^^What SuperDaddy1027 said. 100%. I cringe every single time I hear of someone having a ‘flexible’ arrangement with a cheating X.
Flexibility is awesome. I’m super flexible. We make changes all the time because it’s sensible. I still have Stamped Consent Orders (which is what’s they’re called in Australia) as a fall back when he wants to be difficult and/or just feels like yanking my chain for shits and giggles.
I insisted on Stamped Consent Orders after reading all of the horror stories here and on other forums. He pushed for a flexible arrangement we could work through but I insited as we could have flexibility but Stamped Orders meant we had an agreed starting position.
6 years out and it has been a god send. Not 100% enforceable and I did miss a few loopholes he has exploited but the bones were there.
He was way more willing to put the girls first in the early days and I was still able to reach him (plus the benefit of UnicornFartLand meant he wanted this stuff sorted to prove how wonderful a human he was and also because he wanted to focus on his whores).
All agreements were reciprocal so I didn’t propose anything I wouldn’t agree to in reverse. The other upside (in hindsight, it didn’t seem it at the time) was I surrendered to a whole bunch of stuff that was causing me anguish.
It’s hard to let go of being able to influence parenting decisions when parenting with a lower muppet (for the uninitiated this came from a very old thread and hilarious about B grade muppets/lower muppets - not even one of the high profile ones) but it was necessary for me to let go of what I could not change.
Basically if I couldn’t legally compel him to do something I just let it go. It was horrific in the early days but has ended up being a big factor in detaching from the drama and also in helping nurture a relative peace between us.
One of my past taglines about my M was “I was in a handshake agreement with a man without honour”.
Never again. No handshake agreements. Stamped Consent Orders and any changes agreed in detail in writing.