Reasonable contact for dad

[MG08]

Who defines what reasonable contact is?

I have a near 2 year old and my ex husband doesn't think he sees her enough. He sees her 3 times during the week in the evening, and then has her one day at the weekend for 6 hours. I am looking to reduce this as find the 3 days in the week too much but he wants 4 evenings a week and both days at the weekend.

I know the norm for school age seems to be every other weekend and one evening a week. What is the norm for younger children? There would be no over nights at the moment for us.

Starting point should be 50/50 - if you didn't want to share a child you shouldn't have had one with him

If he is living with his parents wouldn't they help with over nights and help teach him parenting skills?

There has been emotional abuse and coercive control from him and his family. It is the reason we have separated as his parents have turned him against me, they are awful people. I don't want my daughter anywhere near his parents as they are toxic but at the moment I have no say as he lives with them. They don't have parenting skills themselves as they have failed to bring up an independent man, he is still a child to them, as are all the men in their wider family, and they love it. I will not be pushing overnight contact as it is not in my childs best interest, neither is 50:50, and I won't be making myself go out in the evening to force him into being a parent, he has plenty of opportunities when we were together, and I want to spend that time with my child when I have been at work too.

Fair enough, OP. If the arrangement suits your don't see why you'd need to change it, and it's certainly not your responsibility to teach this baby bird to fly, or inconvenience yourself to facilitate him doing so when he's shown no interest in it.

Might have been an idea to put all that in the OP!

I've been made to believe that emotional abuse doesn't have any impact on his contact though and if he wanted he could still request 50:50. I'm already having problems with the divorce process as I was seeing a solicitor and drafting my petition and then he went online and did his own application and made up a load of lies about me and I'm basically having to agree to them in order to go ahead with the divorce, because he got in there first even though he knew I was doing it, but now he's stopped me from being able to write down how he has treated me.

It's more the 3 times a week I am finding difficult because although it is also his house he is coming into my home and I find it too much.

Your situation sounds somewhat similar to mine. I split with stbxh in July and remain in the house we jointly own (I am paying all the mortgage and bills however). At first he wanted to see her 2.5 days a week (he has his two days off in the week instead of weekend) and would come to the house to be with her and stay in the spare room. I would go out. However after about a month this became unbearable. We also split due to him being emotionally abusive.

I then insisted he have her at his and agreed 2 full days and nights per week. He was staying in caravan in his parents which was meant to be temporary. However 9 months later he is still there. He has his full salary to himself so could rent somewhere but chooses not too. Also refuses to pay maintenance and gave me so much grief I eventually conceded to the 2.5 days (3 nights a week) he wanted. His parents are also incredibly toxic and I hate the idea of DD (3 years old) involvement with them. I know however if I tried to stop or change any of the above he would be unbearable, I would have a court battle on my hands and he would be saying god knows what to DD. It's a very difficult situation to contend with and I still don't feel strong enough to fight with him. I feel bloody guilty that I don't. Although he has her overnights he's a complete Disney dad, lets her eat junk endlessly and watch films all day. She comes back exhausted and he has admitted he is unable to tell her no on anything as he "wants her to have a nice time" with him.

Therefore I spend the remaining 4.5 days of the week trying to regulate her sleep and diet and being the bad guy with boundaries. It's exhausting. She's constantly begging to be with daddy. She's also had a constant cold for the last 6 months, probably due to staying so frequently in a leaking, cold caravan.

If I were back in your position I would wish I had the strength to hold my ground, and fight for the right level access.