: Ex keeps breaking contact agreement – would a court order help?

[MummyofoneT]

Hi all,

I'm after some advice from anyone who's been through similar. My ex and I had a co-parenting agreement (not court-ordered) about when he drops off and picks up our daughter. Lately, he’s been completely ignoring the times we agreed — turning up late, early, and refusing to communicate, he also refused mediation. It's causing a lot of stress and making it hard to plan anything around contact days.

I've tried being reasonable and reminding him of what we agreed, but I get no response . I'm starting to wonder if it’s worth going down the route of getting a formal court order to put some structure in place.
Have any of you been through this? Did a court order actually help? Or am I overreacting and should I just try to ignore it and ride it out?
Is it actually enforceable, what are the consequences if he breaks it?. At the moment he works nights so we have a bit of an odd routine, I'm kind of worried if they get involved they might say I should have her in the week and he stays with her at weekends which would be upsetting for both of us. Can you state the pick up times you have already agreed and just get them to reinforce that or could this potentially back fire on me?

Thanks in advance — any insights or shared experiences welcome!

He does want to spend time with her, the problem is he wants to annoy me any way he can and knows refusing to communicate will do. He is purposefully late home every Saturday evening as he knows I might have plans. God knows how we are going to get through the summer holidays am dreading it! I really want a plan at least so I know where I am with holidays like Christmas etc.

I had to do everything via court as my ex was a controlling arse. Eventually they gave me full custody as they felt he was dangerously disruptive.

Do you have any joint friends that you could ask to have a subtle word with him? If someone else tells him what a twat he’s being, might he pay attention?

He is purposefully late home every Saturday evening as he knows I might have plans

So make sure you go out if he’s not back at the agreed time. Then he will have to keep her for longer, that may concentrate his mind!

What is the current contact arrangement and when doesn’t he work? Remember you need quality weekend time with her too.

Have a babysitter be there to receive her if you are going out.

He works nights so our arrangement isn't great but we have always been quite 50/50 so I couldn't really see any other way than what he suggested. Unfortunately this means quite a lot of transitions between the two homes which I know she doesn't like that much. This is our schedule -

Monday & Wednesday I pick up from school & have overnight.

Tuesday, Thursday & Friday he picks her up from school then he either drops her off or I pick up at 7.30.

Saturday -With me until 6 then she's with him until he drops at school on Monday.

So I have her 5 nights a week, do 4 school morning runs which means I get to see her in the morning 4 days a week.

Really don't know how to make it more workable, any ideas welcome!. I don't expect he would agree to any changes though. He did suggest we alternate weekends, I'm not sure about that still thinking about it.

Sorry @MascaraGirl if that wasn't clear, I meant I have her on a Saturday & drop her off at 6pm at his house, but he has made me wait for ages every time I've gone to drop her off in the last 3 weeks. I realise I could just take her home then he would have to come and get her but if I've made plans obviously that isn't ideal! Guess I might have to have my mum as a back up when I want to go out, then I could bring her back to mine and my mum would be there, but why should I be doing this!!

He doesn't work at the weekend or on Monday so had her Saturday evening. Sunday then takes her to school Monday. So I get Saturday day time as my quality time with her x

The law needs to be changed so such behaviour has consequences. Ones that hurt his ego.

Advice to go to court is sadly not good advice. A court order won't change his behaviour, it doesn't have any kind of consequences if he breaches it and I highly doubt you'd get what you want from a court order anyway. It would be stressful, adversarial, unhelpful and long. I really would advise you to muddle through the best you can while avoiding court.

The court can't make him do anything. That's the reality. There are no fines for bad behaviour.

Well I would stop dropping off and tell him you aren’t doing it anymore as he hasn’t been there on time he can collect from yours and if he’s late you will be out and taking DD with you.

Perhaps it is time to do EOW Friday after school to Monday morning and he sorts his own childcare out for overnights during the week.

This. It's a huge amount of stress for a piece of paper that he can still ignore. Although technically he could be fined for breaching it, if he has any sort of excuse ( e.g shift/night working) nothing will happen. Probably all you can do is make whatever holiday arrangements you need to and just tell him you will be away xyz, and if he objects to those being 'his' days tell him his option is to go to court. He won't.

You are no where near 50/50 if you do 5 nights ..

I would give him a warning you will give 10 minutes then makes alternative plans .

you do this in an email stating the reasons why .

is the early arrival one day or frequently . If frequently go out till the time due .

The Eow would work better . You say your Dd doesn’t like the frequent change and less time for him to mess about . If he has her from Friday night to Monday one weekend then he can’t interrupt your plans .

If you're dropping off, turn around & leave if he isn't there within 10 minutes. After it's happened twice, email him stating that he'll need to pick up at yours in future. Go out with dd if he's 10 minutes late.

If he's dropping her back, be out until 10 minutes before the agreed time, then if he's not appeared 10 minutes later, go out again. Just drive round the block to a coffee shop or something...or be home but 'in the bath' & not answering.

Yes, it'll bugger up your social life for a bit, but eventually he'll realise it's mucking him about, too. Don't get into arguments about it. Reiterate that if he wants to change arrangements with reasonable notice you're happy to oblige BUT he'll need to contact you via the app.

Get maintenance in place (doesn't sound like he's doing 50:50). Don't provide clothes etc (either you'll never see them again or they'll come back dirty, & her PE kit or warm coat or something fairly vital will go missing at the least convenient times imaginable), beyond dressing her for time with him in clothes you aren't bothered about.

Just completely grey rock him on everything. Smile sweetly, shrug, steely resolve. He'll get bored when he's not managing to yank your chain.

Id happily keep my child home with me and put the onus on him to pick up. If Im home it’s all good if not I’ll drop off.

Thank you ladies, some great advice here. I'm thinking about the every other weekend thing, I might talk to my daughter and ask her how she feels about it first. As he refuses to communicate I have no idea how I'm going to action it though!.

I don’t think a court will be too happy about getting involved over a half an hour difference in agreed pick up times. I sure half the children exchanges in the country don’t happen at precisely the agreed times, and whether it’s deliberately done to annoy you or not, is probably neither here nor there to them. They have more important things to deal with.

Best thing would be to restructure your arrangements to minimise the number of handovers. But I guess he’s not going to agree to that.

does he pay cms. that not 50 50 it based on nights

He’s behaving like this because he knows it annoys you- and it’s working.

You need to stop giving him a level of control over you. Email him, and if he doesn’t reply- who cares. Don’t email him to ask- email him telling him what the plan is ie holidays.

It sucks but don’t book things likes nights out when he has her. He’ll make it difficult.

Let him know when you drop off, you’ll wait 15 minutes then leave. And do it. For him dropping her off, don’t come home before 15 minutes of when you agreed. If he goes even earlier- act like it’s great. Great that you get extra time with your child.

Before you go to court, you have to go to mediation, this isn’t free but it gives you a platform for you to make a better timetable.

Feeling really low today, could use some more advice on this. The summer holiday fuckery has begun!. Just to remind you my ex refuses to communicate so I sent an email that mapped out the whole holiday and who is having my DD when, he completely ignored it but I do know he got it as I also gave my DD a printed version! .

DD & I went away for a few days and when we came back I was supposed to drop her off at his at 6.30 pm as normal on Saturday. She was texting him in the afternoon & he said he thought she was still away with me and said 'Mummy will have to drop you off at 7.30 at his mates house who was having a party'. He totally did it on purpose, he even mentioned to her last week that I'd have to drop her off on Saturday at a different house so he knows full well we were home, it definitely says it in the email I sent and the print out.

Anyway as he refuses to communicate & has blocked me on everything (which he told her!) so we have to give messages to each other through our daughter which she hates quite rightly so. I've told him this and he doesn't care. So on Saturday afternoon we were having to exchange these messages through her and as he was just doing whatever he wanted & I'd already made plans it ended up in my daughter getting upset and saying she wants to be adopted as her family are so horrible to each other.

I'm really upset that me leaving him has resulted in him behaving in a way that is hurting her. Do you think next time I should just agree to do whatever he wants so she doesn't get upset?. Every time I try to stand up to him it ends up in her getting upset I just don't know what to do anymore but letting him bully me doesn't feel right either.

I would just not drop her off, he hasn’t made an agreements with YOU. He wasn’t home so just leave it until he gets in tough with you.

You need to speak to Women’s Aid or similar he is using your DD to continue to abuse and control you.

@RandomMess the problem is she has a phone so can have contact with the other parent, so he would then just text her and tell her when he's coming to get her. I've had an appointment with Women's aid before but think I focused more on other elements such as th divorce so maybe I'll the again thank you x

I'm an IDVA, and have seen this game played hundreds of times. It's usually because the NRP doesn't want their ex to be able to arrange any kind of social life, so need to stay unpredictable. It's also because they don't like compromising because if they do they feel like they've 'lost'.

If you were my client, and given what your daughter has said about wanting to be adopted, I'd consider stopping contact due to the emotional harm caused to her by the situation, and waiting for him to make a court application for a CAO. You'd have to balance that against how upset your daughter would be, but given her comment I'd be taking into account the possible emotional harm created by the situation as it is, rather than the shorter term upset of her not seeing him. If he takes it to court he'd have to go to the trouble and expense of setting out his preferred days and times, and may be more likely to stick to a proposal he'd felt he had a hand in creating.

That's only one option though, and you need to factor in the impact on her. If it is likely to do more harm than good, I would suggest being incredibly boundaried from now on. If he's not there when you turn up at his home, then leave. Take her somewhere fun. For a good few months at least, don't make firm plans of your own when he's due to have her so that you can welcome her with open arms when she's (eg) dropped off early. He wants to inconvenience you, so if you're delighted and available when he brings her back, it will take the power out of that situation.

I can see why it's very upsetting for her to be passing messages back and forth, and I can't imagine any court proposing that as a solution to your communication with him, which alone is a good reason not to stand for it. One of the methods that works for some of my clients is a contact book so he can write the messages in there. If he refuses and wants to text them through your daughter, you have to stick firmly to the boundary. Tell him it's not working for you, so any messages that come that way won't be acknowledged by you. It's the book / app or nothing. Mean it and stick to it. It will be bumpy at first as he won't like losing control and feeling like you're calling the shots, but this should be about her above everything else. And he's very unlikely to change his behaviour on his own.