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unwantedproblemsmom's picture

So how do I encourage my ex who lives 7 miles from me to be more active. I just want him to volunteer to pick up kid from after school or to take kid to practice. or very least keep kid till I get off. I feel we both made this kid, just because he pays child support doesnt mean I need to do it all and he only gotta be responsible for his time on weekends. Why cant we meet this co-parenting goal

Comments

tog redux's picture

Have you asked him? Or told him you could use help? What's the custody arrangement?

Unfortunately, you can't make him do anything.  And he's only responsible for the kid during his time.

unwantedproblemsmom's picture

yes answer was no by court order he is not legally binded to help with extracurriculars or childcare it just would be helpful and contribution on his part 

tog redux's picture

Why not give him 50/50 custody so he has to be responsible during his time?

 

SMto2's picture

I agree! With her ex only 7 miles away, why shouldn't he have 50/50 and be responsible for the child's care and errands during his time. I assume that necessarily should come with a decrease in CS, but surely this BM who wants the NCP to step up and help wouldn't mind being paid less in exchange for that?

tog redux's picture

Or if he doesn't want 50/50, she can't expect he's going to help her out during her time - since most men who want to be active parents would jump at 50/50.

still learning's picture

Even with 50/50 parenting time on paper the NCP does not have to exercise their time, as another poster said all you can make them do is pay support and that's only if there's a CO that CSEA is enforcing. The mandatory parenting class during the divorce process paints a utopian picture of how everyone will co-parent and get along for the sake of the kids, but rarely does this happen.  

 

notasm3's picture

50/50 would have you each seeing to the child’s needs on your time. What you are asking for is for him to be your errand boy on your time. 

Are you afraid you would get less child support?  Or perhaps he really doesn’t want to spend more than a few days with his child?  

Disneyfan's picture

Before you assume the woman is holding the child hostage for CS, why not find out if the man even WANTS 50/50.

OP, have you discussed 50/50 with your ex?  

How involved was he with parenting during your marriage?  If you did the majority of the heavy lifting during the marriage, I don't think it's very realistic to expect things to change since you're divorced.

tog redux's picture

It's also not realistic if the guy only has weekends, to expect him to help her out during her time with the child. Divorce means he doesn't have to anymore.

 

notasm3's picture

Disneyfan (me too) what was trying to say in my post was that there were 2 possible reasons for them not agreeing on 50/50. 1) if she wanted the CS 2) he didn’t want it. 

Either one (or even both) could prevent 50/50.  But if there is no change to the current custody she needs to understand that co-parenting does not mean that she gets to delegate things she doesn’t want to do to him and he needs to be at her beck and call. 

OT I haven’t been to Disney in 2 years. Hope to go next year. 

SMto2's picture

"Why cant we meet this co-parenting goal?"

My question is, whose co-parenting goal is this? Co-parenting means sharing the duties and sharing the time, not just when it's convenient or helpful for the CP. The BM in our case was not willing to give DH one extra minute of time with SKs unless it benefitted her, then she was all about it. If the court said he didn't have to help on your time, that sounds like there was a discussion about it as part of your divorce. Did your ex want more time? Did you fight it so that he would only be a NCP with weekend visitations? If that is the case and you're more amenable to shared parenting, hence the "co-parenting goal" you referenced, perhaps you could approach your ex about that and submit the necessary paperwork to modify the custody, as well as, his CS obligation.

justmakingthebest's picture

Actually it does mean he is only responsible the times that the custody order states. While, he should take advantage of more time with his kids, if he is paying child support, he is doing what is required of him.

You can't force him to be more involved. Stories like this break my heart. There was a time DH was willing to pay BM for more parenting time. He would have done anything...

More to the point, you can't push your expectations on your ex. You probably deep down realize that those expectations and his failure to meet them were also probably a factor in your divorce. All you can do is be the best mom possible and continue to support a father/child relationship for them.

lieutenant_dad's picture

A few things to consider:

1.) Are you asking him to pick up the kid several nights a week and feed them, bathe them, do homework, etc without a modification to CS? While CS is calculated based on overnights in many areas, if he is putting in all the effort, and expense, to keep kid at night minus just sleeping yet is still expected to pay CS despite the increased expense, it may not be feasible.

2.) Is it actually feasible for him to do pick-ups or is he working? Even if my DH lived 7 miles from his kids, he'd never be able to do pick-ups because he works an hour away. Also, when my DH worked 2nd and 3rd shift, 3pm was either sleep time or get-ready-for-work time. He made his work schedule fit with his visitation schedule because he needed his job to pay CS. Random pick-ups and drop-offs weren't going to work.

3.) Did you fight him in court for him to only have EOWE visitation? If so, he is likely not interested in doing you any favors. It's not coparenting if it only benefits you, and if you called him a bad fathet in court, he's not likely to want to make your life easy when you made his life hard and actively worked to limit his time with his kid.

4.) How old is the kid? Maybe Dad feels like kid is old enough to take the bus home and doesn't need a babysitter after school. Can kid take the bus to Dad's house?

I'm not saying you're the bad guy in this. It's possible that he has antiquated ideas about what a father's role is (i.e. provider), or he is a bit of a deadbeat. Time may get him on the co-parenting bandwagon, but it has to be at your MUTUAL benefit. If he takes more time, then he likely needs to pay less CS. You need to figure out a schedule for days that you get him versus when he gets him. You may need to concede to overnights during the week. It can't just be that you want/need help, and he's supposed to jump for his kid.

My DH has EOWE visitation and refuses to live any closer to BM to facilitate 50/50 custody because of her anctics (which, in the past, has included calling CPS on him, filing false police reports about him, her family threatening DH, constantly asking for money, randomly dropping off boys for "emergencies", etc). She creates chaos, and he chooses to stay out of it at the expense of not seeing his sons. It sucks, because the courts side with her BS because she's Mom. But it limits stress in his life, and in the boys' lives. She hates the arrangement now that the boys are teens and don't think she's awesome-sauce anymore, and she'd love to pawn them off more frequently. But DH isn't going to put himself in a position again where it's always chaos. It's not worth it just because she wants to create drama.

If you have any history of creating drama (again, not saying you are, but it's definitely something to do some soul-searching on), then you need to rethink your strategies and come up with a way where you BOTH come out ahead for the sake of your kid. Then modify your behavior to show that old drama isn't going to come back.

susanm's picture

Where I am, child support is figured on the number of overnights each parent has.  It is incredibly common for mothers to insist on primary custody with the fathers only having every other weekend overnights but then expect them to be at their beck and call during the weekdays to pick the kids up from school, take them to activities, and spending plenty of time at dad's house.  Of course, the fathers do not actually get "custody time" for this participation, as in having them 50% of the time living in their household, because then there would be little to no child support going to mom.  They actually have the child with them 50% of the time.  Just not actually sleeping in their houses.  So they don't have "custody."

I suggest, if you truly want your ex to fully participate in raising your children, that you revise the custody agreement to give him equal custody and adjust support to an amount that takes both of your incomes into account and provides a relatively equivalent standard of living in both households.  You can't force him to work with you but you can encourage him to want to work with you.  There is a difference.

tog redux's picture

Yes, exactly. If she wants him to support the co-parenting goal, she should give him equal parenting time.  And if he doesn't want equal parenting time, then he's not likely to support this co-parenting goal.

ProbablyAlreadyInsane's picture

Divorce, as hard as it may be, efffectively has made you a single parent.  Your ex doesn' thave to do anything on your time he doesn't want.  And you can't make him do something he doesn't want to that's not court ordered (and as we see on here, sometimes even then it can't be forced).

Likely he's not going to help on your time, you have majority custody, so you have to figure it out.  Divorce means you do have to do it on your own during your time, UNLESS he is WILLING, which it sounds like he's not.

Sorry, i know it's frustrating, but either discuss a change is custody and a reduction to CS to maybe give you more off days and help with what I'm sure is a lot of stress, or give up and arrange things differently to work better for your household.