My wife and I are soon to get a divorce contracts are due to be exchanged on our house in the next couple of days so we will be moving our separate ways, currently we all live together so I am going from a full time father to our 2.5 year old daughter to seeing her one evening in the week and an overnight at the weekend.

I am absolutely dreading this as my daughter is my life but I have to face facts its going to happen and soon, any advice for coping from people who have been through this situation?

Did you not fight for more access?

I work full time more access would be nice but diffulcult.

I wish you well. Have no experience of this so would only suggest you resist the temptation to over-indulge her. Easier said than done with kids I know!

Try to maintain the best relationship you can with her mum. The better this is, the better you can both cope with plans / changes / the future as far as the little un is concerned.

I went through this a few years ago.
Do all you can to keep things amicable between you and your ex, be flexible- it works both ways.
It gets easier over time, and you plan your time more effectively.
As long as your daughter still has 2 supportive, loving parents, that’s all that matters.

I’ve got two children, one I knew nothing about until she was one (now 12) and up until her ex stopped me seeing her a few moths ago I was seeing her one day a month (lives 200 miles away) and even though I’m trying to do everything I can to get access back I’m safe in the knowledge that she’s old enough to have 11 years of memories with her, 2000 photographs and she’ll always know who I am. She knows I’m her dad and she knows I’ll always be there, her arsehole mother and her fella have come across a bit of money and instead of getting the usual monthly text asking if my maintenance will be in on the 1st of the month (which it has for 11 years and including £6500 backdated to her DOB) I got a text to say my daughter doesn’t want to see me no more and don’t bother paying any maintenance. this is ‘work in progress’..

With me in Wigan I have a ten year old to the woman for whom I moved away from the north east for and we split up in 2006 -2009 got back together in 2009 to 2011 and now have a GF of 12 months. I see her two to three times a week and we have a brilliant relationship and we are very close.

We always do stuff in our time together, she seems fairly unaffected by the troubles with the ex and we all do whats best for the child. The point I’m making is as long as you make the effort, keep the ex sweet (sometimes you have to bite your lip a lot) and be consistent then you’ll be fine. In a selfish way you’ll enjoy the extra free time to yourself.

Then book yourself in for the snip 😆

You aren’t a part time dad, it’s just that the influence you have is intensified into a shorter time frame. Good advice from too tall. Maybe see about some holidays? Take 1 day off a month to do something special with her?

I’m a child that went through this, I only saw my dad every fortnight 🙁

Don’t be put off though as you can still be the main influence on her.
My dad was for me despite the small contact hours, I know I will never have a relationship or a role model again like I had with dad.

I miss him.

Warm vibes man, hope it works out but most of all as I am sure you know, treasure the moments you get 🙂

Worth trying to:

* maintain an amicable relationship with your ex (as has been said by others)
* have, as far as possible, a routine of when you see your daughter – for everyone’s benefit, but mainly your daughter’s
* avoid drifting apart from your daughter through lack of contact – particularly as she gets older
* find a way to have a ‘normal’ relationship with your daughter, rather than one that’s dominated by gifts/treats. Easy to fall into the latter with the best motivation, but it can (entirely unintentionally) end up being quite a shallow relationship if you’re not careful – which you may both end up regretting.

I’ve nothing useful to add but wanted to say good luck and chin up. Not sure how I’d cope in your situation but I guess we find a way when we have to.

I’d echo what others have said. Its easy to think that when you’re together you should be out doing exciting stuff. But a lot of the time they’re happy to just potter about with you, just doing normal stuff. Taking her to swimming lessons. Teach her how to skim stones in the river. Go out riding together.

As she gets older, its just as important that dad sits and helps her with her maths homework as it is to take her to Alton Towers.

Most important: tell her you love her all the time. She’ll tell you. And… you can never ever have too many hugs

Good luck. It can work, and work well

EDIT: Oh, yeah… aska bout flexible working. I changed my working hours so I can pick the girls and drop them off at school a couple of days a week.

I’ve no advice, but sorry to hear this mike.

Rough situation to be in that, your options depend a lot on your financial/work situation though!

It might be worth speaking to work about adjusting your hours/flexible working request so that you can spend more time with your daughter on the days that you’ve got her.

She’ll be getting her free nursery hours when she turns 3 which means you could spend the morning/afternoon with her on those days and avoid either of you having to pay childcare.

Most of all, good luck and get a decent set of lights for all the night riding 😉

Yikes KT! Thinking of you buddy

Like PiknMix I was a child who had this but only got to see his dad twice a year for a few weeks at a time. Didn’t worry me at the time though – it was just how it was. However, in hindsight, much of the advice here is good. Particularly:

maintain an amicable relationship with your ex (as has been said by others)

– Children see and hear way more than you imagine and that has as much influence as what you are trying to do as a dad.

find a way to have a ‘normal’ relationship with your daughter, rather than one that’s dominated by gifts/treats. Easy to fall into the latter with the best motivation, but it can (entirely unintentionally) end up being quite a shallow relationship if you’re not careful – which you may both end up regretting

That. Fortunately it didn’t happen but it could quite easily have.

You now have much more limited contact but that doesn’t make it worse – it just makes it a bit tougher for you 🙁

Good luck

Dont know what to say, but positive vibes to you mate.
You’ll summon the strength to deal with this, for sure.

I went through this as a child.
My father as well as divorced from my mum worked away a lot. So I saw him very occasionally. But we are more like best mates than father and son now.
But it scares the crap out of me the thought of ever being only able to see my kids other than full time. I miss both of them if they are away for a weekend. So I can’t imagine what you’re going through from that side of it KT

Really sorry to hear that Mike – chin up and hope it works out ok for you.

I’ve no advice, but sorry to hear this mike.

^^^ This, hope you both can work it out what is best. 🙂

I split up very, very messily with my ex about nine years ago – Ex **** off 230 miles away and I didn’t see them for six months until through court I fought for access and a court order that I saw them every third weekend and half the school holidays…

fast forward to 2 Months ago, and my eleven year old daughter moved in with me, and last month started secondary school in a new town, living with her dad! 😀

Two lessons!

i) Kids make up their own minds about everything that’s happened in the long run, until then, the best you can do is let them know that they are loved, and that the door is always open for them.

ii) Keep the faith!

Z11 – nice story. Really touching.

I have a 10 year old and a 16 year old. Separated from their mum 4 months ago but live only 400 yards away. It seems ok so far but I really miss checking the 10 year old is tucked up and asleep each night. It is going to be a challenge, but seeing a fair amount of my boys. Main issues seem to be:

1) Keeping regular phone contact – but not making it seem artificial and forced.
2) Making sure we do boring things as well as exciting things.
3) How things work out for the kids with the woman who is in my life.

I don’t want to be one of those dads who are in pizza express every sunday lunch asking their bored kids about their mum’s new boyfriend.

The thing which I have dreaded most is that my 10 year old might end up calling someone else “Dad”.

I Gave up all my weekend to have my kids. Couldnt have them during the week so had every friday sat and sunday night. Well worth it.