I could really use some help with this one!
Sorry about the length, but there's a lot of background to this situation, so I'm going to start with that:
Dd's dad and I were never really "together". I've posted on here before about how dd (20 months) is currently seeing her dad six days a week for an hour, first thing in the morning. Their visits take place out of doors, sometimes on the bus, sometimes around the neighborhood, and sometimes in an empty mall.
This arrangement came about because he was being a complete UAV when he visited her in my home. Also, when dd was 3 weeks old he decided he could no longer be around my older ds. Apparently, he couldn't cope when I politely asked him to stop trying to discipline ds when the situation wasn't directly to do with him--e.g. going after ds nonstop about table manners or how to properly eat an apple. When I let him know that I felt it was my job to address these sorts of things as ds's parent, he suddenly decided that he couldn't be around ds when he visited dd, which of course made visits in my house impossible.
Also, visits with dd went in that direction because dd's dad's place is a complete sty and unsuitable for any child. (By sty, I mean this man lives in a bachelor suite that is cleaned once every four months at MOST, that has huge piles of months-old laundry littered everywhere, where empty beer bottles and full ash trays are strewn about, where every single dish is dirty and growing stuff in the sink, where full boxes are piled in towers (moving boxes from his move four years prior), where low shelves are decorated with breakable knick knacks and bongs and other non-child-friendly paraphernalia, where several computers and all their various cords are set up in random spots in the room, and where he has been known to chain smoke regularly.)
Also, he exclusively uses the bus for transportation, and is unwilling to ever pay for a cab. Even if his place were pristine, it would take him 45 minutes to do his share of the transportation.
Finally, when we mediated our visitation agreement, dd was six months old, and short, frequent visits were developmentally appropriate. It was also summertime, so outdoor visits were perfectly acceptable. We agreed on four hour-long visits each week. He was unemployed at the time (had been for months and months), and then he decided to take a job where he worked on call. I agreed to open up the possible visitation time to an hour six days a week, with the understanding that his work would interfere on average a few times a week and it would work out to about the same number of visits overall. Lo and behold he was fired, started coming all six days a week, and now has a new job that generally doesn't interfere with the early morning visits, so I get to see his face nearly every day.
Suffice it to say that I think the current visitation arrangement is absurd and I can't wait for it to change. He has been unwilling to agree to anything else so far. Of course, he thinks it's fantastic. It means that he doesn't have to take responsibility for anything greater than having fun with her during her best hour of the day. He doesn't need to feed her, house her, change her diapers, care for her when she's cranky, etc., but he can still congratulate himself for being father of the year because he sees her on a near-daily basis. Apparently it "breaks his heart" when he can't see her for one day, although that doesn't stop him from canceling visits when he's tired or has a runny nose or a tingle in his back. Then he insists on taking her out into a dangerous windstorm because I suggested it might be a good day to skip a visit. The whole thing is just plain stupid.
Anyway, the absurd visitation arrangement has to change. Not just because it's absurd and no longer developmentally appropriate for dd, but because I'm going back to work in September and short visits first thing in the morning just won't work any more.
Dd's dad takes his time with things, to put it nicely, so I sent him an email back in March, discussing the fact that visitation would be changing, letting him know what the parameters of that would be (daycare days, etc.), and asking him to send me a suggestion for a new visitation schedule by August 1 so that we could discuss it and transition into the schedule throughout August. He agreed to do that.
Of course, I didn't hear from him during those five months, so I sent an email yesterday asking if he planned to still suggest a new schedule by today. He replied that "it would be easier for everyone" to keep the current arrangement going, to lengthen his public visits on his days off, and to add longer stretches at his mom's house every second Sunday, come September. He hasn't gotten his place ready for dd, and he doesn't intend to do so anytime soon.
There's no way he can keep seeing dd every day, especially since he has nowhere to see her. I'm good with the long stretches at his mom's, but it just isn't realistic for him to see dd every morning. (He can't use his mom's place for visits frequently because she lives quite far away. The bus ride is over 1.5 hours.) If he took dd to daycare M-W like he's suggested, it would take 45 minutes by bus to get there, and dd hates being restrained for long periods like that. He also doesn't seem to understand that starting daycare will be stressful enough for dd without being bumped from one caregiver to another to another, although he said he understood that toddlers and transitions don't mix well a while back.
Also, what kind of quality of visit is it if they spend the whole time on the bus or in the rain (dd came back with soaked feet and freezing hands many times over the course of the winter) or in the stupid, empty mall? What about when she's potty training? What about the fact that he sees her at 8 a.m. and no toddler-friendly place with a bathroom (like the library) is even open until 10?
Finally, I don't relish the idea of depending on him to make it every morning before I go to work. I can totally see him canceling at the last minute because he's tired or whatever, and me being up the creek until 9 when his mom arrives (she's doing childcare on Th and F), or having to rush her to daycare myself at the last minute.
Oh, and he also wants to keep things "flexible" because the job he's currently working at is only until the end of October and then he'll be on call again. (So far, even when unemployed, he has refused to agree to a fixed schedule and only did so in the past because the mediator told him he had to. My opinion is that, now that he's a dad, he needs to make his employment work for his daughter, not the other way around. He has no career and no job skills. It's not hard to find entry-level work around here, but he believes himself to be "above" most jobs, which is one of the reasons he has a long history of unemployment.)
I think what will work for "official" visitation come September is that he can have Sundays at his mom's. Right now, he works every second Sunday, but he can see dd from 10-6:30 at his mom's on the Sundays he has off. If he wants to continue to have hour-long visits on the remaining Sundays on the bus or in the park, then fine; it won't kill dd to do that once a week come the fall. If his on-call work phones him for a Sunday shift after his current contract ends, then it will be his decision whether or not to take that shift.
He can also make arrangements to take dd somewhere appropriate (like playgroup) on the Thurs. and/or Fri. that he doesn't work. His mom will be taking care of dd those days each week, and I think it's better to leave it up to her to arrange something on those days because she has good judgement and it relieves me of having to deal with him. It also means I don't have to count on him to be present or on time on those days first thing in the morning, but he can still see dd.
I'm pretty sure this will work, although he refuses to tell me what his actual work schedule is. His mom told me he works Mon-Wed one week (with Th, F off), then Sat.-Fri. (with Sat. and Sun off) the next week. He won't tell me what his hours are, just that he "can make it" to his 8-9 a.m. visits every day. Can you sense that he has a bit of power and control stuff going on?
Okay, so, here's my real question: How do I communicate to him the schedule that will actually work for dd in a relatively respectful way, and how much of an explanation should I include? I don't think having a "discussion" on this matter is going to accomplish anything but heightening conflict. He doesn't seem to get the whole "what it is to be a parent" part, or what dd's developmental needs might be. Should I still explain these things when I let him know what the new schedule is going to be, or is it useless? How would you word things?
Oh my goodness, I've written a book here. Thanks for reading, and thanks for any and all responses!
Sorry about the length, but there's a lot of background to this situation, so I'm going to start with that:
Dd's dad and I were never really "together". I've posted on here before about how dd (20 months) is currently seeing her dad six days a week for an hour, first thing in the morning. Their visits take place out of doors, sometimes on the bus, sometimes around the neighborhood, and sometimes in an empty mall.
This arrangement came about because he was being a complete UAV when he visited her in my home. Also, when dd was 3 weeks old he decided he could no longer be around my older ds. Apparently, he couldn't cope when I politely asked him to stop trying to discipline ds when the situation wasn't directly to do with him--e.g. going after ds nonstop about table manners or how to properly eat an apple. When I let him know that I felt it was my job to address these sorts of things as ds's parent, he suddenly decided that he couldn't be around ds when he visited dd, which of course made visits in my house impossible.
Also, visits with dd went in that direction because dd's dad's place is a complete sty and unsuitable for any child. (By sty, I mean this man lives in a bachelor suite that is cleaned once every four months at MOST, that has huge piles of months-old laundry littered everywhere, where empty beer bottles and full ash trays are strewn about, where every single dish is dirty and growing stuff in the sink, where full boxes are piled in towers (moving boxes from his move four years prior), where low shelves are decorated with breakable knick knacks and bongs and other non-child-friendly paraphernalia, where several computers and all their various cords are set up in random spots in the room, and where he has been known to chain smoke regularly.)
Also, he exclusively uses the bus for transportation, and is unwilling to ever pay for a cab. Even if his place were pristine, it would take him 45 minutes to do his share of the transportation.
Finally, when we mediated our visitation agreement, dd was six months old, and short, frequent visits were developmentally appropriate. It was also summertime, so outdoor visits were perfectly acceptable. We agreed on four hour-long visits each week. He was unemployed at the time (had been for months and months), and then he decided to take a job where he worked on call. I agreed to open up the possible visitation time to an hour six days a week, with the understanding that his work would interfere on average a few times a week and it would work out to about the same number of visits overall. Lo and behold he was fired, started coming all six days a week, and now has a new job that generally doesn't interfere with the early morning visits, so I get to see his face nearly every day.
Suffice it to say that I think the current visitation arrangement is absurd and I can't wait for it to change. He has been unwilling to agree to anything else so far. Of course, he thinks it's fantastic. It means that he doesn't have to take responsibility for anything greater than having fun with her during her best hour of the day. He doesn't need to feed her, house her, change her diapers, care for her when she's cranky, etc., but he can still congratulate himself for being father of the year because he sees her on a near-daily basis. Apparently it "breaks his heart" when he can't see her for one day, although that doesn't stop him from canceling visits when he's tired or has a runny nose or a tingle in his back. Then he insists on taking her out into a dangerous windstorm because I suggested it might be a good day to skip a visit. The whole thing is just plain stupid.
Anyway, the absurd visitation arrangement has to change. Not just because it's absurd and no longer developmentally appropriate for dd, but because I'm going back to work in September and short visits first thing in the morning just won't work any more.
Dd's dad takes his time with things, to put it nicely, so I sent him an email back in March, discussing the fact that visitation would be changing, letting him know what the parameters of that would be (daycare days, etc.), and asking him to send me a suggestion for a new visitation schedule by August 1 so that we could discuss it and transition into the schedule throughout August. He agreed to do that.
Of course, I didn't hear from him during those five months, so I sent an email yesterday asking if he planned to still suggest a new schedule by today. He replied that "it would be easier for everyone" to keep the current arrangement going, to lengthen his public visits on his days off, and to add longer stretches at his mom's house every second Sunday, come September. He hasn't gotten his place ready for dd, and he doesn't intend to do so anytime soon.
There's no way he can keep seeing dd every day, especially since he has nowhere to see her. I'm good with the long stretches at his mom's, but it just isn't realistic for him to see dd every morning. (He can't use his mom's place for visits frequently because she lives quite far away. The bus ride is over 1.5 hours.) If he took dd to daycare M-W like he's suggested, it would take 45 minutes by bus to get there, and dd hates being restrained for long periods like that. He also doesn't seem to understand that starting daycare will be stressful enough for dd without being bumped from one caregiver to another to another, although he said he understood that toddlers and transitions don't mix well a while back.
Also, what kind of quality of visit is it if they spend the whole time on the bus or in the rain (dd came back with soaked feet and freezing hands many times over the course of the winter) or in the stupid, empty mall? What about when she's potty training? What about the fact that he sees her at 8 a.m. and no toddler-friendly place with a bathroom (like the library) is even open until 10?
Finally, I don't relish the idea of depending on him to make it every morning before I go to work. I can totally see him canceling at the last minute because he's tired or whatever, and me being up the creek until 9 when his mom arrives (she's doing childcare on Th and F), or having to rush her to daycare myself at the last minute.
Oh, and he also wants to keep things "flexible" because the job he's currently working at is only until the end of October and then he'll be on call again. (So far, even when unemployed, he has refused to agree to a fixed schedule and only did so in the past because the mediator told him he had to. My opinion is that, now that he's a dad, he needs to make his employment work for his daughter, not the other way around. He has no career and no job skills. It's not hard to find entry-level work around here, but he believes himself to be "above" most jobs, which is one of the reasons he has a long history of unemployment.)
I think what will work for "official" visitation come September is that he can have Sundays at his mom's. Right now, he works every second Sunday, but he can see dd from 10-6:30 at his mom's on the Sundays he has off. If he wants to continue to have hour-long visits on the remaining Sundays on the bus or in the park, then fine; it won't kill dd to do that once a week come the fall. If his on-call work phones him for a Sunday shift after his current contract ends, then it will be his decision whether or not to take that shift.
He can also make arrangements to take dd somewhere appropriate (like playgroup) on the Thurs. and/or Fri. that he doesn't work. His mom will be taking care of dd those days each week, and I think it's better to leave it up to her to arrange something on those days because she has good judgement and it relieves me of having to deal with him. It also means I don't have to count on him to be present or on time on those days first thing in the morning, but he can still see dd.
I'm pretty sure this will work, although he refuses to tell me what his actual work schedule is. His mom told me he works Mon-Wed one week (with Th, F off), then Sat.-Fri. (with Sat. and Sun off) the next week. He won't tell me what his hours are, just that he "can make it" to his 8-9 a.m. visits every day. Can you sense that he has a bit of power and control stuff going on?
Okay, so, here's my real question: How do I communicate to him the schedule that will actually work for dd in a relatively respectful way, and how much of an explanation should I include? I don't think having a "discussion" on this matter is going to accomplish anything but heightening conflict. He doesn't seem to get the whole "what it is to be a parent" part, or what dd's developmental needs might be. Should I still explain these things when I let him know what the new schedule is going to be, or is it useless? How would you word things?
Oh my goodness, I've written a book here. Thanks for reading, and thanks for any and all responses!
