contact shmontack

ex keeps missing his contact afternoons (1X per week) and now saying he wont have them during xmas at all.

[this totally aside from him dropping his maintenance randomly from a shocking 100 to 39 quid A MONTH (works cash in hand - and has lots of it but untraceable. does not contribute towards anything at all including mortgage, but wont agree to me selling either!).]

i''ll never get any money from this...person (using that term lightly) - despite one of his children being severely disabled and me unable to work - but can i reduce contact order without going to court if HE keeps not coming when he is meant to? shall we just not be in? or is this another one of those one way streets with men in mind (all rights and no responsibility)? The kids don''t care. seriously.

his no shows are part of him trying to control and manipulate and screws up our schedule etc. we end up missing other better things we could be doing... The kids are not bothered if they don''t see him. Why am I not in control of our lives still despite having to do EVERYTHING?

If you don''t make the children available for contact as stated in the order, then you will be breaching it.

How many contact afternoons has he missed to date, and are there a number of them that are consecutive? If there is a clear pattern there, and you have communication from him confirming that he wishes to not make use of those afternoons, then that is what you would base your application to vary the contact order on.
Christmas is a long way off yet, and he may well change his mind over that in due course.

unbelievable. I guess him not showing is not a breach?

contact should be directly related to financial contribution. absolutely. But the country isn''t run my women so there you go guys. lucky buggers.

he told my in January about this xmas. He may or may not change his mind but he loves the control and that''s all it is. I do think if there is regular missed contact the order should be null and void.

Reasonably sure that the contact order will order you to make the children available for contact.

It won''t order him to attend.

I wish men like him weren''t around to screw over the rest of us, not to mention the poor kids.

All the best with the situation.

i know i know. i have male friends that have had to fight tooth and nail against the female equiv of my ex - some getting shared only though they should have got full res. I guess that''s the other side. and i should be grateful but jeez its a struggle.

going to go kiss my kids now.

befree wrote:

unbelievable. I guess him not showing is not a breach?

contact should be directly related to financial contribution. absolutely. But the country isn''t run my women so there you go guys. lucky buggers.

Courts can not force an unwilling parent to spend time with their children, therefore him not showing isn''t a breach.

I completely disagree that contact and CM should be directly linked - there have been other discussions recently on the forum about this very issue so won''t go into it again here. Contact is for the benefit of the children, and it is their right to be able to have an on-going and involved relationship with both parents. If your ex is choosing to not make full use of his allocated parenting time, then he is a fool, frankly.