my ex huband wants his girlfriend to care for dd to make arrangement more 50/50 i really need advice

[princessdaisyboo]

we have been seperated for just over 2 years and have always tried to split custody as fairly as possible, our 3.5dd sleeps at his house 3 or 4 nights a week alternating, his sets nights are wed, thurs,fri each week, and alternating sat night. DD attends nursery mon, wed, fri 9-3 and we each pay half. I am currently on maternity(have DS from new relationship) leave but am going to stay off work for an extra year so i can continue looking after my children myself as dd only starts school 2010.

Therefore ex collects dd from me on wed evening on way home from work then drops her back off with me on thurs morn and collects her again on thurs evening. on fri again he drops her with me to take her to nursery then i collect her at 3 and she is with me until he finishes work.

His girlfriend is now on maternity leave as they have a 3 week old baby and what ex is proposing is that she will collect dd from nursery on a wed, have her all day thurs and then again take her and collect her from nursery on a friday, he says that this will give her more structure.

I have said no to this, he was furious. The arrangement is between him and me not his girlfriend (who i dont have a problem with at all) but why would i agree to someone else caring for my child when i am not at work for the sole reason to care for dd myself.

we did not have any custody agreed when we divorced as i thought we were able to sort it amicably between ourselves, but now the divorce and settlement has been done i feel like he is trying to bully me into this.

he text me at 10pm last night saying dd will be staying here tomorrow with girlfriend so i wont be dropping her of. i rang him and said i had made plans for today (which i have) and he cant just text me so late he day before. I am as flexible as possible but i dont want to agree to this, and think im going to have to get some legal advice???????

sorry its so long and complicated

I sympathise with the op and don't have any experience of this at all.

I personally, but this is just my opinion, cannot see how it is benficial to a young child to be put with(sorry cannot think of a better expression) a nanny/in nursery when her mother is available and willing to look after her. Thinking here of the ops future thoughts.
Regardless of whos turn it is to look after her surely common sense should prevail.

Ps the reverse should be true also ie if child's father is available then she should go there and not nursery as would happen if the parents were in a stable relationship still together.

It makes me sad when I read people posting that they are suspicious of men wanting 50:50 contact. Could it be that these men love and miss their children and want the opportunity to be as much of a parent as possible. If you are reluctant to go three days without seeing your DD, then remember thats what you ask your ex to do all the time when contact is limited to the weekend. Imagine how painful that must be to a parent who wants to stay involved.

I was raised in a 50:50 arramgement, because both my parents felt it was unfair to deprive me of a parent who loved me. And it worked fine from my point of view. Children accept their situation as normal so long as it is consistant and free of conflict.

IMO Your dd has two families now, with new siblings - in one family she has a SAHM, and thats great, but in her other family, dad works. By bringing her home every time her dad is not in, you are telling her that there is something wrong with her other family (and her stepmother), and that your arrangement is better. That won't help her to adapt and accept the situation. So long as you believe your dd to be safe, you have to let the other family work out how they will function without interferance.

Get legal advice.

I did a 50:50 split with dh for a couple of years, and agree with Anna, it can work very well. I do think your current arrangements are pretty odd to be honest, there is a lot of toing and froing, and it must be difficult to plan for and a pain to execute. dh and I basically ran things so that we were each the primary carer during the time when our children were with us, and that we parented together when it came to any major decisions. We had periods when dh was not working but that didn't mean that he had the children all the time, or that I took them over to him on "my days". His arrangements were entirely his own, as were mine.

The trouble is with arrangements for children is that over time things will change, and so will your priorities. You both have new families now, and your dd is a part of both of them. that means step mums and dads do come into the picture, and there is no doubt that brings a whole host of issues (although hopefully for your dd also a enlarged family of people who love her).

I think it is terribly sad that fathers who want to spend as much time with their children are considered suspect. My children have two parents, and they are both important, I really don't see that mothers should be automatically considered best (at least once babyhood is over). My understanding of the research on shared parenting was that it was an excellent model, but I've not actively looked for research for a while.

We spent most of yesterday afternoon responding to DP's exW's proposal for how we split weekends and holidays in academic year 2009/10 (we review arrangements annually), taking everyone's constraints into account as far as possible but focusing on the DSSs' agenda first and foremost.

It is a lot of hard work to get right, and fair! I wonder if this is why it is often considered "better for the children" to have a single primary residence - because their parents and stepparents are incapable of negociating an equitable agreement peacefully?

princess - how did the chat with her go?

we have not yet had any chat to try and resolve this, my ex has avoided me and when he dropped dd off yesterday i didnt want to talk about it in front of her, i decided to not talk to his gf about it just yet, im working on an email to him to explain myself and putting forward some other suggestions that maybe we can come to some agreement on,
personally i am beginning to feel that my dd would benefit more from being with me more in my home during the week, especially for when she starts school, im suggesting tht he stops having her on a wed night and that he can collect her from me thursday evening and then his gf can take her and collect her from nursery on a friday then stay with them every friday night and alternating sat night?
DD has started saying she doesn't want to go to his house and she just wants to stay with me, but this could be because we have just been away so she has had me constantly for two weeks, also with a very small baby at her dads house maybe she is just adjusting to that.

I thought I'd posted this already but I can't find it.

When she starts school will it be local to both of you? You will probably each want a weekend day with her so if it is then this arrangement will probably make sense. I suggest he has her either all day Sunday until Wednesday morning, you pick her up Wednesday afternoon and have her Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night and all day Saturday or vice versa.

In the time being I would change her nursery days to the 3 consecutive days that he has her so either Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday or Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That way it means you can make the most of being off and have 2 full days with her when she's not at nursery which makes sense if her Dad works Mon-Fri anyway.

To be honest I think your present arrangement is a lot of toing and froing. I think the suggestion you make of keeping her with you on the wednesday was a sensible one.

I think your ex may have a problem with your ppartner looking after her because you seem to have a problem with his gf looking after her??

thanks nappy addict, really good suggestions there , we need to sit down together and work is out. we live very close together and school is very local, not sure if im happy that i would not have any contact with nursery ie taking and collecting, but once she starts school i can see that this could work, but only if ex gf is not going back to work.

Many people don't have contact though if they use childminders. Not sure how it works in theory, but it must do. Anyway using my examples above you would pick her up on either a Wednesday afternoon or drop her off Wednesday morning depending on whether you had her Sun-Wed or Wed-Sat so you would still have contact with nursery.