What is it like having DSCs 50% of the time?

[Dodo76]

DP and I are considering moving in together into my house. He has 2 DCs, 10 and 8, and I have DSs, 5 and 3. I have posted separately about the various reservations I have about this but wondered what other peoples' experiences were of having DSCs 50% of the time. How does it feel and what are the main issues that come up?

My 2 DSC are with us 50% of the time as are 2 of my own children.

Not sure what there is to say about it. I find it hard to not see my children for 50% of the time but I'm sure their dad would find it hard to see them any less than 50% of the time.

I would much rather have DSC more than 50% too. We find 50% hard as there is no clearly defined "resident" and "non resident" parent. It makes all sorts of things difficult. The irony is their mum tries to make decisions, change things etc but it's me and DP that has to make the effort. For example she demanded they have school dinners and stop having paid lunch and now she refuses to pay half so we pay for them every week. She decided they should do an expensive ish sport and signed them up to a club and expected us to pay for it and do most of the transporting back and forward. We don't put up with it any more but now there is a bit of a "power struggle" shall we call it.

I think it's much easier to have DSC as the partner of the resident parent than the non resident parent.

We have similar problems with Dsd's mum. She is classed as rp as she claims all the benefits. She parents (and I use that term very loosely) Dsd very differently to us. We have rules for my ds's who live with us practically all the time, and we expect Dsd to adhere to these rules, too. Dsd's mum tells her to ignore what we say, as it's nothing to do with us how she's brought up.

She also has tried setting up activities that we are expected to facilitate, expects us to pay for uniform, school trips, holidays, etc, why she wastes our maintenance on going out every weekend.

This, plus the fact that we live in a 2 bed terrace and have no space, no spare cash and hardly any time to ourselves are the biggest strains for us.

Things would be much better if dp's ex was a reasonable human being instead of constantly trying to make us dance to her tune.

QueenTea- Sounds familiar, except we don't pay maintenance to DSC's mum- thank God!

Do you have exactly 50/50 residency? If so, how many DSC?

I've only the one dsc. She's nearly 9. We don't have her exactly 50% of the time. We have her 3 days/nights per week and every 3rd Saturday night, so it works out just under half.

It drives me mad, because she spends the Saturday nights that she isn't with us at her nan's house with her half siblings. It's as if Dsd's mum just wants to make sure we don't have the same amount nights so she can still pull all the strings.

Agree with both the above.

My DP's ex insisted on 50/50 in the belief he wouldn't pay any maintenance, CSA soon proved him wrong but he only paid about three times then stopped again.

Like the above, he enrolled them in various activities and sports and then deducted the fees from the maintenance as he saw that as his contribution. The sports bill has pretty much gone now but still not a penny.

And the same thing with making decisions on our behalf and then expecting us to pay or facilitate. And that only works in one direction. We're busy arguing over something he's trying to arrange for him to do with DSD in our week because he can't do it in his!

We buy all the casual clothes, sanitary products and make up for the girls because he won't buy them, we spend a lot of money on fresh food so they have something healthy and tasty to eat. He buys them iPhones and sports gear for the sports he's chosen for them, and ready meals.

So the kids pack up all their nice things and take them with them when they go, and bring some of them back again !!

You just have different existences for the kids, even if you're able to try and agree on stuff it'll still be different.

I'd say the biggest choice you have is which dy you handover. We used to get the kids on a Friday, they'd be tired and dirty, then it switched to a Sunday night which wasn't so good. We're now on Monday switch over, they go to school in the morning and to the other parent at the end of the school day.

Except we then have togomround to pick up all their stuff! :-0