We've split - he wants DC 3 nights a week?

[BankHolidayBlues]

It was my decision to split after having suffered EA and other things I don't really wanna go into (will probably out me)

He's taken it pretty badly but the last few days has come to terms with it.
We split about 2 weeks ago. He still lives in the house with us, sleeping on the sofa, until his parents can have him at theirs (long story) but that should be in the next couple of days.

Anyway we've been discussing child arrangements but he's saying he wants DC 3 nights a week. My ex MIL is a nasty spiteful old cow who any chance she gets will criticise me or my parenting etc. I haven't spoken to her in about a year, and DC will only see her maybe once a month when my XP goes to see her.
I have told him I don't want DC around her alone as I know she'll slag me off and I want to keep my DC out of this as much as possible. He's saying she'll behave etc. I just don't believe it.

I can't not let XP see DC, but he'll be living with her.

He also works 6 days a week so he won't even be having DC during the day, he said he'd put DC in a nursery while he's at work but I can see the old bat kicking up a fuss that she'll look after him for free etc.

I really don't know what to do.
Even if we arrange the days he has DC are around his day off, he'll still not be there for 2 days.

WTF am I gonna do?

Yeah that's totally right, I don't know if I'm walking on eggshells as I'm not afraid of him or afraid of his reactions, he's not a violent man. But I do get anxious about saying things to him, for example he's still living here, but I have no money at all (waiting on benefits to come through but could be looking at almost another 6-8 weeks) I've almost run out of food and I feel guilty asking him for money because he'll be moving out in a couple of days.
He also said he'd pay some bills for the next month for me which is really helpful but isn't enough, if that makes sense. I don't want to stay with him because it's financially beneficial.

I do think that if we went to court, they'd agree with me. Why would they take DC away from the loving and capable mother so they can go into a nursery or be in the care of MIL just for the sake of him saying he has DC 3 nights a week.

I'm going to stand my ground with this one, he can have 2 nights a week and come over 2 nights a week to do bedtime.
I want to be prepared for the worst but I don't know what he could do if he disagrees.

I wouldnt have him two night a week in your home.
You are getting divorced, whihc means each of you starting to lead your onw life.
Yes it means that he will see the dcs less. Maybe he could start by spending the whole day he has of with them.
But having him in your house would be the open door for him to make more comments and for you to feel guilty about asking anything from him.
You need to detach.

He can absolutely do nothing except take you to court, and then he would not get his way.

Once he moves out, make sure you stick to the 2 nights plan and don't let it slip. Maintain what you want. If he wants to see DC more, he can come over.

Don't be pressured into his two nights being over the weekend, every weekend. Once DC is in school, that will mean that you - and they- don't ever get downtime at home. And that will then be the norm and very hard to change. And if he's not supportive, that will also have a detrimental effect on homework, friendships (can't come to the class party because have to be at dad's this saturday) etc.

This is why the norm is every OTHER weekend, then a night in the week. So both parents get weekend time.

I would suggest this to be honest, and one night in the week every week. As that's the normal starting point it will be harder for him to argue against it. But yes, you could offer other weeknights where he always comes to do bedtime, etc.

Absolute foot down with regards to him organising childcare which isn't him. If he's not going to be there, it isn't contact and it doesn't need to happen.

This should help to weed out the MIL influence.

It's very early days, I'd try and decide as little as possible right now. You could also drop in to conversation that if MIL doesn't behave, the likeliest eventual outcome is that DC is probably not going to want to spend time with someone who simply makes them feel awkward by slagging off their mum and their home, and that might end up with him seeing them less too...

By the way if you think there's a chance he might kick off and not return DC after contact, you might want to explore getting a residence order which say that DC commonly reside with you. If you have that, the police can return DC if he tries that nonsense. Without it, you'd have to actually go to court and get an order and only then would you get them returned, which will obviously be very stressful.

Hi

My partner and I are not getting on, I feel he always makes points on top of points especially when it comes to the children, he is constantly trying to prove to me that I somehow don't care about them, it's awful I really hate it. When my daughter was born (11 months ago) he broke his arm 2 days before my csection, luckily he was able to get the op done on time, when I arrived back at home I had the worse pain ever, nerve pain, he didn't want to sit with me upstairs nor did he make me breakfast even though he was making everyone else, he literally left me to feel like I was weak and couldn't cope on my own, this created a lot of anger for me as I felt used so I made it very difficult for him to go and enjoy himself outside whilst I was at home in pain, he wanted to go and take my son out. Since then I have had stress after stress do to a long recovery (I stayed in for 4 months nearly during the week) I couldn't pick my son up so I was restricted to being indoors - and when we arranged childcare I went out but was literally in doors a lot anyway because of still needing to be with my son when he wasn't with childminder. I felt my partner wasn't very supportive during this period, I was going through so much stress with my son who was 2.5 years old at the time as he kicked and tantrumed a lot during nappy changes and he is non verbal (possibly ASD) we are going through assessments ATM, that was another stress, my partner made me feel like I was making up my son had ASD, he said when I talked about his negative behaviours that I was putting him down when in fact I was trying to highlight that I felt he had ASD and he was totally against it but seems to be in a bit of agreement now after all the stress and accusations.

Due to all the stress of the recovery I ended up suffering with Health Anxiety which again he doesn't try to understand, instead he says he's no psychiatrist and makes me feel like i can't talk to him. He looks after the kids in the evening after dinner around 7 to 8 to 8.30 and on weekends, I used to help more on the weekends but I feel unappreciated by him and he says things like I can't cope as a mum coz I'm struggling with my anxiety in the week with kids so I don't see why I should make his weekends easier when he talks to me this way. I really don't know what to do.

Bank

Do not make the same mistake I did. I felt so guilty leaving my violent abusive ex that I gave him 2 days during the week and every sat-sun.

The courts see this as a precedent and try to stick with it or change it very little.

I would start with 1 bedtime a week and the one day he has off. I wouldn't even do overnights. If he wants more, in the future you can say an overnight on his day off.

These kinds of men, push and push. Sometimes it's not even about the dcs at all. It's about controlling you are making your life difficult.

Do not start by giving him everything now, because he will want more in the future.

Good negotiation start with very little and add a bit, they don't give loads straight off the bat!

Ignore posters who think he should get 50% purely based on him being the df. That's not how it works sometimes. My now dp could have 50% no problem if we split up. With my ex, there was no chance that would have worked. He got the standard 1 day and wow and 16 years later my dd wants next to nothing to do with him. These inadequate abusive husbands/partners don't usually have a completely different personality when dealing with their dcs.

The people arguing 50/50 probably have a decent dp/dh at home and project this onto everyone else.

By the way, my dp was so bad, that the courts did eventually take days off him. (In case my previous post sounds confused)

We had 5 carcass officers, and at least 4 judges that I remember over 10 years.......and I never even denied him contact.

Yours may never be this bad, but I got more when I started giving in less. Remember that.

Sadly sometimes OP court is absolutely necessary. I tried for 18 months to avoid ot. However ex was using contact with dd as a way of controlling/punishing me. We ended up there twice.

It's not nice. It's pretty intrusive and stressful and my ex was extremely spiteful for want of a better word. However the courts saw straight through him and awarded the contact I wanted which was eow/1 night for tea.

And at the end of the day a relationship split normmally means both parents see less of their dcs. It is sad for your ex that he is suddenly struggling with this side of things. However if he hadn't been EA to you it wouldn't be happening I suspect.

I also suspect that the sad faces and 3 nights are more to do with maintenance than wanting to spend time with the dc. If he wanted to spend more time he could look at reducing his hours or changing them at least.