overnight stay - am I being unreasonable?

[christle]

My husband and I agreed to seperate at the start of June but it took until last week for him to move back to his parents (which he originally said would do). He has taken 3 days off work this week to look after our youngest daughter (aged 10), we have another teenage daughted almost 16. Although he has moved out we still haven't come to an agreement over finances and the house and are seeing lawyers about this.
He said that he wanted the girls to stay at his parents for the 3 days that he's taken off work. I said no for 2 reason.

1. The girls would need to share a double bed while he sleeps on the sofa.
2. No finances have been agreed yet. He sent me a text message the previous day saying that according to the CSA he would only need to give me £101/wk and that would drop if the girls spent more than 52 nights a year with him. I would accept that figure if he was going to be paying half the mortgage but he won't be and, as such, can afford to give me more. I just feel that if he's going to hold 52 days over my head then I can't agree to them staying overnight just now. Am I wrong?

Another person here who thinks you should try and keep money and contact separate.

I understand you must be mightily pissed off about the financial stuff, but the contact is for the good of your children, not him.

Why should Christle "play nice" when its obvious that he isnt?

Because two wrongs don't make a right and as said by others the children should not be caught in the crossfire or be used as bargaining chips.

on the finance part if the CSA min payment is £110 a wk and you think you need £140 a wk to break even why do you not speak to your debt management company and re negociate the payments with them.
If you are already on a debt management plan your credit history won't get any worse. Offer payments of £1 a month if necessary.

If this allows you to maintain the mortgage on your current house while the legal stuff is sorted. I understand that if you are forced to sell it won't necessarily help in this ..... but if you have to look to rent somewhere in the future you can proove to the letting agency etc ( esp as you know that your credit history is bad) that you CAN and DO make payments such as rent/mortgage payments.

I know not every letting agent is sympathetic to this but there are some that are.

I'm not saying he shouldn't see the children, they are old enough to decide for themselves, it will be a bit difficult to keep it from the 16 year old that her dad wants to force her mum to sell a house in negative equity when all that will do is create greater hardship, they will both still be liable for the debt long after the house is sold. He must have had terrible legal advice, it's downright crazy.
£100 per week in maintainance for 2 children is shameful if he's earning a decent wage too.

If the CSA say £100 ish for two kids. His wages can't be that great.

Your 16yo is free to make her own decisions as to how often she sees her df and whether or not she wants to stay overnight at his place, and your 10yo is coming to an age where her wishes with regard to contact with her df will be taken into account by a Family Court.

It's by no means certain that any Court will agree that the marital/family home should be sold nor that he should receive 50% of any proceeds, negative or otherwise.

As advised by others upthread, keep your dcs' contact with their df out of any financial wrangling and keep a note of every item he removes from your home together with its approximate value because, sooner or later, every aspect of your joint and individual finances will be scrutinised by outside parties and you may find that these items will be counted in your favour.

Just treat the financial matters as one issue and the access arrangements as another. It's ok to be majorly pissed off and think he is a twat, but honestly, it's best to act with dignity & take the moral highground.

If he is being arsey then go for access that is regular and suits the children. You need to know in advance when he has the children moving forward so that there is stability for the children and so that you can both make plans and move on with your lives.

Money wise he is talking out of his arse anyway about the house. Of course you haven't got to give him 50% of the Market value of the house! It's not paid for yet. He's either stupid or shit stirring. If it's in negative equity he can either keep paying half the mortgage until children have left full time education at which point you'd probably sell & split equity (prob won't be much anyway) or he can do the decent thing and sign it over to you. He's not losing anything financially, if anything he'd be well rid if it's in negative equity. It won't reflect well on him in court if he pushes for a sale that will benefit no-one.

If you can't get the mortgage in your own name, do you have anyone, a family member, who would apply for it with you, just so that you can get it? But not actually make any payments? (I've done this with my mum, she trusts me, I've never missed a payment).

Yes, two wrongs do not make a right. You are way too focused on him IMHO. None of this is about him. It is about the children. Paying maintenance is nothing to do with contact. Paying makes things easier for the parent with care, the children are unlikely to care much about it at least until much much later if ever at all.

It is very frustrating but unfortunately you cannot do anything about a NRP who won't pay, it is crap but it is tough, the very last thing you want to make the children feel like is that they are being sold and can only see their dad if he pays, or teach him that if he pays he is entitled to get what he pays for, that will make them resent you in the future, it is absolutely horrible to prevent or interfere with a child having a relationship with their father because he won't pay money for them I think. When he is not paying he is making them lose out on money, when you interfere with his contact you are making them lose out on time with their father that they will never get back.

Even if he is a shit that is time learning who he really is that they miss out on. If he is a shit you need to be able to confidently assert yourself about what contact is best for the children but you will not be able to do that if you have created a link in both of your minds between the money and the contact. There is no link.