Bam offering more than I wanted with time sharing
I was a member in the past and deleted my account but I am back for more advice. I am a SM to an almost 2 year old SS. DH pays CS and we have SS EOW with no current parenting plan or time sharing schedule. DH filed for a parenting plan after he was court ordered to pay CS and it has taken almost a year. DH and BM have mediation coming up soon and we have a feeling she is going to throw an offer of 50/50 to us during mediation. I feel terrible but I do not want this. I would rather DH pay the extra in CS than accept 50/50 because it will be me taking on the extra responsibilities due to his work schedule. I think DH has the same mindset as myself, but I am wondering if DH declining a generous offer like that will hurt him in the other aspects of the court case? If they can't agree on a parenting plan at mediation and go to court, I'm worried BM will get what she wants since it might looks like we do not want as much responsibility. Also, I did the math on the state calculator, and BM would end up still getting quite a bit in CS even if DH gets 50:50!!! So it's not good for us either way. Any advice or experience with Father taking BM to court and then declining a generous offer?
Thanks
If BM is the CP even in a
If BM is the CP even in a 50/50 visitation schedule situation that gives you and DH plenty of control over when you take SS. If you don't want him for your EOW then tell BM you can't take him and do what you need to do.
The NCP does not have many advantages and the one that is significant is that court ordered visitation only provides that time for the NCP. It does not force the NCP to actually take the Skid during that time.
I would suggest that rather than decline 50/50 that DH take it and have CS set at a 50/50 parenting time level then manage the actual time the SKid is in your home accordingly. The CP bears the primary responsibility for care and possesion of the kid and since the NCP basically gets visitation the NCP can decline specific visitaiton periods as they see fit.
At least that is how it played out in our situation. My bride was the CP with full physical and legal custody. The Sperm Idiot had 7wks of visitation per year. 5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring. When the Sperm Clan did not have the money for their half of visitation travel, they declined that visitation. That was fine with us but even if we had wanted to force them to take their time it would have been up to them to either take it or not. We could not have forced them to take it.
BM probably can't force your DH to take his time either. In your case I would say that discretion is the way to go with the court activities then you and DH can manage specific visitaiton weeks as you see fit. EOW is a decent foundation that you can work with.
IMHO of course.
Thank you for that detailed
Thank you for that detailed response. DH has considered that, but BM was already talking before of putting a clause in the parenting plan that makes the "canceling parent" responsible for any debt incurred (child care, canceled plans) if they cancel during their visitation time without the other party agreeing or enough time given. We started to look this up and it looks like an actual thing to prevent the situation you just described :/ also, if we get a reduction in CS based on 50:50 and we immediately start missing time, I know she would take us back to court asap to get an adjustment. I'm probably way overthinking this, I just don't want to spend a couple grand more every year in court costs
Occassionally refusing a
Occassionally refusing a visitation is generally not grounds for a re-assessment of CS or parenting time stipulations in my experience. Once you have a CO unless there is a significant change of circumstances most states do not allow for a review of CS for two years following a CS order.
You could move outside of the local visitation schedule radius (usually 200 miles) and force a long distance visitation situation. If BM is the CP then that would likely put DH on a Summer/Winter/Spring visitation schedule. In our case my bride was the CP and the long distance visitation schedule was for 9wks/yr (6wks summer, 1wk fall, 1wk winter, 1wk spring) until SS reached school age then it changed to 7wks/yr (5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring). This worked great for us and was the easiest on the Skid. His time with the Sperm Clan was dedicated and he did not have to deal with two different sets of rules and parenting styles week in and week out. They got their time with him in dedicated blocks and could do the things they wanted to do regarding family vacations and so could we.
It is worth consideration.
Good luck.
He can object to it by saying
He can object to it by saying that he feels a 50/50 schedule will be too disruptive for the child.
Or he could say that he would love 50/50 but because of work he wouldn't be able to look after the kid so much and that nevercanwin would be doing most of the child care and that isn't fair on SS who should be with one of his parents if at all possible.
Or you should look at what percentage it works out being if you take the child 2 or 3 weekends a month plus most of the school holidays or alternately eowe plus one night a week overnight, if your husband can finish work early one night, plus the holidays. It probably comes close to 50/50 and if it is an arrangement that suits you both, could reduce CS at the same time as avoiding swapping the child every week. Though the holidays could be tricky.
I read an article recently
I read an article recently that supported your stance on 50/50. The study referenced in the article indicated that kids who live under a 50/50 CO and who are integrated into both of their families have fewer issues than kids on less frequent visitation schedules. There was little if any reference to high conflict bioparent sitautions.
To me that is counter intuitive and does not make much sense but that study indicated otherwise.
I will see if I can find the article and I will post it. The experts, at least that group of them, agrees with you HRNYC.
I do not recall the article
I do not recall the article specifically mentioning 50/50 but it did clearly say the data showed that kids with regular integration into both of their blended family homes thrived compared to those who had less frequent visits with one or the other parent.
I completely agree that for 50/50 or a a similar model to work both sides need to be reasonable and cooperate and they need to be close enough for some consistency of participation from both parents in the kids's lives.
No arguement there at all.
There are many ways you can
There are many ways you can cut a 50/50 parenting time-table. Some parents do 7 days here and 7 days there, some prefer more interrupted intervals like 2-2-3 or something like that. Personally, DH and BM have "joint custody" with DH having 5 and BM having 2 days (monday-friday, saturday/sunday). Physically its not "even" but the papers call it joint custody all the same so both parents have equal say in everything. It sounds like something like this would be more fitting for your situation. If your DH is only off on the weekends (like our BM) then he gets him on the weekends.
I don't think you DH should forfeit 50/50 if BM is offering it for a couple of reasons: mainly because once a dad loses that ground, its really really hard to get it back. Right now school is not an issue but when the kid is failing a course or not doing his homework, your DH will get no say or be able to help in anyway because he'll only have 4 days out of the month to try and help. Another reason is that I think its kinda crappy he doesn't want to be responsible for his kid but EOWend...uhm each parent is 50% responsible for their kid even when Life happens. Working is apart of life and even though he wants to use it as an excuse not to have his kid, it's not. Plenty of people work and have their kids. I'm not saying be a babysitter for him but ask him what was his plans when BM and he went their separate ways (before you were in the picture); was he planning to just be a slacker dad then and settle for EOWend and child support? If so, then I agree with the others who have suggested you NEVER reproduce with this man. Children are not a problem or inconvenience that you can throw money at when you don't want or "have the time" for.