Need Some Input, Please.

Dear L., Please stop and think about the whole picture. I can see how much thought and consideration you have given to your husband"s request. It appears that your husband has not made much effort to achieve stability for your son. He is okay with his girlfriend "calling ths shots", changing your son's school and he is skating free. Free support, free insurance, free babysitting while he is working. You are kidding yourself if you think that this will work for your son. This works for your ex and your son will loose his routine outside of school because the gf has her own values. Take it from another mother of three, it your current parenting plan is in place leave it alone. My sister works in County Family Support and the list of ex husbands like yours is endless. Your ex wants something for nothing. How has he stepped up to make things better? What difference does it make how far school is? He is responsible to get him to and from school during his week. He is responsible to get your son up for school and plan for your sons care after school. The gf needs to stay out of the mix. Until she is out and the ex steps up with $$ and quality plans for time and care... do not go beyond the limits of your current arrangement. Your doing so will work against you when you go back to revisit your parenting plan. I suspect the his motives and the gf. Adhere to boundaries where your son is concerned. Your son is too young to understand how manipulative adults can be. The gf is not his mother. If your ex thought so much of her, they would be getting married. I do not see where they are making any committments. They are only looking for convenient solutions for them. You are trying to hard to please them and not yourself. Be selfish with your son. He is only young once. What kind of values do you want him to have? Yours or the girlfriends. She is in a precarious position of teaching him at school and home. Please focus more on your son and less on pleasing the gf and the ex. They need to bring more to the table. Please keep in mind that the position that she holds as a director does not come with automatic trust. Otherwise you would have choosen her school to begin with. She is in a position to "document" a permanent school record. Your son needs to be in a place with adults who are unbiased where his intersted are concerned. Unless your ex has taken parenting classes in early childhood development, he will defer everything to the gf. Please do not overlook the facts. You and your ex created a life that the gf nor your fiance had no part of. Your son will develope relations with adults with time. Until you and your ex are on the same page with "blended" family members (gf, fiance) where your son is concerned keep what you have and do not vary. Revist the support to keep up with the cost of living, $300 is a very small amount for support, let him pay his medical portions and do not conceed midweek visits unless it is for a specific occasions (designated holidays). If it is not in writing do not go out of bounds. I wish you and your son the best. I would rather see you proceed with caution. Once you voluntarily agree to something it is very hard to undo :)

I think it sounds like that arrangement would be more than fair to your ex. Plus I don't think it's unreasonable for him to continue with child support since you are still paying for his school (I would keep him in his current school). Plus I'm sure it would be nice if you could have weekends with him too. And can I just say I'm impressed with both you (and your ex) for working so well together for the sake of your son. Good luck!

WOW that's a lot to consider! I agree with you about most everything you said! I will point out one other thing that you may have not considered. When a kid spends time half and half like that they don't have a home base. My 4 steps did that for about a year where they were with us for 1 week and mom for 1 week. At your son's age when homework isn't an issue it is a lot easier but once he is in school it will be A LOT harder. Think about it..if you and ex hubby were still married one parent would be "in charge" of the school responsability making sure that homework is done, the teacher is happy, there are no behavior problems and all of that kind of stuff. Imagine if you lived in New York for half of the week and LA the other half. Which place would be 'home'. Everybody needs to feel like they have a home ESPECIALLY kids. My steps were stressed out by the situation because there were 2 different discipline styles and no body was 'in charge'. They said they had 2 nice houses but still felt homeless as if they were always a guest in someone elses home. Just food for thought. You have a hard decision to make and I suggest you get as much advice as you can stomach and then follow what your heart says. Mommy instinct is rarely wrong. Good luck.

It sounds like you have been thinking alot about this and I hope you will do what you feel is the best decision for your son.

I'm not sure if the girlfriend has any wrong intentions about having at least one weekend free or whether the child support is an issue either. I can say if you do agree to put your son in her school and change all custody agreements, what happens if they break up? You ex most likely will not want to see her, so once again you are faced with changing schools and his routine and probably the custody again. If I was in your situation, I would not do anything yet. I would leave your son in his preschool and maybe take some time before making this big decision.

Do what is best for your son. Trust your motherly instincts. Keep your son in the school where he feels safe and secure.

Also, think long and hard before agreeing to any changes in custody. It is admirable that you want to allow your son more time with his father, but you can always agree to a day here and there. It is so hard, especially on very young children like your son, to go back and forth a week at a time between two houses. Often, children in this situation never feel a sense of permanence. Like they don't really have a home. Sure, they have two houses, but not that feeling of having a true home. This kind of shuffling back and forth is very difficult on children and their developing sense of security. Maybe when he is older, you could reconsider.

Also, sit down with your attorney and talk through these issues before making any verbal arrangements with your ex. Keep in mind that your child custody and support arrangements are spelled out by court order. Parents cannot simply decide to make changes without going back to get the court to modify the order. This is done for the protection of the children. Making changes outside of your court order can come back to haunt you in ways that you might not realize right now.

If you should go ahead and agree to the proposed arrangement, have you thought about what happens if your ex and the girlfriend decide at a later date to send your son to her school on the weeks he is with them? What do you do then, take back your agreement? How would this affect your son after you allowed the change and now want to change it again? What do you know about this woman? Do you want her spending a week at a time with your son before you get to know more about her and what kind of role model she is? What happens if one of the holidays you are supposed to have with your son falls on the week he's at dad's and they want to take him out of town? How do you resolve this? Things can get very, very messy between ex-spouses, and when you add new girlfriends and fiances, it becomes even more complicated. That is the reason for having everything specified by court order. Please think about these things before you agree to changing your custody agreement.

Also, it sounds like you ex might be trying to get out of paying child support. Again, think this through. What might sound like a good idea to you now may not be such a great thing in the months and years to come.

I hope I haven't sounded harsh; that is not the intention. Just wanted to present some things that perhaps you had not yet thought about. I wish you and your son the best.

Sorry but I think all of this is just your ex's girlfriend's ploy to leave her at least alternating weekends kid-free. She's trying to ensure LESS time with your son. Think about it, as it is, they have to be hands-on with your son because he's home all weekend, EVERY weekend. If she gets her wish and sticks him in her school, someone ELSE teaches him and she just bathes, feeds and puts him to bed...probably EARLY...and ensures herself time with boyfriend. Then, every other weekend, they take off.

Do what is best for (in this order): your son, yourself, and then, your ex-husband. His girlfriend is not on that list! Don't allow that woman to have these conversations with you. Tell her, "Thank you, but this is a discussion I need to have with the child's dad." Stay polite but firm.

He can't afford $300/month on child support? Then he probably can't afford the attorney to take you back to court. I'd let this whole thing fizzle out if I were you. I'd just tell him, "We'll see..."

Best wishes,

M.