Can ExP do this??

[Beaubeagle]

My DH has court ordered contact EOW with his children. He had to take ExP to court for this as she wouldn’t agree to him having the children as she was very bitter over their break up (I’m not OW btw).

We’ve had the court order for over 3 years now and we have EOW and additional dates that’s are agreed. Everything has been working fine, although ExP does try and make things difficult for the sake of it.

ExP text DH our of the blue yesterday to say she was changing her working hours and from his next contact DH would have to swamp to the opposite weekends to what we currently have. No discussion, end of.

DH is self employed and books work months in advance for the weekends we don’t have his D.C. She is expecting him to drop this and any other plans to accommodate her new hours without any discussion and 2 weeks notice. I think this id very unfair! ExP thinks that as DH is self employed he can pick and choose when he works, but this is untrue. We have to be on call and have staff on a rota for this, along with DH. It’s not just a case of saying, oh I’ll do it next weekend instead.

I also have DC that go to their dad EOW so we originally arranged contact weekends to have all of the children together so we could do things as a family. Under the new ‘arrangement’ the children would never see each other.

I think ExP is being very unreasonable. I also think that she can’t do this as the dates are set in the court order. AIBU?

She's clearly not a good mother. If she was she'd be considering her children in this.

Good luck OP. Really hope it’s sorted quickly and (because I’m petty) I hope she gets a bollocking and doesn’t get her own way.

I’ve recently made major changes to my life - no longer a SAHM, now doing a demanding full time Undergrad course, and whereas prior to this, exDP and I were quite lax on when he’d have them during the holidays, we’ve had to sit down with calendars and sort out Uni holidays/school holidays and see where he can have them so I don’t have to pay for childcare, and where he can’t so I can organise childcare. The EOW has stayed in place, and I’ve now moved from 50 mins drive (he moved away due to work) away to 7 min drive away (I applied for the Uni in his city because I didn’t want DDs to have less time due to my life choices) meaning exDP can now have Wednesdays after school till bed time, like he did before he had to move for work.

I mean really. ExDP left me for OW —she then cheated on him Bahaha— and I’ve managed to remain civil and considerate in my decision making Because it’s about D.C. not about me/him?!

That’s shit op, I hope court see that she is being intentionally difficult and clarify things quickly.

As I said before, if you go down that route, you are saying it’s fine for your partner to rely on her for childcare when he wants to work but not OK for her to do the same
Totally incorrect! The father may have to adjust schedule but he needs sufficient notice, she absolutely cannot just spring this on him.

Quick update:

We met with ExP to try and come to some sort of arrangement. She hasn’t taken the new job yet because she doesn’t have childcare. However she will now only make the DC available on the alternate weekends to the ones we’ve have for 3+ years. So she apparently made them available last weekend however my DH was working away, which she knew, so he couldn’t collect them. This weekend should be our weekend with the DC but when I asked about this I was told she had made plans and we couldn’t have them. We then asked about seeing the DC after school one evening to be told flatly ‘no’ as they have a routine. DC are 11 and 7!

It’s 4 weeks since my DH has seen his DC and it’s heartbreaking. She absolutely won’t budge, despite this being of absolutely no benefit to her. I feel so helpless in all of this.

Why hasn't h is gone back to court , as I've said a few times now she's in breach of an order just contact the court -it's that simple !!!

Why hoped to try and resolve it quickly and amicably between us. Court can take time and is expensive. Unfortunately that hasn’t worked so it’s now in the hands of our solicitor.

You can contact the court yourself to report a breach of an order

As above poster says. No need to go through a solicitor - take her to court for breaching. It costs £215. Judges do not like their orders breached and children have a right to see their dad. She can explain herself to a judge (she’s totally unreasonable IMO).

Beaubeagle just wondered how this all panned out?

If the father had done this there would of been hell to pay .... tell her she needs to sort the arrangements out for the next 8-12 weeks. That's reasonable not 2 weeks.

No idea whether she can legally do it, we’ve never been down the route of court orders but I do think she’s being unreasonable.
She shouldn’t have accepted a job with hours which conflict with her time with the children without checking whether she would be able to swap weekends first, or to arrange alternative childcare.

When we had DSC EOW we’d arrange things up to a year in advance around when they were here - holidays, weekends away with them, a night away as a couple without the kids, nights out with friends, birthday parties, family gatherings, days outs etc...to have weekends swapped would have been a massive pain in the arse!

Note the date of the thread, folks.

As six months have passed, it'll have been resolved one way or another by now (I hope)