Holiday Contact

[wirral]

Hi. Some of you may have been following my on going saga with my exh. I am trying to be amicable.It is difficult but I thought that we were reaching an impasse but now I need help again.

The court order for our daughter states that he has her the third week of the Summer hols and the last two weeks of the holiday.

Daughter is normally willing to go for the first week but baulks at the full fortnight. Last year she came home for the weekend in the middle.

I have been asking ex to confirm the arrangements for this year. I've been asking periodically since about Oct 2007. He just avoids the subject,

Last week he said that he was going to discuss with daughter. She returned from his house saying that she was coming home bank holiday weekend. I waited and waited for him to confirm this but he didn't so I eventually emaiiled him. He replied saying that he wanted to show daughter the dates on a calandar tonight,

Daughter has returned from his, not having seen a calandar and says that holidays were discussed. I haven't heard anything from him.

This is causing me a major problem. We go on holiday next ween and I need to know, for work, the dates that I need to take off over the Summer.

How do I resolve this and keep things amicable?

You put in writing the dates as you understand them to be and ask him to contact you immediately if there is any problem with them.

Also state that you need to make your own holiday arrangements for work etc so if you have not heard from him within 7 days (give him a specific date) that you will assume he agrees the dates as stated and that if he subsequently can't do any of those dates he will make arrangements for holiday cover etc as necessary as it is his holiday time with dd.

Start the letter with something like:

'Further to our numerous conversations time is now very short and we need to make specific arrangements with regard to school holidays to avoid confusion. The court order states [xyz]...

As you have not put forward a proposal so far I suggest the following arrangement:

[dates/times] etc'

Then put bit about how you have to confirm arrangements and book time off with work and book holiday clubs etc and asking him to confirm within 7 days if he has any changes.

Also add a note requesting that next year all arrangements are confirmed in writing at least 3 months before the holidays.

Gilly