Dad wanting advice on contact arrangements

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I hope I’ve posted in the right place - was either here or legal! Colleague told me to try mumsnet for advice and opinions, my first time on here so please be gentle sorry it’s such a long post.

Background:
Ex left me for her current partner and took our then 4 y/o with her 6 years ago. He is now 10.
In that time she has moved house with our son and her partner five times, the most recent in the New Year. She also moved our son to a school 25 miles away, where he has spent the last 4 years laying down roots and making friends. She has now moved back to my area and moved our son back to the school we originally sent him to, and he’s not having an easy time settling in.
For my part I have fought tooth and nail to maintain contact and have never missed a weekend or holiday unless our son or myself were too sick for contact to happen. Ex has done her best to frustrate contact and our silly restrictions on contact, but we have an order by consent for alternating weekends and up to two after school contacts a week in term time and half holidays. Summer is spent a week on/off with each parent with a fortnight spent with his mum in the middle.
I have also done my best to maintain some degree of stability for him which means I have managed to keep the former marital home through a remortgage.

So-
In light of the fact our son now attends my local primary school I asked his mum if we could have overnights on the alternate weekends (I mean so I drop him at school on Monday mornings) and also midweek teatime. She has outright refused and when I asked why she said it wasn’t in his best interest. Our son has told me his mum said if it happens it would mean he would switch to living with me, and that he would only see his mum on weekends. I am really disappointed in her for this as it means she’s scaring him off what I think is a perfectly reasonable suggestion. He’s also decided he now feels homesick when he’s with me for a week (e.g summer holidays) which is understandable when you consider he normally only spends 4 overnights a month with me (on the alternating weekends so two overnights a fortnight).
My opinion is, giving him a chance to have more regular overnights would greatly improve the homesickness problem. The problem is rather than his mum acknowledging how our son feels and trying to find a solution and encourage contact she is seeing it as a perfect opportunity to throttle back on his summer contact. I believe increasing the overnights (Sunday night alternate weekends and the midweek overnight) would help our son feel he has two ‘homes’ and I honestly think he needs it now more than ever given he’s just has his whole life uprooted. He’s struggling to make friends in his new school, misses his old schoolmates and is adjusting to life in a new house too.
I have asked her to work with me on this and she refuses. I’ve made an appointment to see a family mediator, but I don’t have much hope his mum will bother going. I intent to go to court to sort this out, but I want to know what other mums and dads with experience in this area think. Am I wrong?
I honestly think if he has a more normal routine with me more involved (e.g school drop offs) and him seeing here as another base it will help with reducing feelings of homesickness when he’s here for a week in the hols (he enjoys his contact and always has done) and will help him feel more settled in school eventually especially as another big change is coming up soon (moving up to secondary next year).
I feel his mum is seeing it as an opportunity to restrict his contact and she is only perpetuating the issue of homesickness and I am really angry and disappointed that she is scaring him into thinking a few more overnights would mean living with dad permanently and having contact with her. She has orchestrated a lot of upheaval in his short life and I am very keen to provide as much stability as possible!
Any advice even if you think I’m wrong would be appreciated!

I think your proposal sounds perfectly reasonable. It's a shame it has to go to court. Sometimes it is necessary when you can not agree on a way forward though.

It is a shame but at least no one can say I haven’t tried. I’m quite concerned about the homesickness factor, and whether a court would agree with the mother to restrict contact or agree with me that supporting our relationship with a couple more regular overnights would address the issue and help him feel he has two homes thus eliminating a feeling of homesickness? (Particularly as he’s just moved house with his mum so I don’t think it’s homesick as such and I strongly suspect it’s his mum imposing her views and feelings on our son!)

Honestly? My experience of court is that it can go any which way. Often no rhyme or reason.

My partner has been through it 3 times now, the first time things went well. Second time he self repped and it went very badly with contact reduced including no christmas day with his child ever. He went back with a direct access barrister, and things went much, much better.
They say it is fine to self rep, but that hasn't been his experience.

Stick with it. You need to explain to your ds that you’re not going to take him from his mum. Don’t stop fighting to have equal access with him. On one note, your ex may well be thinking that if you have more access she will get less cm off you.

I’ve explained that to our son but problem is from his perspective if he has his resident parent scaring him saying if this happens then you’ll live with dad and only see me on weekends...it’s enough to scare a child no matter how much I reassure him that’s not the case! With maintenance she would still be resident parent (as far as I can see it) so while it would be reduced (which I feel is fair as I’d be paying for the meals etc when he’s with me) she wouldn’t receive £0 either!

Your proposal sounds reasonable and could benefit your ds.

I am also going to add it seems reasonable . My guess is she is worried about maintenance.

You sound perfectly reasonable and your ex is massively dickish to scare your child like that

It’s a perfectly reasonable request.

What does your son want? It sounds like the mother isn’t putting his best interests at heart.

I would take this to court.

@NorthernSpirit
Asking my son what he wants doesn’t really provide me an honest answer as his mum has scared him into not wanting any change and not even wanting to spend whole weeks with me now unfortunately she’s not beneath manipulating him and imposing her own feelings on him.
Got a date for a MIAM now so have started the ball rolling. I would much rather sort this out between us or through mediation but it’s impossible if the other parent refuses outright to even trial it.

Have you spoken to her about what she's said to DS? What's her response?

My Ds is 10 & likes being at home. Apart from his mum is there anything else that he is homesick for?

It's really unfair to him to make threats like that. Hope you get somewhere with the mediation

You don't know she is manipulating him though that's just your assumption and maybe he just doesn't like the back and forth between houses and so long in the holidays

From what you have said here, it seems like a really reasonable proposal. Maybe show your son the nights he would be spending with you and the ones he would be spending with his Mum, under your suggested plan. Then he could see for himself that he would still be spending every other weekend with his Mum, as well as most nights in the week.

Only thing I would object to a little bit, is your saying that you don't see your son when you or he is ill. What do you think your Ex does with him when she is ill? Parenting is full time, not just when you are feeling up to it.

Maybe give your son a bit of time to settle in at his new school and then suggest it again. I don't think the homesickness is a great argument for you having him more BTW. I would leave that part out if you are taking it back to court.

Well he’s never ever mentioned feeling homesick prior to this and has always enjoyed spending full weeks with me so it just seems a bit suspect that it’s arisen to coincide with his mum scaring him with an empty threat of a change of resident parent!

With regard to the me/my son being ill - I have cancelled contact once when I’ve been ill - once with giarda and didn’t think it wise to pass on to my son - and the rest of the time his mum has cancelled contact if she has deemed our son too sick to come here even though I’d have happily looked after him.

Age 10 is a prime age for homesickness though and moving a lot will exaggerate the situation

Why not say you will keep things as they are as long as he keeps spending the holiday week with you tell him you miss him too and like spending time with him then when it settles down ask again to increase it

It just sounds like it's too much change right now

I think your son has had a lot of disruption and a sudden change to what routine he has may well be too much, for now.

As your ds and ex are now nearer could you increase contact gradually? I'm thinking collect from school, have tea but go back to mum's before bedtime?

Or maybe take him to an activity / hobby one evening a week.

Have you asked ds what he wants to do? He's old enough to have an opinion.

Perhaps talk with him and find out what aspects of home he misses so that you can help him to feel more at home with you.

Do you have a partner? Other resident children? Does he have siblings he misses? Does he have a particular game he enjoys playing? Toys he would like to bring over or duplicate.

Perhaps spending a weekend together designing and redecorating his room would also help.

I think it is important to acknowledge his comments about homesickness and find ways to comfort and alleviate this. Perhaps letting him help plan your holiday weeks together would help. So he knows what to expect, has enough activities he enjoys plus plenty of down time.

This is the thing - there’s no increase in contact or frequency of contact of change to his contact pattern in my proposal - I already collect him after school twice a week and he goes back to his mum in the evening. I’ve suggested to his mum we trial it just with including Sunday overnights for now and see how it goes before trying a midweek overnight and she point blank refuses to even try. I know he’s had a lot of upheaval thanks to her but I honestly think it would help our son even just Sunday overnights with Monday morning drop offs to feel he has a dad who’s involved in his day to day life and the fact I now am so close to his school makes it possible. His mum has a long history of frustrating contact and making it difficult to see him which is why I’m so suspicious of this sudden declaration of homesickness which has only come up at the same time as her telling him a lie that if I start dropping him at school he’ll move to live with his dad. Particularly as he’s not had a full week since summer so it’s come out of the blue (that’s the only time he spends a full week here) She’s very very difficult, won’t even allow him to bring his possessions between houses which is a shame for our son. She won’t allow telephone or Skype contact between weekends if there’s no midweek contact (let’s say if I don’t get a day off midweek) even though he’s a complete whizzkid on tablets and smartphones.
There’s so much more I could write but I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing his mum on here, but it was acknowledged by court Previously that she was trying to control contact and our obstacles in place.

Getting my sons opinion is impossible as it’s coloured by what his mum tells him! After he had been at his new school about a month I asked if he’d like it if I dropped him at school some mornings e.g Monday’s so on Sunday nights instead of travelling In the evening he could just have his tea here as normal then relax and go to bed, and he liked the idea but since his mum has scared him into thinking his resident parent would swap over he’s been put off. Understandably. I really wish she hadn’t done that to him. She also failed to tell me she was changing his school - she left that job to our son too and I only found out when he told me he was moving school.

I think I have a good routine for him when he’s with me, I take him to activities we do together, take him to see his nana, he has the games here that he likes that are at his mums, etc. He’s always enjoyed his week long contact periods in summer (we’ve shared summer hols for years!) and so it’s very odd that it’s come up now, which is why I suggested she was manipulating him.

For your son's sake why don't you suggest the increase in nights with no decrease in CMS. It might make her more willing to agree and will help your son in the meantime.

I don’t know for certain if cms is the reason she’s refusing though, she hadn’t mentioned it as a reason to refuse and I’d rather not appear to suggest that she’s money orientated. I have told her she would still be resident parent and that of course he would still live with her but she never answered that. I’ve just asked that we start slowly with increasing his every other weekend to three nights and Monday drop off instead of two overnights and a handover and she never answered after her initial refusal! Honestly trying to negotiate with her is impossible

It all seems bonkers to me, I work with women who complain that their ex’s want nothing to do with the kids post divorce and here I am basically pleading with my ex to let me do the occasional school run!!