Confused?

[jigster]

So my EX-H and I share two daughters, ages 9 and 7. We each have two other children with our partners. When my son (my third) was born in 2018, it was about that time we could go back to court to amend our custody arrangement. I had a few problems with the one we picked when we got divorced and we decided that we could fix it without going back to court and incurring court costs and lawyer fees.

One of the new stipulations is that we will be granted the day of our children's birthdays AND an extra celebration day. I took this to mean that if my son's birthday is on a Monday, I can request the Sunday (one of his custody days) before to have the party. He takes it as he can celebrate on his days and choose a random day to have an extra day.

Now he owes me a free day because we made an exchange the end of last year last minute and I have yet to cash it in. I tried earlier in January at the last minute but he declined. Whatever, it was last minute so I'm not mad.

His daughter's birthday is this month. In January I requested this coming Sunday (Feb 16 2020) to cash in my day so my partner and I could take the kids on a trip. He declined with the reasoning that he was going to use it to celebrate his daughter's birthday a week early. Her birthday is not on Sunday nor is it this weekend. I figured that he has unknowingly selected that date as his designated celebration day for his daughter.

I also have a feeling that he doesn't know what he did and that sometime in the next week he's going to request another day to have for a celebration day even though he's supposedly celebrating this weekend and then next for her actual birthday.

Today I wrote him an email asking him to clarify that his celebration day is this Sunday and that there won't be a surprise request since I have been denied specifically for the reason that he's celebrating his daughter's birthday a week early. Also in his denial email in response to when I originally asked for this Sunday, he specified that i could pick a day after the 23rd, a Sunday (also not her birthday but the weekend of) so I'm assuming they're also celebrating that day as well? Is it fair that he's basically blacked out two Sundays when I have an IOU ? Am I right to remind him that he has picked a celebration day by denying me under those specific reasons to celebrate his child's birthday?

We have a long history of bad experiences in regards to exchanging days. If I don't give him the days he wants because I have long standing plans, he will deny the next time I ask saying he has plans. I feel like I'm walking on egg shells because I want to be able to have a random Sunday once in awhile as it makes going on weekend trips easier but I don't want to be taken advantage of.

 

[katrina2017]

@jigster This IOU system is overly complicated and is a recipe for disagreements and nit-picking.

The birthdays of the siblings makes sense, but the extra day does not. I would suggest amending the agreement to let each of you have the kids on the siblings’ birthdays OR on any extra day of your choosing within a period of a week or so around the birthday. This would account for birthdays that fall in the middle of the week and the party ends up being on a weekend or whatever. There’s just no need for two days for a birthday in most situations.

I would also suggest relaxing on making up your days. As the kids get older you guys should hopefully get to a point where “losing” a day or two here and there just doesn’t matter anymore. If he needs the kids for a couple of extra days for a vacation, just give them to him. It’s not a big deal in the long run and it builds up trust and goodwill between you. Just my two cents.

 

[jigster]

@katrina2017 Oh I've lost several days to him and his mom without asking or expecting anything in return. Like for instance next weekend is the daddy daughter dance. Like the last three years I offered to let him have an over night stay because he would usually just bring them back. Because the following day is their little sisters birthday, I figure they might as well stay over since they're going back the next day anyways. They hate going back and forth so I try to make it easier on them with as few transitions as possible. By giving him this free night, I won't see my kids from Friday morning to the following Thursday. I was going to ask for the Sunday after her birthday so it wouldn't seem that long, but he said no to that weekend we well.

This is the first time I've asked for something in return. I've already scheduled my son's birthday in September for the following Sunday after (it's on a Wednesday this year) because we're going out of town. His other sons birthday is in the beginning of October and he picked a day in November as his celebration day because he wanted dia de muertos -_- they didn't celebrate any birthday that day.

I'm definitely going to add on the stipulation you mentioned to this because I feel he's just using it as a free day.

 

[katrina2017]

@jigster Yeah, with the issues that you’ve already had with the extra day it definitely makes sense to nix it. Do y’all have to go back to court to do that? And if so, I’m sure you know this, bring documentation of how difficult he’s been with the extra birthday day.

 

[katrina2017]

@jigster This all seems so unnecessarily complicated. Why not just celebrate on your weekend?? I'd say nix the "extra day" and either follow the CO or don't, but trading days obviously doesn't work for you guys.

 

[jigster]

@katrina2017 Sometimes it isn't feasible. We each get one day on the weekend and if we want to go anywhere on the weekend like out of state, it can only be for one day because of school.

It's nice to have the option but it has become a mess, you're right about that.

 

[katrina2017]

@jigster How come its only one day a weekend? That seems to be the crux of this all.

 

[jigster]

@katrina2017 Well we have 50/50 with a split week. He has Sunday Monday Tuesday and I have Thursday Friday Saturday. we alternate Wednesdays

I've tried going week on week off and if we do end up in court again I will be requesting it. I was told a few years ago that the older the kids get the less transitions they should have. He says it would be too hard on the younger siblings who already don't understand why they don't see their big sisters every day.

 

[katrina2017]

@jigster Wow! No wonder you guys are having issues. That would be really hard to maintain. We did week on week off from the beginning (boys were 3 and 12) and they always did great w/ it. Much easier than all the back and forth. We all missed each other, but the ease and predictability of the schedule made it more than worth it for all of us. Might be a good time to set down w/ a mediator and go through things again. To me mediation is a much gentler process that court and lawyers, etc. I wish the best of luck to you guys! It would just be such a shame to continue having these arguments when there is an absolutely reasonable compromise to be made.

 

[beautifultruth]

@jigster

I want to be able to have a random Sunday once in awhile as it makes going on weekend trips easier

This makes me think that you're currently splitting weekends so that one parent has Saturday and the other parent Sunday. If so, does this issue of him denying "IOU days" become far less often if you simply change weekends so you have both days off weekends 1 and he has both days off weekends 2?

If I don't give him the days he wants because I have long standing plans, he will deny the next time I ask saying he has plans.

Then after you deny him a trade, ask for a trade that you don't really care about. He'll deny it and you shrug your shoulders. Then when you ask about a day you really care about he's gotten his "screw you" denial out of his system.

If the above options don't work, then it sounds like it might be time for doing away with the concept of an IOU entirely. This doesn't mean you don't trade days, but it means that you explicitly trade this day now for that specific day later instead of trading this day now for some unspecified day later. That is, you don't agree to swap January 12 until he has agreed to a specific day (you could give two options if you want him to feel like he has a choice as to which day he gives up). This way, if you can't agree on the second day by the time the first day rolls around, the parent who would normally get the first day still gets it. This puts some pressure on the parent requesting the first day to get a deal done.

 

[newcombe2]

@jigster >I figured that he has unknowingly selected that date as his designated celebration day for his daughter.

No. An extra day is an extra day. Sunday is already his day and the fact that he doesn't want to give it up for your extra day due to a birthday does not turn it into his extra day.

Edit:

>We have a long history of bad experiences in regards to exchanging days.

I can certainly see why. Respectfully, there is no possible way that him keeping his daughter for one of his custody days could ever be considered as an extra day. I suggest you promptly send him an apology email and say that you were temporarily confused. I concur with the other poster that in the future you should only trade one specific day for another specific day. The concept of having floating days to be randomly redeemed sometime in the future is not working out with this relationship.

 

[jigster]

@newcombe2 Well here's the thing. It would be pointless to have an IOU if the terms were that I could only claim my days. The whole point of it was so I could take one of his days because i was giving him one of mine.

Our protocol for the summer is that we get three weeks each. We use OFW and we can claim any three weeks as long as they're not consecutive. I've tried to suggest going week on week off during the summer but he claims it's too hard on the smaller children to not see their siblings for more than seven days. However there's a loophole that we've both taken advantage of. Because we split the week in half we end up having an 11 day vacation "week". He tried this thing last year where he only claimed my days which wound up giving him a total of 15 days for one "week". Considering his stance on separating the younger children from the older children for that long, I refused to let him get away with being sneaky. Because he didn't claim anything on his days and I still had a week to schedule, I was able to claim his days so that I didn't go two consecutive weeks without seeing my children and there wasn't anything he could say or do to stop me from interrupting his planned vacation.

I guess that was a long winded way of explaining that any of my days are up for grabs and vice versa. Same goes for the Christmas holidays. Other then the actual eve and day of, which we alternate, we can claim 7 days each. If I have something planned for a Saturday I would need to claim that day so he can't touch it with any of his requests regardless if it's my normal custody day. He can't just claim my days and leave his open.

I've tried to cash in on this IOU twice and now both times he said no. The second time I asked he gave his reasoning that he was going to use it to celebrate his daughters birthday. He also blacked out another weekend for the same reason. But using the same excuse twice to deny what's owed to me isn't fair or the honorable thing as we've agreed to one. Technically he's allowed one day to celebrate that's not the actual birthday and he's taken two in some loophole and he can still claim a "third" day somewhere down the line to be his celebration day.

I would not care at all about how many days he's celebrating if I didn't already have an IOU on the table and if he didn't already deny me just to be difficult. If the situation was reversed and he was the one who had the IOU he would complain if I kept turning him down for whatever reason. With the IOU in place, any one of his Sundays are up for grabs except for the one he designates as his celebration day. So far he's got two weekends held up for the same reason. I feel like I'm the one being flexible and he isn't.

If you made it this far, I apologize for this being so long.

 

[thomascat]

@jigster I'm not really with the other commenter who suggests that you just need to be willing to give up time with nothing in return. I jump on any chance to have an extra day with my kid. I already miss him for half of his life. It complicates things a bit for me, because my ex uses this to her advantage - she doesn't spend much time WITH our son, but she wants to control 100% of her time and resents the fact that he wants to be home with me instead of at a sitter or her parents, but she literally uses her time as a bargaining tool to get me to make absurd exchanges (her latest was taking a 'trip' in the middle of the school year - on my birthday.)

I do agree that it's overly complicated. But I also feel like it's great for your kids that both of you actually WANT to spend their time with them, so you've got that going for you. You guys need to figure out a way to tit-for-tat on exchanges, though. You're at the point where you're getting back at each other and, well - that's why orders are needed in the first place. I find your scheduled days to be pretty crappy - you alternate wednesdays? I've never even heard of that, and you never get a full weekend, or a three day weekend when it's a holiday, etc - what the hell. So you have to get the other parent to agree each time you want to go ANYWHERE that might require a two night stay? Screw that. Get your weekend schedules worked out. What works for us is also 50/50, but we alternate Fridays - so my son is with her every Monday and Tuesday, with me every Wed-TH, and then we alternate Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We each get 5 days with him every other week - and on the weeks we don't, we get two days. It works beautifully, isn't confusing, and we each get two weekends a month without it being week-on, week off.

 

[katrina2017]

@jigster That schedule isn’t good for anyone. Very inconsistent. If it’s a child’s bday who is a considered a sibling, the child should get to attend without switching. Not about dads time or Moms time, it’s about their lives. Either switch to 2/2/5 or 7/7. No judge would do a 3/1/3 schedule. It’s not consistent and prevents interaction
with extended families. And too much back and forth. Not worth packing up for a night. I’m sure the kids miss their sisters. Well unfortunately that’s what happens when we divorce. They’ll survive.

 

[jigster]

@katrina2017 A judge did agree it to though. It's whats known as 3-4-4-3.

Every other week we get four days. On the week he has Wednesdays, he's got four consecutive days, and I get three. On my Wednesday week I have 4 consecutive days and he has 3. There are only two exchange days (Wednesday and Sunday) and i do agree that is way too many. We've been doing it that way since they were 5 and 3 and I know my oldest is tired of it.

 

[esoteric55]

@jigster We had the 3/4/4/3 and it was awful. For both kids and the parents. We as parents had to communicate much more than we had any business doing and it confused the issue so much. The weekends sucked for both parents and kids alike. Sounds like you guys need week to week honestly. So much easier. You never have to worry about changing really. If their birthday falls on the other parents week—“well damn that sucks. I’ll see ya Wednesday and we will have your party or go out of town this weekend.”

As far as the other kids’ feelings about not seeing siblings for a week, it sucks. But so does divorce. A week to week system fixed 90% of our problems.

 

[katrina2017]

@jigster Ah I meant if you were arguing about it that’s not the schedule a judge would order.