Hi - this is my first post so sorry for the length. I really want opinions about whether I’m right to be upset with ex, and if what he’s doing is acceptable. I don’t think it is but after years of manipulation from him, I doubt myself sometimes. Any input would be great.
Ex and me share custody of DD, who’s just 4 yrs old. We have 50/50 care by arrangement. There’s no court order. Ex recently started an apprenticeship course. DD recently started school. She does 8.40 to 11.55am 5 days a week as she’s a Summer baby and that’s how her school does it for starting Reception. So ex and I spent weeks over the Summer discussing and agreeing a new contact plan to take into account DD being at school. He’s previously been verbally abusive and manipulative, but he seemed to be being very reasonable and pleasant. I asked him how he was going to organise dropping off and collecting DD from school on his contact days. He reassured me that his hours were flexible and he could take shorter days on the days he had DD in the week. I stupidly believed him.
What’s actually been happening is that he’s not done any school drop offs or collecting at all. He’s got his elderly dad to do them all. His dad is mid 80s and he isn’t in the best of health. Ex has previously told me that his dad would need to give up driving soon because he was getting dithery and making poor decisions. Ex said that he (ex’s dad) only drove locally now and that he no longer let his father drive the car when DD was in it because of all this.
BUT I now find out ex has been driving DD all the way to his dad’s house at night and then his dad has been driving DD to school in the morning - a 50 minute drive!! Both ex and me only live 5 mins from the school so this is complete madness. His father then collects DD from school and drives DD another 50mins back to his (ex’s father’s) house. Then in the evening ex goes to his father’s house and drives DD another 50 mins back to his own house so he can pretend he’s had DD all along when I collect her from him in the evenings!
AIBU? Surely this is mad - not to mention possibly dangerous? Poor DD is exhausted and unsettled. I’m worried about her safety and her being so tired, and it also chills me that ex could do this and that he lied so believably that I trusted him.
If he can’t take DD to school, he could drop her off at mine for me to take, or use the school’s own wraparound care. I can’t get my head round why he’s doing this. I’m a SAHM.
What can I do? I’m dreading speaking to ex because he just talks over me, lies and makes it impossible to think.
Please - is what he’s doing really as wrong for DD as I think it is? How would you approach this? What are my rights? Can I do anything? I’ve been lying awake worrying most of the night : (
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31 replies
BreatheAndFocus · 23/09/2019 12:28
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