Is this cake eating? 9

[bustorama]

I have not pushed the idea to date because the kids have been so adamant that they do not want to be put in a position where they are required to go with their father on a certain day at a certain time.

I think you may have misunderstood me. I did not suggest how the time between you should be apportioned or that xW should have custodial or visitation time. Rather, I suggested that a formal agreement needs to be put in place (and if he does not agree to your proposal that you immediately mediate or litigate towards such an agreement). A formal child custody arrangement could be, for example, that you have sole legal and physical custody of the kids 100% of the time and xW is responsible for $#### monthly in child support. And then if he doesn't pay and provide for support (as he has not), you have a legal basis with which to GARNISH his wages. The agreement legally defines who is responsible for the kids, in what fashion, and when.

If he does not like the proposed custody arrangement, then he has to respond in kind and/or potentially change his behavior in order to be a fit parent.

The below is why I said in December that you should be documenting all the things that xW does showing him to be an inadequate parent, so that if you wish to propose and enforce sole custody with him simply providing financial support that you have a basis for doing so and then you also can seek to garnish his wages.

1. They do not appreciate what he has done. Basically, he has abandoned them and only comes around when it suits him. He has taken their money from their bank accounts and doesn't seem to recognise that this is even a problem. They have lost thousands of saved dollars.
He has also stopped any contributions to the support of our family, and the kids are feeling the lack of funds sorely. Our lifestyle has been severely curtailed. They cannot understand why he is behaving like this. They are also emotionally devastated by his taking up with OW.


2. They lead very busy lives. Before and after school, there is practice for rowing, orchestra, band, basketball, netball, touch football. On weekends there are sports, and visits to very ill grandparents to help out. Also D16 works both weekend days to make some spending money.

Add in some visits to friends' places, and there just isn't much in the way of spare time to go out to dinner with dad.

He is not at all reliable now, so they couldn't plan on him being available to take them to anything that had a fixed starting time.
Besides general forgetfulness, he is on-call 24/7 for his business and, so, often pulls out of arrangements at the last moment.

Also, they say he acts weird and gets angry with them easily when they are out with him.

All in all, they have said that they will not be forced to be with him, and if we try to make such arrangements, they will refuse to go with him. Basically, they don't like him, trust him or enjoy being with him at the moment.

I hear your points but i feel like it would be too traumatic for them to be forced into a formal visitation schedule at this time. I think it might even be worse for stbx if visitation were formalised and the kids still refused to go with him.

maybe I am wrong, but this is my strong gut feel.