.

'Time' can be such a possesive thing - could you explain to your ex that actually its HER time and this is how she is choosing to spend it?

Agree with Squidette, he has to understand it's her time, not his.

Gosh thanks both of you. I was worried that it might sound like I am trying to limit his contact. Contact over a weekend is difficult as he works shifts. He basically has her everytime he is able to at the weekend. We did try midweek overnights at his but daughter ( She's 7)didn't like it.

Yes she does want to do the activity rather than spending time with either of us and I suspect that as she gets older this will happen more and more often. She loves both of us but really enjoys time with her friends. Well put Squidette that it is HER time and she is choosing how to spend it

The ideal solution would be for him to take her but as I've organised it, it's with my friends and ex has shown no interest in contributing financially towards it I don't think he should.

I have agreed to pay back the hour but have stressed that this is a 'one off'. I am not sure that I haven't set a precedent. Do you think it's worth getting legal advice?

My ex appears to be one of the band of rare exes that wants to spend every available time with his daughter. Admirable but he always forgets that I need to see her as well.

My smallest son chooses to play footy one weekend morning which means both of them come to me a little later than usual that day.

I am so happy for him that he gets to play something he loves! I would not dream of asking for the 'time' from my ex as it is him that takes him and brings him to me a little later....

(me thinks is more a control issue than a time issue for your ex, wirral?)

It does sound very controlling

Why should you have one less hour with her?

Although if you want to take her in "your" time, as it's with your friends, could you cahnge his contact day? Is that logistically possible?

The day change unfortunately isn't an option for him due to his shifts. I would have no problem with changing the day.

My ex is very controlling and this has become more and more apparent since he left last year. I think with hindsight he's a bully and is feeling that control is being taken away from him at the moment

I don't see this as trying to be controlling, he just wants to see his daughter as much as possible.

Could you put yourself in his shoes and think about how it might feels to not live with your child, and then have the amount of time you have with them reduced? I don't blame him for asking for the hour at another time. I would if I were in his shoes.

Can't he drop her off there and you meet them there, so he still gets to see her and you get to go to the activity with her?

But Surfermum, he is reducing the OP's time with her instead. Basically what he is saying is that when his DD is with her mother, she can do all the activity stuff and it doesn't matter that the mother's time with her is reduced, but when she is with him, she has to spend all her time with him.

I would think this was reasonable if he only saw her once a week or something, but as I understand it (if I've remembered correctly from your other thread OP), they have joint care and control and see the DD reasonably equally. Why should the OP have to arrange all her extra curricular activity, and why should the DD not be allowed to have any activities on her father's contact evening?

That's just not a reasonable proposition imo.

I know VSS and that's why, if people aren't careful, this type of situation degenerates into a "my time" "your time" "it's not fair they're with you more than me" type of argument with one of the parents dictating to the other when and if they can see their child.

All I'm saying is I don't blame him for not wanting to see his dd less. Wirral doesn't either, and that's fair enough too. It's one of those awful situations after parents split up when there has to be some give and take from both of them.

I don't see anywhere that Wirral has said that he wants their dd to only do the activites when she's with her mum. Wirral says that he could go to this activity with her but she doesn't want him to, if he did then presumably the problem would be solved.

VSS I think you have this slightly wrong. The OP actively wants to be the one involved in this activity so I can see the ex's point. But then I can also see that due to the limitations imposed by his shift pattern it is tricky to re-arrange.

Has he made any suggestions wirral?

If you went and organised this activity without consulting him first then I think you have done wrong considering that this is happening on one of "his" afternoons/evenings. If however you did ask him before you went and set the sailing lessons up, then he is being unreasonable.

Now I'm getting the responses that I thought I would get.

We don't have joint custody. Ex has daughter from school Mon, Tues and Friday ( overnight if he is able to) until 6.30pm

I didn't arrange the sailing without consulting him. But he did insist that if she went he should be repaid time. As VVS says is our daughter only to do activities in 'my' time? At present she goes to Brownies for an hour and a half on Thursday ( my day) I would not consider asking for ex to repay the time. Neither am I asking for him to repay the time daughter will spend with ex on Father's day.

He would not be able to take our daughter to this activity nor has he asked to. I am sure that he understands that my friends would not welcome him . Also he has made no attempt to ask if he could help financially towards this activity.

As I have said I have suggested that he has daughter for extra time on Friday when he is able to however I am concerned that I will now be having to constantly negotiate repaying time. For example daughet starts junior school next year. Netball lessons are after school on Tuesday - I'd anticipate her wanting to go, it's ex's day. Will I have to repay this time? When she goes to Senior school and doesn't want either of us to pick her up Will I have to repay time to him then?

I think the netball thing would be different. I think he sees this as your choice of an activity with your friends on his night. Netball practice, neither of you would be there. Sailing you will be there with your friends and their children, a nice, sociable time.

No I don't go sailing. Daughter just goes with my friends.

Will see what happens regarding future events etc.