Alternate wkend & additional contact clarification

Hi all,

This may sound like a daft question but can someone clarify how alternate weekend contact and addiitional contact i.e. during school holidays should work?!

My fiance was told that additional contact is in addition to alternate weekend contact NOT a replacement. The ex begs to differ.

As a result of this, my fiance''s contact is never really solidified in a way of being able to book much in advance as the ex seems to keep moving the schedule along by perhaps a week or two when any other contact has taken place.

Has anybody else had problems with this and how does a judge view it? My fiance has a hearing in Sept so he is hoping to get this sorted once and for all.

Thanks!

Total clarity was given at my partners last hearing to his ex bby the judge as he was concerned that she would "misunderstand" - Additional means "in addition to what is outlined in the Contact order" - it doesnt replace whats there.

Are things still bad CJ ?

Hi Emma,

Yes things are that bad!

Despite agreeing dates up until Dec at the last hearing the ex has now said that all these dates are either incorrect or they were ''proposed'' but not ''agreed'' by her!

My fiance knows when he''s seeing them during the school holiday but after that he''s not sure now. The good thing is that the hearing is at the beginning of Sept so this can hopefully be ironed out once and for all.

The frustrating thing is that he had 2 discussions with her at her home and 1 during the court hearing to clarify these dates but she is now disputing them. How many more discussions should 2 people need in order to get a workable schedule agreed for the children''s sakes?!

Roll on Sept!

The way it worked out in my case was that the order was drafted to specify term time contact: alternate weekends, and contact during the school holidays (half of all school holidays). It is important that everyone is clear on when exactly the school holidays start: Judge said they start on the day after the last day of the school term. (My stbx with help from CAFCASS made a big dispute over this - they both said, wrongly according to judge, that holidays start on the Monday, if the school breaks up on Sunday).
He also said that any rota of alternate weekends in place for term time is simply suspended whilst the school holiday arrangements are in place, then reinstated for the first weekend after the holidays end.
The alternate weekend and half the holidays arrangement is one that can be very prone to dispute if you are using the CSA as this arrangement is so close to the banding for movement to the next payment band (104 nights) so that the parent without care has an incentive to try to get extra nights to go over this band and pay less - so watch out for this.

I feel for you CJ.

We are going through a similar situation but with a twist.

I too, wonder how can two people not be able to agree on such a simple matter and go back on their word all the time. Discussions are unfortunately useless if one of them is not willing to follow up with what is being verbally agreed.

One thing that really strikes me most is how the heck did these two people manage to have children together to then afterwards claim one or the other is not suitable to spend time with their children!! Can someone explain me this?

Anyway, I wish you best of luck and a lot of patience. You will both need it.

Hi Humdrum,

So...just to clarify something - in an old contact order (that the ex ended up breaking) it was originally stated that my fiance have week 1 and week 3 of the 6 weeks holiday. If alternate weekend contact is suspended until the term time starts back up that would mean that when my partner dropped the children off at the end of week 3 he wouldn''t see them until the 1st weekend after the school holiday which would be 3 weeks. It seems a long time to go without seeing the children.

We were told by a McKenzie Friend that it is additional to alternate weekend contact.

If that is how the some judges view it then fair enough, I just guess that my fiance will have to push for more contact during the school holidays, however, the ex only allows the minimum she can get away with without making herself look unreasonable.


Chained - the ex in our situation is only ''flexible'' when she expects a level of flexibility from my fiance. Unfortunately its never reciprocated and after 3 years of going round in circles he''s now realised the hard way.

CJ the contact order that we have states holidays are on top of the alternate weekends, so they either run into them or out of them they dont replace them.

The judge was really clear on this but i guess it depends who you get as a judge and what their views are!