He wants to take the kids ‘50/50’?!

[Storytime75]

I would be grateful for any advice please.

My friend’s husband has been having an emotional affair for months. She found out a month ago and is obviously incredibly hurt and confused. There has been a lot of arguing since and she has asked him to move out so they can have some space to figure things out, without damaging the children.

He will be living in a flat, rented for 3 months. He is now saying ‘I will be having the kids at the flat 50/50’. ‘You will have them in the week at home and I’ll have them here at the weekend’.

Can anyone help with what the legal line is on this? Its a terrible idea to uproot the children, especially while they are trying to work out, and its such a temporary situation. The oldest is starting school this week.

He is completely irrational and unreasonable so there is no getting through to him.

Please help x

Nesting with the wife doing all pickups and drop offs is unacceptable. One of the advantages of 50/50 is not having your career limited by the need to do school runs and drop offs for 50% of the time. If the husband can’t do school runs/drop offs then he needs to organise paid childcare 50% of the time or not have the kids on weekdays. Some parents have longer periods of contact during school holidays.

Good advice here.

This is going to sound very harsh but she needs to stop thinking about how he is going to do certain things. It isn't her problem. If he is whining about not being able to do certain things then he will have to hire a third party to do things he says he can't. Plenty of mums are disabled and do the school run every day, he's a big baby.

He isn't her friend and his problems aren't hers to sort out. Make him have them 50/50 in his own place, definitely not nesting, he'll soon get bored and hand them back.

Has this dick head not upended her life enough ...and now wants to take the kids half the time. How unfair

What is with these twats wanting 50/50 so much in the last few years

I swear it's to avoid maintenance and to hurt the mums.

When I split up with dc1 dad 18 years ago when DS was 6 months. he stayed with me other than 1 or 2 visits a month then when he was old enough an overnight a month as well. it was absolutely unheard of for dads to have 50/50 let alone any more

Call me old fashioned or just plain wrong but IMO belong with their mums primarily (other than in cases of safeguarding issues) .

You also have the change your language around this

He CAN do drop offs and pick ups even if disabled- he can get a taxi

It's not 50:50 at the moment, if he wants to move towards this he'll have to do some actual fucking work

What disability does he have that means he can’t do drop offs or pick ups? At my school there is a mum in a wheelchair who manages to do them and dad who has to hire a taxi every morning he has the kids for drop off as he doesn’t drive. You do what you have to.

They have split up though so access starts already. A court would use 50/50 as a starting point but it won’t mean he gets to choose every weekend or that an even split will be granted.

It sounds like he is already thinking this split is permanent. He doesn't get to call the shots about having the kids every weekend - this is not 50/50 anyway. Your friend needs legal advice and set up mediation to reach a sensible agreement which will benefit the children.

50/50 is what it says on the tin

He does friday-friday (she picks them up from school on Friday)

You do friday-friday (he picks them up from school on the Friday)

This if he wants 50/50 he has to do some school days too. It's not fair for him to grab all the fun weekends leaving Mum with school times.

This is fair if DC young maybe stay one over night on Wednesday with opposite parent.

He knows the split is permanent and he's dangling the 'maybe we can work this out' carrot in order to get his own way...

Other parents manage to do drop offs with a disability he will have to manage and buy in help if necessary.

I disagree with them being in and out of the family home, it often causes confusion with the child and means mum can't settle as dad is there or ends up doing all the donkey work whilst he is on the couch watching tv. Them staying at dads for a couple of nights will be ok, theyll adapt, children do as long as they have clothes and some toys there.

His disability prevents him collecting the children from school but not from having sole responsibility for them all weekend? I'm wondering what disability that is. If it's just that he can't drive for some reason, and while they have been together his wife has done the pickups and drop offs, he will have to get used to her no longer facilitating his life.
If he wants 50:50, or to have the DC at all, he will have to make appropriate arrangements for other people to do what he can't, whether that's because of a disability or his working arrangements.
He's not being very realistic, is he?
Is your friend used to doing what he says?
She needs to get proper legal advice , and in the meantime don't agree to anything.

A friend of mine did the Birdnesting when she and her husband divorced. I was skeptical but it worked beautifully for them.

These children are only 3 and 4... a whole week away from -mum- the other parent might be too much.
Also, if H can't do the school runs due to his disability, what else can't he do? Can he ever take the children out, or go shopping for their needs, to get them in and out of the bath. Could he evacuate them from wherever he's living if there was a fire? etc etc etc? The children's best interests need scrutinising very carefully in this scenario, to work out whether he can realistically and adequately
parent them.

Mediation now!!

I would just say no, we need a sustainable plan that puts the children first. If you want to parent that’s great, you can take them to school and pick them up twice a week. You will not be taking them out of their home every weekend.

50:50 means doing half of the hard days, not taking all the weekends and school breaks. If he can’t or won’t school drop-off and pickup on his days, then he can’t have 50:50.

The mother should not facilitate him by agreeing to let him have the children overnight, but she still has daytime responsibility. She will be destroying herself financially if she falls into that trap.

he will end up with every other weekend like every other barely involved father.

The alternative is that he does what every mother is expected to do and figure out how to manage his work life and his parenting life simultaneously.

"He cannot do pickups and dropoffs due to working hours."

Tough. In that case he'll need to change his working hours. And 50:50 means he does three days/nights one week and four the next.

He sounds like my ex, all threats and loud mouthed bluster until it actually came to putting in the hours. He finally settled on 7 hours a week, because anything more would have impacted his work, his tennis and his pub with the boys.

Your friend needs a solicitor.

Pp made an excellent point about it being up to dad to come up with solutions to problems like pick up/drop off and not for your friend to work it out for him. She needs to focus on maximizing income and enabling her ex by doing parenting tasks like drop off and pick up is shooting her self in the foot financially.

Kids are happier when there’s fewer transitions. Mum picking up from school then dropping off at his could be more upsetting than Dad picking up from school directly . He needs to organise after school care if he can’t pick up at 3 because 50% care means doing 50% of the actual parenting.

It's not fair to anyone if Dad only has them at the weekend, every weekend, never get her to agree to that! Every other weekend is fair, holidays split and week day split around school, so one Monday to Wednesday morning school drop off, Wednesday school pick up to Friday then whoevers turn at the weekend.