50/50 custody when one parent has been the main caregiver

[thinkingSilver]

Please can I have some advice.
I have read that courts automatically give 50/50 custody most of the time now. It’s not a case of children going every second weekend to the father anymore.
My question is, will the father get 50/50 custody if this is what he is requesting? Even though I have always been the main caregiver? I work three days a week and get up every single morning with the children, I look after them every school holiday (I work in education), I cook three meals for them every day, do their laundry, arrange all their play dates, take them to all their activities - ranging from water babies when they were babies to gymnastics, piano and brownies and what not now that they are older.
They are 6 and 11. I would be devastated if a 50/50 custody agreement was given, because my whole life is around the children. I do so much for them. For many years I haven’t worked and now I work part time for the past 3.5 years. I have a very small pension as a result.

If he insists on 50/50 custody, will he get it?
(He would have to employ a nanny anyway as he works a long hours city job in finance).

Also, how will domestic violence affect custody of the children. I called the police in May when he lost his temper badly and it was extremely violent on his part, although he did not physically touch me. But there were many other incidences like this in the first half of 2020 and end of 2019 which I did not call the police.
He has never lost his temper with the children badly so I wouldn’t say they are in danger but then again, he has never looked after them for one full day?! He might if they stay with him for a length of time.

Custody- please share your thoughts about this.

We are just in the early stages of divorce. He has sent a draft petition for divorce from his solicitor to me.

Thanks in advance.

One person’s ”lazy man-ways” are another’s “working hard to earn the household’s income.”

OP has been able to spend so much time at home with their DC precisely because of the income he’s provided.

It might not even be the balance he wanted originally - did OP ever give him the opportunity to cut back and spend more time at home? Was that ever an option for him?

Recent studies show that 50/50 arrangements work incredibly well for children after separation. But the main study took place in scandi countries where actual patenting is more equal. It stands to reason that if maternity/paternity leave is shared and from that point on parenting is shared then beyond that 50/50 will work. But that isn't the case here and isn't the case for the majority of parents in the UK.

My ex tried this too. In reality he had no concept of what it meant. He seemed to think that he would have them every weekend and school holidays, and I would have them the rest of the time. I said no, you’d have them half of the school hols and half of term time and he said “well what am I supposed to do when I’m in work? I can’t do the school runs so you’ll have to do that and I’ll have them when I’m not working.” I said no, you would have them for example one week on one week off and when it’s your week you are solely responsible. He simply could not conceive of this and seemed to think that I would do as I’ve always done and pick up the slack. So when I said that that wouldn’t be happening, he called me a selfish lazy bitch.
He now has them EOW, usually only for one night. He doesn’t see them in the week because he moved away and it’s “too far” (an hour) to come over and anyway why can’t I drop them off at his place and “share the burden.” What a dickhead.

OP I suspect your Prince will be pretty similar. Stand firm.

Map out exactly what 50:50 means as Shuffle said and see how he responds

@Notnowkate

I'm a little lost as to why both parents shouldn't have 50 50 custody. They both created the children equally. Unless there are concerns about safety or violence why shouldn't father's have equal custody? The children are not property owned more by one parent. All too often courts favour the mother over the father and it seems unfair if there's no legitimate reason a father shouldn't have equal access to the children. It's not about who does more for them.

It’s not about what’s best for the parents. It’s about what’s best for the children.

In this case, their father is a violent and abusive man who is not involved in their day to day care and does nothing for them. How could it be in the best interests of the children for him to have 50% custody?

@Notnowkate

Oswin yes I did read the op. It says there has been violent behaviour but he's never been physically violent. I'm sure you can see the inconsistency.

Do you think violent behaviour requires physical assault?

What about men who smash up furniture and punch holes in walls to frighten and intimidate their partners? That is violent behaviour. And it almost always escalates in the end to physical assault.

@PaterPower

One person’s ”lazy man-ways” are another’s “working hard to earn the household’s income.”

OP has been able to spend so much time at home with their DC precisely because of the income he’s provided.

It might not even be the balance he wanted originally - did OP ever give him the opportunity to cut back and spend more time at home? Was that ever an option for him?

Allegations of abuse aside in the OPs case - I do agree with the sentiment of this statement

The children aren't young babies and therefore old enough to do 50/50. The OP was the main care giver because that was her "job" facilitated by the high earning husband. She is able to have all the school holidays with them because she now works in education otherwise she would be using childcare provided by others like the rest of us do for holidays and probably before/after school

I do agree custody should always start out as 50/50 depending on logistics and what the children want/need - there shouldn't be an automatic presumption that one has more than the other

If he had wanted to do more in those early days @PaterPower (your username is illuminating) then that would still be evident now, wouldn't it? He'd be home to ferry the kids around, he'd be doing bedtimes, he'd be emotionally available for them. He'd have probably also looked after them for many full days on his own already.

I don't deny that in a household where care is already fairly evenly split, a 50/50 arrangement is great after a divorce. However, that's not what's happened, for whatever reason, so to suddenly find yourself as a 6 year old doing a whole week at your dad's house, when he doesn't even know what night you do brownies on, or still isn't home by 9pm, isn't a nice idea.

And a man, a father, who wants that for their kids, isn't putting them first, is he?

As you are now separating how do you think he would cope if you went away somewhere for the weekend? Would the reality of sole care for the children make him think twice? Maybe especially if a school mornimg is involved. Come back really positive about how nice it was not to have to do the school run. He is probably doing this to hit at you and make it hurt, plus the perceived financial benefits. Make sure you have good legal support and press for a favourable division of assets if you think he might either go for 50:50 or cut down his job to restrict future maintenance.

Remember by the time this is resolved your 11yr old will be old enough to have a substantial say in what happens too. Obviously you should not try to influence them but they might not want to spend every other week with him if they need to do more. Alternatively maybe he will step up and do his share...

My ex started off insisting that he was going to be 50/50. And began enthusiastically doing bedtimes from that point, to the point that I felt (and more importantly the children felt) I was completely excluded from this important daily routine.

That was the ONLY thing he did. Ever. He had zero involvement with the day-to-day stuff before we decided to split and now, many years later, he's not seen them for months.

In mediation it was explained to him that no, I wouldn't be expected to be available to do the school runs on his days (despite him kindly dropping/collecting them) and no, I wouldn't be the default childcare when he worked late or at the weekends. He had no idea which classes the kids were in at school, any outside school stuff, had never done any health stuff etc.

On the other hand, friends of mine have very successfully navigated 50/50 with both being hands-on before and after divorcing.

In many cases a father will threaten 50/50 as a way of hurting and controlling the other party, especially one that's abusive. However in reality it rarely happens and once they realise the reality of 50% and if you don't react to it, it often doesn't end like that. My exdh did this, when I replied 'great I can go back to work full time, start my hobbies again and see friends' he soon changed his tune. He now sees them eow.

However, you do have to prepare yourself for the possibility, speak to a solicitor.

I was always the main care giver and like you, my commitments etc revolve around the children, we were court ordered 50/50. I have a child with someone else now, so my life still revolves around the children, and I can’t get an evening job because I only see the older ones every other week and as there are no week on/week off jobs readily available, if I were to work evenings then I wouldn’t see them at all! He still works full time, lives in a different town to their schools, gets his parents to fill in the gaps. I think it’s completely and utterly absurd that a court would think this was in the best interests of the children, but here we are!!

“@PaterPower (your username is illuminating)”

My username’s intentionally tongue in cheek, originally riffing off the obnoxious Rees-Mogg (who was in the press a lot when I joined), so doesn’t “illuminate” anything much about me @DonLewis.

But I do subscribe to the 50:50 model being the right starting point for splitting parents, to be adjusted as necessary where children are genuinely at risk.

And I don’t have much sympathy for the knee-jerk “Mother knows best” attitude which often permeates parts of this board, nor do I believe that it’s massively disruptive to share care, as much as logistics allow, even if the parents were originally in a very traditional setup. Adults and children alike will adapt and change.

Back to the post though.. you assume that he had the opportunity to do more when the kids were born. Maybe he did. Or perhaps he felt under pressure to keep earning so that the OP could have the freedom to step back.

She hasn’t told us why she originally took on the SAHM role. Did she have an established career before she conceived or was he always the main earner? Was it her choice to give up work or his? Was he supportive of it or did he feel pushed into agreeing? Has he tried to be more involved before but the OP’s blocked him?

We’ll only ever hear an OP’s POV - there’s always at least one more to be considered.

Ok so there are 2 distinct points here:

Firstly 50/50 I believe in cases where there is no abuse the best thing for the children. Just because you base your whole life around the kids doesn't mean that they are any more yours.
It's the best thing for my kids, their dad really stepped up and although it was tough as i missed them it was the best thing all round.

Secondly, the violence and abuse changes things, drastically. If their other parent is abusive to them etc they should not get custody.

It's not automatic, it's judged Ona case by case basis and sounds like you have a very strong argument for it not to be. Definitely drop anything in that that talks about your feelings or how it would affect you. Needs to be all about the dc. Make sure your solicitor is a good one as that can make a big difference

The fact is there are broadly two types of fathers who will seek 50/50.

The first are the fathers who are motivated by love of the DC, and who are every bit as committed to their welfare as the mothers. They will be the ones who prioritise their DC in every choice they make, from where they live, how they work, and making sure the DC can continue with their interests and friendships while in their care. It may well be that they have had less hands-on experience in caring for their DC if they have taken the role of primary breadwinner, but they will be willing and able to step up to caring for them after a split.

The second group are fathers who a motivated primarily or exclusively by the desire to punish or control the children's mother, and/or to avoid paying maintenance. They are the ones who will palm there kids off on anyone who'll have them, or leave them playing on screens. Who will refuse to corporate in supporting the children's hobbies, or facilitating friendships. Who will be difficult about contact and about money, and think nothing about badmouthing the mother to the children.

The reality is that there are many, many fathers who sadly fall into the second group, and blindly assuming that 50/50 is the best starting point while wilfully ignoring the behaviour of many men will lead to terrible decisions being made by the courts.

I think he will be using this 50-50 custody as a negotiation tool to try and get OP to say ‘please let me have main care’ and then he can say, ok then…but only if you agree to some kind of lesser financial terms. Anyway, let him put forward his proposal for how it’s going to work and then have a look at it.

If he is abusive then why would you allow unsupervised contact? surely he would be a risk to them whether it was every other weekend or 50/50?

If abuse is a major issue then he should be having contact via a contact centre. If its not a major issue then its immaterial whether its 50/50 or EOW, the court will decide on what's best for the child and the request he submits.

@GullyGull

If he is abusive then why would you allow unsupervised contact? surely he would be a risk to them whether it was every other weekend or 50/50?

If abuse is a major issue then he should be having contact via a contact centre. If its not a major issue then its immaterial whether its 50/50 or EOW, the court will decide on what's best for the child and the request he submits.

You would think so but that is not the reality. If the father has been violent to the mother but not the children then the father is still believed to be able to parent the children.

Personally I think that leaving young children (who are, by definition, really quite annoying at times) alone with a man who deals with life irritants by being violent is a bad idea. But I am not a family law judge.

If he is abusive then why would you allow unsupervised contact? surely he would be a risk to them whether it was every other weekend or 50/50?

Because family court don't care about this frankly. It would probably be held against her or even classed as parental alienation if she were to stop contact giving this as a reason.

If he is abusive then why would you allow unsupervised contact? surely he would be a risk to them whether it was every other weekend or 50/50?

Because neither parent gets to unilaterally 'allow' access by the other parent to their children. It is for the court to decide.

The point I was making was the OP is either worried about him being abusive to the kids or not. If he's abusive to the point of police involvement then surely you'd want to raise this as a welfare concern, not quibble over 50/50 or EOW.

Reality is that its for the courts to decide what level of access the father should have. They seem to be old enough that they can adapt to 50/50 arrangement.

From recent experience at work, you will have to try to come to an arrangement prior to court, if you can't your eldest is likely to be asked by court appointed specialists what they would prefer. There's a lot of different arrangements out there not just 50/50 or every other weekend.

While there are a lot of fathers who simply don’t parent their children, there are also a lot of fathers who don’t parent their children because the mother has always done it and believes she knows best how to do it and so they don’t get the opportunity.

There are plenty of posts on MN from OP’s who say that their ex’s actually stepped up as parents after a split, because they had to, and that actually divorce made better parents of them.

I am personally of the belief that while contact needs to be on an arranged schedule, both are, where possible, equal parents, and that it should never be up to one parent to dictate when the other can see their children.

Me and my ex agreed 50/50 when we split, although because I wasn’t working I did do the school pick-ups, and on his nights he would pick him up from me until he was old enough to travel there on his own.

EXH had first said he wanted every other week, because that was what others he knew had done, but I did disagree with this and we agreed 2 days during the week and then eOW.

As time went on DS spent more and more time with me for various reasons, until he was living here full-time. But when we first split he said he was glad we had done the arrangement like that because he got to see us both regularly whereas one week on one week off he would have felt he didn’t.

Even though DS lives with me full-time now (although he’s over 18 now anyway,) if I had to do it all over again I would still make the same decisions.

I was a SAHM and I did everything, toddler groups, school runs, the PTA school activities, but that didn’t make eXH any less of a parent. IYSWIM.

As mothers we need to get past what we have done, and focus on what is best for the children. I.e. is it really in a child’s best interests to say “no darling, you will get to see daddy next Sunday and not before because that’s what contact says.”? Where possible children should be able to know they are going to see their parents, both their parents, soon.

And it’s impossible to know what history of abuse there is, because while abuse often is a factor, what is now termed as abuse seems to be increasing, and seems to be being used more and more as a reason to withhold the children from their father.

“ Me and my ex agreed 50/50 when we split, although because I wasn’t working I did do the school pick-ups, and on his nights he would pick him up from me until he was old enough to travel there on his own”

That’s not 50/50.