Make-up Time for FROR?

[gemini3]

Quick background:

My husbands ex works a 12-hour overnight shift 3 days a week, and they have 50/50 custody on alternating weeks.  She was married, but in July she seperated from husband #2.  Her mother (who was apparently homeless prior) moved in with them when H2 moved out.  Grandma watched the children while BM was at work.  Then BM had an affair with SD1's best friends dad, and he moved in with them in November.  Grandma was sent packing a week later.  The new boyfriend has a questionable background - history of drug and alcohol addiction, abandoned his handicapped wife and 2 kids to move in with BM.  His stbx has also been making some alarming accusations, but we are fully aware that these accusations could very likely be false, given the nastiness of the divorce and custody battle.   

When Grandma moved out my huband asked for FROR on her work nights and BM agreed.  This was agreed to in co-parenting counseling, but is not a court order.  Since then everything has been going pretty smoothly since BM is wrapped up in all the drama between her new boyfriend and his stbx.  She is also trying to maintain the appearance of being the complete opposite of his stbx, which means all of the BS she usually aimed at us stopped dead as soon as they moved in together.   

Recently, BM has started asking for "make-up time" for the nights that we have the kids while she is working.  Her argument in counseling last time was that she's losing time with the kids, and she wants it to be "more even".  Her work schedule is 7P-730A, and she drops the kids off at 6:30P, and we bring them to school the next morning.  If there is no school she picks them up at 8A.  What she wants is to be able to get extra days during our weeks to make up for the days that we have them for FROR.   

So my question is, do we have to give make-up time for FROR? 

[ocean]

Do you have to...nope. Dad is her "babysitter" and since she works nights...she is missing 2-3 hours at night before bed, not a whole day.
Does mother have same schedule every week? Maybe change it so they are not back and forth so much?

[gemini3]

No, she has a different schedule every week.  Giving her make-up time is just going to mean more back and forth for them.  She also thinks it would be fine for her new boyfriend to be the babysitter, if we don't agree to the make-up time.  So there's a veiled threat of her rescinding the FROR agreement she made in counseling if dad doesn't comply.

The time she is missing is because she's not home - so she would be missing it whether he had FROR or not.  I just don't get the logic.  If the real issue was the time she was missing she could have kept her day shift.  But she wanted to make the overnight differential, so she took the overnight.  Now (as always) she wants to have her cake and eat it too, and everyone else is supposed to bend over backwards to make things work.

Also, my husband is military, and never once has she ever given him make-up time when he's missed visitation due to being deployed or TDY.  Which, BTW, was not his choice to be gone.  But now she chooses to work the overnight shift instead of the dayshift, which was during the kids school hours, and we're supposed to give her make-up time.

uuuugghhhh....  I hate this kind of thing!

BTW... just for laughs.  She told the counselor that she felt upset that the kids were spending more time with my husband than with her, even though she wasn't there - because she felt that the kids needed to be "under the influence of her aura" for the same amount of time they were with him.

[ocean]

Ha Ha Ha!!!!
What did the counselor say about all of this?

I could see her getting married to this new one and then you probably will loose in court over it...do the kids get along with the new BF? Maybe split it with her...let them stay (if they want) a few of the nights and your DH gets a few. OR Have you DH get them for dinner and they come home at 8:30 or 9 for bed with BF?

[gemini3]

About the aura thing?  He just looked at us, then nodded and made a few notes.  Which is what he always does when she says something crazy.

About the FROR... he just said that she needed to give the relationship with her new boyfriend more time before he took on a parental roll with the children.  Which is exactly how we feel about it.

She might marry this guy, but before she does she will first have to divorce husband #2.  And the new boyfriend will first have to get a divorce from his wife of 25 years, with whom he has two children of his own.  That one might take a while.

I don't think my husband will go for allowing the BF to watch the kids overnight.  His behavior is questionable at best.  The kids are old enough to tell us if something happened, but by then it's too late.