Splitting holidays: when you can't agree....

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

Sorry, this turned in to a bit of an epic tale. Apologies....

My other half has just been told he can have half of all school holidays with his daughter (court order states term time contact to be suspended during school holidays. School holidays shall be shared equally between the parties).

Easter will be the first shared holiday. Child is 3, and has spent 5 days with her dad on holidays previously.

Mum isn't happy about the new court order. In fact, it would be fair to say she was furious. The order was made just under 2 weeks ago. My other half decided it would be best to let things settle before broaching how the division of easter will look.

Anyway, she messaged him yesterday and said she had been thinking about the holidays, and she proposed that as the first weekend of easter would have ordinarily been her weekend, she would keep that. Then as the child had a swimming lesson on the tuesday, she propsed dad got from 4pm on the tuesday, until 5pm on the sunday so that she could go home and see what the easter bunny had brought her.

Fine in principle - but this wasn't half of the holiday. He would have 5 nights, while she would have 11! He gently pointed this out by asking where she would like him to have the remaining time.

Well, this did not go down well in the slightest. She eventually offered tuesday 4pm until the monday 5pm. She would not in any way accept that 7 days and nights is a week. She actually argued that a week is monday - sunday. No matter what he pointed out to her she would not back down on this idea. She also wouldn't accept that the easter holiday was 16 days, and half of this was 8. She said it was 10 days, so 5 was half. She actually threw a written hissy fit. She said she would deny contact if he didn't agree to her dates (as in number of days contact). Then she started ranting about the court order saying she only had to give 28 days notice to keep the child longer (previous holiday arrangements were 28 days notice for either party with no opportunity to say no to it provided notice given. Current order has no such stipulation). Then the rant went on to saying she had a holiday booked so she wasn't giving him any more time and that was that. This was despite being at court less than 2 weeks ago and being asked of any issues for the easter holiday and her saying no.

The upshot is, well, who knows really. He agreed to the dates she suggested but is asking her to figure out where she wants the additional contact to be. He has given her free reign of dates to whatever works for her. She states she won't be agreeing to any other times though. He has suggested him having longer over the May half term but shot down in flames over that suggestion. Also suggested putting the time on to the summer holidays. Ignored completely over that one. She has a strong history of trying to control and manipulate the orders to her benefit. So none of this behaviour was a big surprise to either me or my other half.

Is he being unreasonable to think half of holidays should mean half of holidays (within reason obviously as sometimes things can't work out that way)? He has no objection to splitting the time up, he doesn't mind if she has 9 days and he has 7 ultimately - it's the issue over how she will do this at every single holiday. She has derailed every extended holiday time he has had with his daughter. Recent examples include her not wanting him to have 1 extra contact day at christmas (he had 26th/27th court ordered and then no contact again til his normal weekend of 3rd, so as family live over 4 hours away he wanted to extend from sunday night to monday night to facilitate visit. She didn't like it but the order allowed for it with it's wording. So she called the police saying she didn't know where the child was. Even though she did...). She also didn't allow him to have any extra time in the feb half term, which he left as it was back in court imminently.

He is a teacher, so the holidays are their quality time together. So he obviously feels strongly about the holiday sitatuon - it was one of the main drivers to going back to court as the previous order wasn't fit for purpose.

I'm all for a peaceful life, and letting things go. So is he. But this is a pattern of behaviour that has been displayed through this child's life, and she has stated in text she is willing to breach the order to get her way.

He really does not want to have to enforce the order if she continues this in to the summer holidays. So, can any of you make suggestions to how to move forward (and please don't suggest that he should let her do what she wants). Maybe resources used to help work out holiday division time? Is there something to help her understand how holidays can be split relatively equally? I don't know. I'm clutching at straws here. There is a small child who loves spending time with her dad and extended family. But it is being regularly sabotaged. This isn't good for anyone.

Ok so that tells us about you and your exh.

Not men in general.

Some dads actually like spending time with their kids. Can you believe it?

Men arent lesser parents.

While the point about this turning into more about parental rights than the child's rights is somewhat true, we don't know what term-time contact is like so how important the extra days if holiday contact are to maintain a good relationship with Dad.

I'm a mum if kids with EOW contact with their Dad and it's seriously affected their relationship with their Dad (who only asks for a week extra over summer and 2-3 days extra over Xmas )

It sounds like Dad would be flexible and take 2x 4 day stretches rather than 1x8 day stretch. The mum is being very unreasonable to insist of half of the weekdays only.

I agree 3 is too young to be without mum for so long no matter what the courts say. Your DH needs to take this slowly

Why do we think mums are the more important parent? I really dont get it.

Me and dp are together but ds would be fine with him for a week.

OP you have no need to defend yourself to the critics. You started out asking for advice on how to make a court order work. Not for advice on whether the court order itself was a good idea.
I feel your pain. My partner and I thought his court order covered every minute of the year thus requiring zero negotiation but there was one grey area. 6 weeks of emails later and there’s finally an agreed solution. And this was really about him finding something that worked for everyone.
Use the system as much as you can. It’s stressful to go to court. But it’s more stressful to have this tension over every break.

Grumpy I did document on how he has taken things very slowly. He built up from 20 minutes 3 times a week. Up to a point where he was having her x3 10am-6pm days a week with 1 overnight every other week. This was what social services and the court deemed in this child's best interest when she was smaller. He now has every other weekend and a week day plus half of all school holidays as she is older, and he did the groundwork to develop the relationship with his child and again, the court felt this was in the child's best interest. He had to move heaven and earth to make it all work so he could build a relationship with his child after being considerate of her mother failed to get things anywhere. In her first 5 months of life he saw her awake once. That was despite having an agreement to go to mums house for contact twice a week, building things up slowly (the agreement was made before she met the new partner when the child was 1 month old). He had to sit in a room with mums new partner and have him referred to as daddy. The mum has never once called him daddy to the child to this day. When the child woke, or needed feeding etc, he was not allowed by the mother. Contact was regularly cancelled by her for spurious reasons and she refused to rearrange. This isn't hearsay, or his version of events. This is all documented in the s7 report that was ordered after she assualted him (again, documented in my previous posts) and not refuted by her. We are not talking about a parent who shirked their responsibility here. He tried every avenue before court to be amicable. The only way she would be amicable is if he said he didn't want any contact, but here's more money every month. You can't be reasonable with someone who doesn't want to be.

Additionally, he has built up having her for 5 days 4 nights. He hasn't once said, which again I have written here if people care to read, that he would have her for 8 days straight. He was happy to have whatever division of days she felt would be suitable. What he wasn't happy with was her trying to circumvent the order. Again.

Honestly I’d just have agreed to the 5 days. It’s the conflict that damages the kids. And she’s only 3, I can see how her main carer, her mother, would be feeling very anxious about this.

Really what are you gaining by insisting? Be interested in what she does while she is at her mothers. Children cannot really be split in half exactly. And if anything I do think that the main residence is often the place kids need to be more of the time. Her relationship with you is not going to be enhanced by exact counts of days and arguing.

Really what are you gaining by insisting

Quality time with his child. Or is that only important if youve got a vagina?

The mother obviously isnt doing this because its what she thinks is best for the child is she?

It’s not ‘his’ child as if the child were property. That is the key. Property to be precisely split down the middle. You know what maybe the child would be much happier not to have her mother dragged back to court for the sake of 2 days, it smacks of ownership and not care to me.

I havent said shes his property. She is his child though. How else can you put it?

So what the mothers doing doesnt "smack of ownership" no?

Why is it that if youre a woman you can be the most selfish spiteful horrible shitty parent and its all a ok.

If youre a man whatever you do is selfish and you obv dont care about the welfarw of your kids.

How narrow minded and fucking ignorant.

The whole of the posts are all about the child as if she were property to be split precisely down the middle. The OP is pushing and pushing and pushing. He doesn’t seem to be in any obvious way to care about the General life of his child, just how much ‘he’ has of it. I’m not impressed.

And of course the mother is more than likely doing this out of the best interests of the child. There is no reason to think otherwise.

If you were given a limited amount of hour child wouldnt you want all of it?

This man has done everything right.

If op were here saying contact was being denied and her dh wasnt doing anything about it - youd all be telling op to make him go to court and what a shit dad he is for not bothering and how its such a small amount of money bla bla fucking bla

Now hes thinking about going to court hes selfish and owns his child and his child would be so much better off with her mum.

Put yourself in his situation. You wouldnt be rolling over and seeing your child less. No decent parent would ffs.

And no reason to behave like a child @Babytigerrr and swear at a total stranger. Very aggressive!

Theres no reason to think otherwise?

Shes breaking a court order

Oh and she assaulted him. But yea she seems like a really nice woman.

Swearing is allowed on MN

Im not being aggressive im just pointinh out how anti men this thread is and how a lot of posters are hypocrites.

I honestly don't get people. 2 people made a child. Both need quality time with thier child. My DD has 50/50 split more or less and she has done so since 3 when her dad moved closer as travel was too difficult for him beforehand. We have EOW each and she sleeps there 3 nights 1 week, 4 the next. My DH we have for fight for 2 nights and 1 weekend day out of 4 with his ex as she sees his DD as her possession and doesn't want to share. She is fine with school pick ups but wants her back 5.30 when she is home from work as it saves her paying for after school club. The only person negativily affected is DD as she loves being here but is too scared her upset her mum by telling her. Here she gets independance at her mums she cannot even leave the room to go for a wee without being asked where she is going as her mum is so controlling she needs to be involved all the time and it is slowly smothering DD but we cannot do anything to change it. Nobody owns a child (something we tell all of our children) but a mums love is not more powerful or more needed. My DDs dad adores her and my DH adores his kids and both are amazing fathers and the children all deserve that additional love and care in their lives!

Freezing
You are missing the point of the thread. The court has decided 50/50. This thread is about how to execute that when one parent is not co-operating.

Best way to manage court ordered 50/50 holiday contact is to avoid creating a proper mess starting negotiating which days each one will have specially if they are one day here, 2 there and so on that don’t allow for any planning of childcare or holidays.

Our court order specified 50/50 on holidays as well, who ever picked up on the Friday after school at the start of the holiday would have DS for the first half of the holiday.

When it came to summer holidays, we had 2 weeks with each parent during the first month and one week each on subsequent weeks.

Christmas was first week with dad on alternate years, which we agreed to as it would allow us to visit our respective families abroad.

We were in this pattern since DS was 5, and it was a good pattern to have because it allowed DS proper bonding time with his dad, on the other hand, it did also allow us to plan on when to take leave and booking holiday clubs well in advance.

Ps. DS had been traveling alone with myself or his dad for weeks and was perfectly fine. He was not missing me or dad as long as he was having a lot of fun.

SM here. My SD's mum was exactly like this, we had to sort it by going back to court to get the Contact Order broken down into simple terms which couldn't be twisted. We asked for the time/dates my DH was allowed with his DD to be written specifically into it, what exact week at Easter, what exact dates at Christmas etc, and these were stuck to. That meant there couldn't be arguments. No one ever goes back to court but in the long run it saved my SD being dragged into arguments when she actually wanted the time with her Dad?

This thread is insane... It's not what's right for the child just because the parent with the vagina says so- that's what the court has tried to do.

OP my DH has had very similar arguments with his ex, who to this day years later will try every trick in the book to limit the time he gets to spend with his children. At first he would be flexible as he possibly could with the calendar but he eventually worked out that this actually made things worse- she would take every instance of this as validation that her time was more important than his.

He doesn't do this any more- he starts with the (court ordered) alternate Christmases and the weekends and consequent halves of other holidays fall out of this. As an example, if it's his weekend at the beginning of a week half term he will take the children as usual on the Friday and they will go back midday on the Weds. If it's a two week holiday like Easter, her will have the children from the Friday until the Sunday in the middle. Summer holidays they do 2:1:1:2 weeks so the children don't have more than a 2 week break in seeing either parent.

If she can't agree to something so obvious, take her straight back to court and do it ASAP.

Stunned to read these updates. Mum is only thinking of the child and dad is a bad guy for wanting to spend the time with his child the court has allocated....? Ok then... 🤯
This doesn’t smack of ownership, this smack of parental alienation. Maybe the child would be better off being raised by her emotionally mature parent.