That's a tricky one. Not cool that he did it without talking to you. Although in saying that, is it actually written in a will anywhere?

No idea how you would go about negotiating. I guess at the end of the day it has to come down to what would be best for the girls, which can come down to things like house setup, location, whether they could remain at their school etc etc. could you write a list of these things to give a more objective look at it all?

Also just wanted to point out your user name appears to be your real name and is doesn't give you much privacy - you might want to change it? Some BB threads can be read by non-members and show up in Google searches.