Custody Agreement

Depuy lady

Hello,

I would like some advice from people on the whole area of custody agreements.

Myself and my ex are not on speaking terms, he has regular access to my daughter, whenever he wants her he takes her. However I feel the time has come now to put a custody agreement in place. The reason being for me I am afraid of his temper, and I am getting very annoyed at him texting my mother to try and get her to take my daughter if I'm not around when he decides he is dropping my daughter back early. Also I want the communication to stop between his mother any my mother. At the moment they make arrangements about my daughter without consulting me or telling me.

I have spoken to my mother numerous times on this and it still doesnt change.

At the moment his mother takes her for 1/2 full weeks every summer and he takes my daughter every 2nd or 3rd weekend. My daughter stays in his mothers house when he takes her.

At Christmas they take her from Stephens day until New Years Eve.

My parents keep telling me that if I go down the route of formal custody that they will take my daughter every 2nd birthday and christmas and they could stop my bf from having contact my with dd.

Can anyone shed some light on this, are your custody agreements set out that way?

Sorry for the long post, I'm just trying to weight my options up!

Dades

A custody agreement is pointless unless you're willing to enforce timekeeping under threat of some sort of punishment, such as refusal of access, which seems harsh.

Do the two mothers get on? Surely stopping communication between them is only going to alienate the two families.

Klingon Hamlet

Does he take his temper out on yours and his daughter? Maybe this is something that needs to be looked at more closely. If he is then he needs to stop, now.

If he's losing his temper with you then still, there needs to be a ceasefire. No matter how hard you both try to mask the conflict, your daughter will soak it up like a sponge and it will make her associate anger and unhappiness with the two of you.

Why is he getting angry? Is there a bone of contention between the two of you? See if mediation can help resolve this issue pronto so you can have more peaceful echanges, if not friendly than at least civil, for your daughter's sake.

As for access and custody, it sounds like you feel that alot of the decision-making process has been taken out of your hands by your parents and by his. This can be a common problem for even couples, whose parents are reliving their own experiences of raising a child and interfering out of kindness, but still interfering. The fact that you are not together may intensify their need to be invovled, to patch up things and help raise the little lady. They may be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts but if they're encroaching on your own parental responsiblities then a kind and patient sit-down can help clarify this. better that, then bottle it up until you resort to setting down custody agreements. The court, IMHO, is an awful way to go for both parties.

You mentioned him dropping her off early. When does he do this and why? Is he shirking responsibility whenever it suits him? Prioritising his own personal life over his daughter's care? If so that needs to be rectified, or else he's sabotaging his own chances of holding a meaningful place in his child's life. Is there a more serious reason, like work obligations/ If so he needs to inform work that his child comes first, or the two of you need to renegotiate times around your working lives.

Finally, around Christmas it sounds like he gets to see her more than you do, which to my mind can hurt. How often does he see her during the year? Maybe he's making up for lost time? Or is he being greedy? I can't speculate. If he's making up for lost time then rather than havng her for such long stretches, perhaps more regular access times and ays would be a better solution. If he already has an overabundance of time with her---which is relative---then you need to share your feelings with him, and maybe arrange blocks of two to three days each with the little lady.

All these things can be fixed if the two of you can sit before each other and be open with how you feel. it's so difficult under these situations to let your guard down but you have one common interest: your child. And it is seriously an advantage to have parents that co-operate and are happy to help---even if it's a bit much.

I hope everything is sorted and there's no need to resort to court, for all three of your sakes. All the best.