My (39M) ex partner (39F) keeps getting angry and trying to blackmail me every time she doesn’t get her way regarding the child care arrangements or child maintenance.
Me and my ex separated in August last year and we have 2 children together (5F and 3M), we are doing shared childcare arrangements where is mainly 4 nights a week with her and 3 nights a week with me. On that basis I pay child maintenance to her every month based on my income. All of this was agreed without involving solicitors but I did get legal advice initially.
She doesn’t work but gets benefits as she can’t work due to a back injury and she is looking after the kids. She is living in the house we jointly own, I am paying the mortgage as her benefits wot cover it and the house is next to the kids school and she doesn’t drive. I’m living at my parents house currently.
The reason for the breakup is we grew apart and always argued and she wasn’t happy with the life we had. No infidelity or abuse involved but arguments started getting nasty verbally. There was and issue however 5 years ago which we moved past which I detail below.
Since August last year we have been arranging the child care each week so it keeps changing. But it was largely fine, however I have started seeing someone else this year (she is understanding of my situation we see each other usually one night a week for an overnight stay and one other night in the week just for a date) I don’t think I have been excessively seeing her or dropping my kids to see her, but I wanted to have at least one weekend night off for myself, either a Friday night or Saturday night, but other than that I didn’t mind what other combination of days we did.
A lot of the time we arrange the days for the week and then she wants to change the arrangements as she said she can’t look after the kids more than two days in a row, can’t do weekend days at all. So often I make plans and then have to change them or cut them short, for example if I am away on a Friday night, if I say I will pick up the kids at 2pm on Saturday she loses it and flips out that she can’t have them that long and that they need to go out early on the weekends, despite the fact I will have them Saturday afternoon, night and the whole of Sunday and drop the kids back Monday so I pretty much have the kids most of the weekend.
As she doesn’t drive, I am do all the pick ups and drop offs, and I take the kids out for days out and appointments and things, she can take them to the park near our house.
We were in the process of arranging a weekend on, weekend off arrangement which I was fine with but then she then agreed with my mum without my knowledge that I would be having them every weekend Friday Saturday and Sunday and dropping them back Monday evening. I asked if I could at least have the Friday night off with pick up at 12pm on the Saturday but she wont budge on it.
The other issue is she has pictures on her phone that I had taken of her 5 years ago when we were still together, which she didn’t know I had taken at the time but I had deleted them as I knew I shouldn’t have taken them, they were pictures of her bare bum when she wasn’t looking etc, but she found them and she wasn’t happy obviously and took pictures or screenshots of them and they were obviously deleted off my phone completely so she is the only one with copies of them. They were never ever posted anywhere nor did I have any intention of them being posted, I took them and deleted them and forgot about them until she found them. She is using the fact that I took these photos as leverage to get her way if I try to enforce a boundary or stand my ground she threatens that she will go to the police, and show my family and that I will lose my job and I will go to prison.
I discussed this point with the solicitor and he said as the pictures were never posted anywhere and she didn’t make any complaint at the time 5 years ago, that the police wouldn’t be particularly interested and it wouldn’t affect my ability to see my kids.
Whilst that could be the case I wouldn’t like to risk it so I haven’t called her bluff on it.
Its stressing me out and I just want to know how to navigate all this, am I reasonable to ask for either a Friday or Saturday night off a week? bearing in mind I have them about 50% of the time as often she will be scheduled to have the kids for 3 or 4 days in a row but then she will want me to have them after 2 days so the plans each week end up changing and it usually ends up that I am doing 4 nights a week. I feel like I can’t say anything, if she doesn’t get her way she starts threatening to go to the police about the pictures I took 5 years ago, if plans change or she is in any way inconvenienced she will lose it and start sending me 20 messages slagging me off and saying I’m a bad dad etc.