Co-parenting 4 ways

[onedayatatime12]

I’m looking for some advice, or stories of experience from people who might be in a similar position.

My partner has a 5 y/o daughter from a previous relationship who lives 100 miles away from us with her mum and mum’s partner. We have her every other Friday night to Monday morning. We would love to have her more but now she has started school it is difficult to have her more during the week.

Her mum has now also got another child (1 y/o) and for the last 6-8 months my partner’s daughter has been passed around to any family member that will have her. She now spends every weekend that we don’t have her with her maternal grandma, and every Wednesday and Thursday with her mum’s partner’s dad. She also spends often spends a night in the week with her mum’s partner’s sister.

We have a couple of concerns about this. Firstly she has recently been getting quite upset about not ‘feeling part of her family’ with her mum, I suspect that being passed around and missing out on family time with her mum, baby brother and stepdad might be contributing to this.

Secondly, when my partner asks for extra time with his daughter (ie bank holidays or school holidays) he is denied it due to her mum wanting to spend time with her. We then however hear that she has been with other relatives and not her mother after all.
This also works against us in other ways, when asking to have her for a week in the summer we were told we couldn’t as her mum’s partner’s parents were having her that week and it had already all been arranged.

Thirdly my partner pays CSA directly to the mother as I’m sure a lot of separated parents do. However if the mother has her daughter potentially less time than he does if some fortnights she spends 4 nights with us, 4 nights with her mum and 6 nights elsewhere should he still be paying her all of the money or should the money be being split between her relatives?

I would recommend court. If your DSD is not with her mother, she should be with her other parent.
Having said that, I think the distance would make it tricky.

You are being unreasonable, how her mother chooses to look after her is irrelevant to your contact times...be it childminder, nanny or a relative who looks after the girl now and then. If you want more contact, do it formally.

A point to consider is that the other relatives probably live closer and take both children. If your partner is truly concerned, he should go to Court and have arrangements made official. He could then ask for whatever time arrangements that he would like to have in place.

Obviously, he seems to have little trouble communicating with the ex as he seems to know an awful lot about the child care arrangements that are happening in her household. Given the seemingly open level of communication between them, why does he not ask why his daughter is moved about so often?

We have unfortunately been to court already and this hasn’t changed anything.

The reason my partner feels it is his business is it is detracting from his time with his daughter as he is effectively sharing care 4 ways in the holidays, weekends etc. And it is may be a contributing factor to why his daughter is currently quite upset. He also feels that if his daughter isn’t with her mother on the weekends when we don’t have her - why can’t he have her every weekend?

He has very little communication with her mother. He knows about her arrangements from what his daughter says, where he picks her up from, and from the mother’s comments when arranging time in the holidays to have her.

You have my sympathy.. When I had a dsd the poor girl had 6 places she stayed in any given week. And her dm rang asking if I had any idea why she had nightmares and sleep walked. Neither happened with us...
Given the distance you are either going to go for more contact time via court. Or accept it.. As for the Cms sadly I doubt you can change that.

OP I was actually going to say don't bother going to Court until the girl is considered by the Court to be old enough to express her opinion where she stays.

@sunnytimes83

You are being unreasonable, how her mother chooses to look after her is irrelevant to your contact times...be it childminder, nanny or a relative who looks after the girl now and then. If you want more contact, do it formally.

Not if the Dad is asking for more time and the mother is turning this down on the basis that she wants to be with her daughter but is actually leaving her with many different people very often. That’s rotten. Plus it doesn’t sound as if the child is being included in hew mum’s new family much.

OP, it sounds like your DP could just as easily be the resident parent here, so well worth looking into that.

That sounds very difficult because of the distance involved. I don't think it would be fair to expect a 5 year old to travel 100 miles every weekend. Holidays though, it sounds like there's a strong case for your DP to have her more. Maybe he needs to look further ahead and make it clear that he wants to have her with him for x number of weeks over Easter / the summer, and book them in. It seems awful that she's being sent away to so many other relatives and step-relatives though. Do you have any idea why this is happening quite so much? I wouldn't suggest altering the CSA payments but ultimately maybe it would be better for your DP's daughter if she came to live with you and went to her mum every other weekend, if she's not actually spending the majority of time with her mum while in her care.

The maintenance is payable to the parent. By all means stop paying but it will end up in the hands of the CMS and will be paid to mum regardless.

The key here is understanding why your DSD is being sent to other people during the week. What is happening at home? Is mum overwhelmed with a baby who still isnt' sleeping for example? Does mum think DSD will be better sleeping somewhere where she is not constantly woken up by a screaming baby? Or is she being palmed off because step dad doesn't consider her 'real' family and mum isn't yet ready to give up on the relationship?

If you live 100 miles away, every other weekend and half the holidays is really the best you can expect in court, I think. Can you move nearer?

@MeridianB unless the mother admits this in Court or third party professional brings this up as an issue, then going back to Court yet again isn't going to change the order if the father still lives 100 miles away.

As the child is 5 she isn't old enough to express her opinion in the Court. The earliest age is 8 and even then they frequently aren't listened to. Children who are secondary age are listened to particularly if they are articulate.

Thank you for all of your comments, I really appreciate the input and it is raising questions that my partner and I haven’t considered, so is really helpful for us.

We aren’t entirely sure why she spends so much time away from her mum’s there are lots of possibilities but without speaking to her we can’t know for sure. Unfortunately she and my partner have a very strained relationship and I think she may see this question as an attack on her parenting. Their daughter does have a very good relationship with her stepdad and his family which my partner is very grateful for.

We have tried ‘getting in first’ with requests to spend time with but unfortunately her mum then changes plans nearer the time. They do currently have an agreement that my partner must give at least 5 months notice if he wants his daughter in school holidays (though they have already agreed 50/50) but as above this is often means plans are changed nearer the time or forgotten and other arrangements are made.

It’s approx 85 miles, and about 1h 30 travel time door-to-door. It used to be much closer but unfortunately her mother moved away. We are unfortunately not in a position to move closer due to work and family commitments and out of concern that her mother may move areas again. Daughter doesn’t mind the drive however and usually falls asleep after a day at school! she has a TV set up, colouring, snacks, activity tray etc if she does get bored though.

They do not currently have a court arrangement as it was denied due to concerns it would put a strain on the parents relationship.

We have since sought legal advice and next time will be taking legal representation (currently saving for this) as some pretty underhand comments were made to my partner whilst in court.

@sunnytimes83

You are being unreasonable, how her mother chooses to look after her is irrelevant to your contact times...be it childminder, nanny or a relative who looks after the girl now and then. If you want more contact, do it formally.

Absolute rubbish. Of course it's your partners business to know who is looking after his child. And if it happens so often that she is feeling left out it's right to raise it as an issue. And if your are able to bridge that gap in childcare and she feels more settled in your home then it is something worth broaching. However I bet finances have a lot to do with her decision by being with you her cms will drop. Like the childcare arrangements currently it's not necessarily about the best interests of the child.

Where did the five month notice part come from? Seems pretty unreasonable, especially as it looks like this was originally for a pre-schooler.

The mother seems to have all the power - changing or forgetting contact, refusing additional time and despite her decision to move 100 miles away, it’s the Dad who does all the driving. Sounds like time for him to revisit the court option to formalise some better contact.

Absolute rubbish. Of course it's your partners business to know who is looking after his child

You really need to give that some thought. It works both ways.

I bet finances have a lot to do with her decision

Also something that works both ways.

I agree that 5 month's notice and then not keeping to the arrangements made is pretty unreasonable. Time with her dad should be a priority. I don't know what legal channels are available but I would look into what you can do to ensure more contact, if discussing it with the mum isn't proving fruitful. It all sounds very unsettling for a five year old.

Op i would highly recommend your husband inviting his ex to medistion first. It isnt very expensive and will show willing at the very least on his part to try and find an agreement that better suits the child concerned. If mum refuses to engage or is obstructive that information is fed back to court.

Personally I cannot fathom why any mum would rather a young child be ferried through 4 households at the moment - you mention the relationship is strained between them, if that in any way is a deciding factor in her throught processes then she's out of order unless hes been prevuously abusive

In mediation I would be making a fixed arrangement for the school holidays so there is no cancellation or forgetting.

@Watchingbehindmyhands

Absolute rubbish. Of course it's your partners business to know who is looking after his child

You really need to give that some thought. It works both ways.

I bet finances have a lot to do with her decision

Also something that works both ways.

But the issue isn't that they aren't being open, the issue is that she is using childcare that upsets the child. It may work both ways but clearly in this scenario it's not working more from one side.

@loopyapp

Op i would highly recommend your husband inviting his ex to medistion first. It isnt very expensive and will show willing at the very least on his part to try and find an agreement that better suits the child concerned. If mum refuses to engage or is obstructive that information is fed back to court.

Personally I cannot fathom why any mum would rather a young child be ferried through 4 households at the moment - you mention the relationship is strained between them, if that in any way is a deciding factor in her throught processes then she's out of order unless hes been prevuously abusive

Mediation would be a good port of call. But word of warning it is expensive! In our case she was on benefits so free to her, but for us it was £160 for one hours session, if we wanted a transcript to use in court it was an additional £200 plus VAT. We simply couldn't afford this and if it was stretched out and decisions couldn't be made in one session it was simply unaffordable.

What we did as an alternative that worked and cost £1000 in the end but really worked better was to create a legal letter, this isn't binding like a court document but both parties wrote down what they would agree too, we then merged them together and agreed on the bits that were different. It was something that meant we were working together it created something that we all agreed too and because of that it's stuck too. It might not work on a single issue but it definitely worked on overall contact and things are more harmonious as a result.

Thank you all, we have suspicions about the reasons behind her behaviour but unfortunately it is not something we can alter, and it is nothing to do with my partner, he has always been a doting dad and their split was amicable.

We have tried mediation previously but she refused, hence why we went to court. Unfortunately I don’t have much faith in the court system with my partner going alone without legal representation as last time it very much turned into ‘who you know’ we are currently saving to go back to court.

@Littlepaws18 we have previously set out a parenting plan and agreed that between both parents, is that similar to what you did? We didn’t go as far as to get it set out legally and this may be why it wasn’t stuck to after a couple of months. Maybe we could revisit this?

Poor girl :( I have a small DD and I'm a single parent.. I cannot even imagine passing her around to other family members because of a new baby and a partner.. That poor girl doesn't know if she's coming or going :( she's lucky to have you.. I would say Court is your only option.. But I'll tell you now.. The distance will be an issue.. Especially if she's started school.

It might be worth revisiting and reviewing that agreement you made. The good thing is you both made it, shows you can work together. Ours is signed in front of solicitors but it isn't a court document so it isn't legally binding. But the fact it was formal, the fact we both agreed to it and mutual fear of court means it's largely stuck too.

We still have issues so it's not perfect but we do have the basics of a contact agreement.

She spends two days (nights?) a week with the partners dad? Just the dad? Without trying to cause alarm but have you met this person? Is she safe there?