[Solved] Variation of Contact order

Hi there and welcome 🙂

Can I ask how old your children are and how they feel about the possibility of increased contact? I think your response must be guided by how your children feel and what their wishes are.

If you feel that what he is proposing will have a negative impact on your lives, the court will give you the opportunity to put your own case forward. He may have applied to the court for variance of contact and put forward his suggestions but its by no means decided. Its up to you to fight your corner, its unreasonable to make demands that will effect your employment. You are the resident parent and he cannot dictate terms that will be detrimental to you or affect the routine for the children.

However if the children want more contact with their Dad, and their age permits, perhaps you could sit down with them and come up with a new timetable of contact, you should try and work out a revised timetable that will suit you all that you can present to the court. This will show that you are putting your childrens interests first and at the same time retaining some control over the situation.

If the children are teenagers or nearing their teenage years, their wishes will hold some weight in court. They could be asked what they would like to happen by CAFCASS, so if they are happy to keep things the way they are then his application for more contact may not be successful. If however they want more time with Dad then an increase could well be on the cards.

Thanks for reply, they are 6 and 7 now. Their father has them alt weekends fri night to mon am and wed for tea. He is now asking for wed night overnight and to move days to a mon overnight or thur overnight on a weekly basis!

This is to also include his alt wkends from Fri to Mon also

My opinion is that regardless of everything, because he is over an hour away, the burden of long travelling times on the extra monday and thursday is too much for them. Perhaps you could offer up the wednesday night as a compromise as they already go for tea on that day.

They are too young yet to make decisions about this, but you can still talk to them gently about it to try and find out what they would like. CAFCASS may want to talk to them, but again this will be gently.

Have you talked to the school about any extra tiredness on the mondays that their Dad drops them at school? As they get older, particularly from 10 onwards their education is paramount and they need to be settled to be able to concentrate fully on working towards their GCSEs...a settled environment is so important.

Hi again,thanks for the reply. Unfortunately both are shattered when they come back home, it takes them several days to get over it. Plus my little girl wets the bed and both have night terrors. Last wk I was up 4 nights in a row, and still had to go to work. He doesnt communicate with me. In fact we attended one mediation session and he declined a further one, no reason given. It was always his intention to take me back to court. A wed night overnight, plus the fri,sat,sun to mon am on the wkend he has them would mean Mon,Tue and Thursday at home. If I worked a late on one of those days I would only see them for 2 nights.I would have to cancel childcare as it is not flexible, my parents couldn't be expected to take them to school for me as they both work also. I would have to give up my job as I work set hours that cannot be changed.

I have approached them about the extra contact and both said they don't want it, they want it to stay as it is. If anything they want to come home on a Sunday rather than their father taking them to school on a Monday.

I thought all the travelling would have an effect and taken into account with the bedwetting, night terrors and not wanting the changes, these are good enough arguments to put before the court.

At the end of the day its all about what is in the best interests of the children, and in his haste to get more control over the children he has lost sight of their well being. If he lived nearby it would be a different matter, but he doesnt and I dont think he has thought this through. As he halted mediation and wont communicate with you, he is showing himself as intransigent, not a good look!

I think in the circumstances you would be well within your rights to use this as an opportunity to get the sunday night stay dropped as all the travel is proving too much for them. This would be my counter argument.

Tell me, when the contact order was first issued was he living closer to you? If he was, you could argue that since he moved further away, you have tried hard to make the existing contact conditions work, but in truth they are having a detrimental effect on the children and you are happy that you have been given a platform to voice your concerns and have the contact order varied to suit the changes that his move away has created. Afterall it was his choice to move away and the consequences should be his!

This is a Dads forum and I am usually advising that the Dads on here fight for more contact but I feel that in this particular case the Dad is being unreasonable...just my opinion. It might be nice to hear what the Dads here think?

After the assault, he told me I was no longer welcome in our marital home (3 bed detatched which he refused to put my name on the mortgage)but the kids were. In effect I was made homeless.I was advised by my GP,the Police and my solicitor to go to my parents and steps were put in place to prevent him assaulting me again. My parents live over an hour away. I had to rent for a while as I couldn't work for over a year due to the injuries sustained from the assault while he kept the marital home,he refused to move out and had poisened his family against me. He has always maintained it is his house and he would never sell it. I was paid a settlement which was enough for a deposit on a house but my job meant I couldn't afford a mortgage on my own so my parents have helped me. He still has marital home, own business, claims min wage, pays himself dividends. States he pays above and beyond what is required of him as he contacted CSA who after all checks told him he only had to pay me £9 each wk for them.He told me I shouldn't be getting anything because of what 'I did to him'! They never took his £2,300 tax free dividends into account despite me requesting a variance! He gets that as well as min wage and working tax credits. He is now selling the marital home to buy a bigger house with his girlfriend. My 2 cannot stand her, they say she says bad things about me but this is probably down to what he has said about me. He won't allow them to bring toys back, he even has new wardrobe of clothes and school uniforms separate to what they have at home as the clothes 'Mummy buys are cheap tat'! He undermines me at every opportunity,and cherry picks what emails he will respond too.

Ah yes, sorry you did mention you had to leave in your first post. The fact still remains that you have tried very hard to meet the conditions of contact and for the childrens sake it just isnt working.

I have sent you a private message.

Hi

Do you have a solicitor? If not I will ask the CCLC to pop on, though I suspect they may want to talk to you directly as there are a number of issues. From what you have said, your ex is being completely unreasonable, and I don't feel a court would expect you to give up work to comply with this.

Yes I have a very good solicitor. He is fed up with the ex husband as well. I already pay the kids b4 school club for one day were the ex has them anyway. What he is suggesting would mean that I pay for more days were they don't go too. I guess it depends on the courts at the end of the day as to what is in their best interests and not about the mess that the adults create.