Reply to Missed deadline for parenting class in divorce- how bad is this?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The process is annoying, but having children in your care can be annoying and unpredictable and they will mess with your schedule. You have to show that you can handle this. Nothing you're saying would convince me.[/quote]

I think that [b]they will actually affect my schedule far less if I can get 50/50 and know when I need to be responsible for them[/b] and then be able to focus on work the rest of the time, and if anything I will be a better parent after divorce because I will not have my focus split all of the time between two things. [/quote]

Listen to yourself:

Your children will affect your work schedule.

You think you will only be responsible for them 50/50.

You are still responsible for child during the other 50% of the time. Maybe you aren’t making a school lunch or driving them to gymnastic practice, but you are still responsible.[/quote]

You must also realize that they get sick in the middle of the night sometimes and 50% of that will be on your schedule and at some of the worst possible times.   Then there are summers where they are home all day everyday for weeks in end.[/quote]

Ignoring the other digs at me in this thread, summer is easy to handle:

I can take them for ~10 days in the beginning of the summer for vacation and ~10 days at the end of August for vacation, which is what we've always done as a family. I don't see why that should have to change and it would give the kids continuity. DW has always been the one that decided what they do in the middle of that so she can be responsible for figuring out the weekdays and I can get enough weekends that with the ~20 days of vacation plus maybe Fourth of July weekend and Father's Day weekend every year it will add up to 50% of their summer break.

Re: sick days:

I don't see why our arrangements for sick days should have to change either. DW has far more personal days at her job than I do and always has, and she has handled the sick days for that reason. I think that given that the kids will be dependent on both of our incomes it is reasonable to negotiate into the settlement that as long as DW's work benefits stay the same, she should be the one to take off of work for the kids' sick days and/or handle pickup if we get a call from school. [/quote]

It will change because her personal days are no longer yours to claim to protect your job! You're getting divorced. That means she's not going to be your wife anymore. She's going to want to use her personal days for her own custody time and her own activities. Maybe to take a vacation with her new boyfriend. Who knows. The point is, it's not up to you anymore and she DGAF about your convenience and your oh so important job.

Look, you can't just claim all the fun relaxed weekends and stick her with the weeknight hassles and the barfing! That's not how this works. Listen to yourself, you just tried to claim ALL holidays! She's never going to agree to that, and she shouldn't.

What you propose isn't even 50/50. If you had all weekends that's 104 days. Plus 20 for the weekdays of two summer vacations is 124. Plus 3 for Thanksgiving, 5 for February and 5 for April, that's 137. A few 3 day weekends not already counted is 140. If you had all of every December break like your deranged fantasy plan, that's 150. But that's not 50%. 50% of 365 is 182.5. You're still quite low, barely over 40%. And you don't even realize it. Actually having 50/50 will affect your work and there's no way around it.[/quote]
Parents like OP may seek 50/50, but they don’t take the kids 50% of the time. You can’t force someone to take all of their custodial time.

When my spouse and I were in marriage counseling, I expressed that even though it would make me really sad to be with my kids only 50% of the time if we separated, at least this custody arrangement would force spouse to take on half the parenting duties. Our counselor replied that separation and divorce don’t make people more interested in parenting, and that if spouse wanted to do 50% of the parenting duties, they’d already be doing them. I doubted the counselor, but guess what? We separated and spouse didn’t see how they could possibly take the kids 50% of the time with their demanding job, so they declined 50/50. Just like OP, they wanted to see the kids when it was convenient and hang out in the marital home.[/quote]

Totally this. His deranged plan is not even 50/50 and he can't be bothered to do the math. He thinks his wife will settle for no weekends and holidays forever because it's less face time with the kids-- the fact that he thinks this is a good deal for her says it all.

Either change jobs or pay up, OP. Your wife is probably looking forward to you finally being a real parent. You can't just visit at your convenience like an uncle. You have to take to the good with the bad to be a real parent. The inconveniences and the illnesses and the battles over homework. All of it. [/quote]

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