My ex husband has missed a large amount of visits. He is required according to orders to visit us in our home town once a term (4 times a year) for the weekend. This happened after a family report was done (in 2015) and they stated the children wanted him to come and spend time with them doing their sports etc. He agreed to these visits during negotiations as long as I agreed to a few terms which I happily did. His child support was reduced by $4000 a year with these added visits, which meant it wasn’t too much of a financial strain for him. (Please note I am happy with the amount of support I receive financially and it’s not about the money). Just recently I decided I’d try adding the weekend onto his holiday time as I thought it may suit him better after having missed another visit. He was happy with this until the day before when he cancelled. I’m so sad for our children, it’s happened so many times that they now say they are use to it :( I’m wanting to file a breach (not asking for process have already sought legal advice) as he has now missed 11 out of 13 term visits. Has anyone done this and it’s been successful in giving their ex enough of a kick up his ass to spend time with her/his kids? I just want them to see their dad and share their lives with him. Please note he lives six hours away so shared care is limited to holidays.
9 Replies
Breaches don’t work in most cases, and it certainly won’t make him show up and be a dad.
Breaches are really intended for when one parent won’t hand over the children and even then they just end up costing you a lot of money.
Forcing him to spend time with his kids, won’t help the kids.
There is nothing legally you can do to force him to see the kids . Just don't bother chasing it up anymore , and make sure you tell the child support agency that he doesn't show up, so that way your missed child support continues. If he wants to play the no show game , then don't let it bother you . The kids will know he gave up on them in their own time as they age . You wont need to do a thing .
That’s the thing. I don’t want the kids to feel their dad gave up on them. I will fight tooth and nail for that not to happen. Why would anyone let that happen without a fight? 🤔
You can't control him or make him be the dad you want for your kids. If you're fighting for him to be present, your probably forcing your kids into a sad situation and prolonging the inevitable from unfolding.
Kids are resilient as long as they have a stable loving parent in you, that's all they need.
If you read my post he does see them in the holidays. He is not an absent father. I am just wanting to know if applying for a breach on orders has helped. I understand all you’ve said and have posted similar to others many times in situations where the father is not present. I need to remember this myself. Thank you.
Tell him if he does not use the term weekends you will have to do another agreement to take them out which means CS goes back to normal.
If only court orders were that easy to change...
Im just going to be practical and say, a 6 hour trip each way over a weekend is pretty big and he obviously didnt fully think it through during negotiations and doesnt want to do it.
Does he do the holiday visits?
I suggest working with the fact he can't do it, rather than against it to avoid the kids feeling rejected. You can't force to show up and the breach also can't force him to show up.
So tell the kids, dad wants to be here, but the trip is massive and he can't make it on the weekends but you can facetime him on saturdays. Its shit but it would be worse every time they are expecting him to come and he cancels.
He expected the kids to do the 6 hours each way three times a term. Which the family report said a big NO to. So I’m not sure why he couldn’t do that for his kids. He only has to do it once every ten weeks. Not sure what the issue is with that. Also the kids know about it. Their dad tells them he is coming. Not much I can do there.