Punished for 'affair'?

Play silly games win silly prizes OP. I highly doubt nothing happened before you told your XH. I would side with him and wouldn't be facilitating your night at the cinema when you have just made his whole world implode.

You are a full time parent, you get to spend all your time with them how lucky you are. Reframe it as that instead.

Have you ever looked after a child with complex needs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Love it when people refer to dads as babysitters. Or wait, you mean an actual babysitter because she shouldn’t dare to hope their father might step up in a way that isn’t about preventing her having a separate life?

So she gets a babysitter like most people have to.

Great! He’ll be happy to look after them then if he’s not trying to punish their mother.

They all do this. It's to punish you and the children are collateral damage. They often calm down and grow up if you don't react. You are a full time parent, you get to spend all your time with them how lucky you are. Reframe it as that instead. He's the one missing out. Any time he spends with them is a bonus. Make sure you get the child maintenance you are entitled to from him. You'll find he is suddenly more interested when he can pay less for having them more. Your children need to go to him together though as they are siblings. Make this clear to him.

Sounds fair enough that he wants some quality 121 time with his children.

Gentle reminder WeCanOnlyDoOurBest

Even if you receive carer benefits for you children, you deserve respite. Receiving taxpayer benefits doesn't mean women suddenly become slaves in a welfare state.

This is a bloody beautiful response to that utter numpty. Well done, OP.

In regards to your situation, sorry your ex sounds like a bellend that seems to want to hurt you and cause difficulties rather than parent his children equally with you.

Hoping in future you are able to co-parent effectively. Every parent deserves time to themselves or to do the occasional thing for yourself. Please don’t listen to the majority of folk on this thread - they’ve read the title and gone wild with the fact they think you’ve had an affair.

Yes, I'm sure the £81 a week carers allowance for 24/7 caring is absolutely worth it.

Op deserves a break ffs.

Or should taxpayers vote on what carers do with any spare time they have, maybe they could adopt one each like sponsoring a child and the carer then has to provide regular updates just so that taxpayer can make sure they don't buy a bottle of wine or, heaven forbid, get a haircut or something.

My ex does this which then means the kids end up involved in new relationship when they shouldn't. Babysitters can come to the house

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 might have to see if ‘CalmTheFuckDownMargaret’ is available as a username.

not an overnight stay at the ritz with half of Newcastle United lining up to pork me.

🤣🤣🤣 the other half can feed you dinner and run a bath.

I think you are getting a lot of stick because you said affair in your title.
Perhaps if you'd just said you and ex who were separated but still living together until recently when you entered a new relationship then the replies may have been different.

To answer the question no you can't force him to see the children but I'd give it time, he's obviously jealous you've moved on, give him time and let him heal and hopefully you'll be able to co-parent for the children.

I reported her comment but your response is a work of art.

She says he doesn’t want to look after the kids. Or are you just trying to stick the boot in?

Does it mean he should babysit so you can see your bf more often?

Tax payers don’t hold benefit recipients hostage either. They are allowed a life. I don’t think she’s asking for much to be allowed out once in a while?

What were you hoping for with this conversation? That he would have the children 50/50?

You need to start by having a babysitter come to the house while you are home. That way your child will get to know them while also feeling safe because you're there. After a few visits you can pop out for 5 minutes and build up from there. It's a ball ache and it will take time but everyone needs down time occasionally. You can get baby sitters that have experience working with kids with SEN.

This, if there is no court order in place. He doesn't get one child without the other.

Based on your updates, are you saying you ended the relationship last May but he refused to move out and you weren't able to so you both continued to live under the same roof. Then latterly you met someone else, told him so, which prompted him to move out but now he refuses to take both children at the same time.

If that's the case, I think you should have posted without referring to an affair- it skews the responses where posters aren't absorbing your updates.

One other thing, if one of your children has needs so complex that it needs one full time adult supervising could this be a factor in why he's taking them one at a time?

Then unfortunately, you're stuck. You can't make your exH have them.

So I guess the answer to your question "Does that mean I should live the rest of my life in misery, being shouted at?" is probably 'yes' as long as you keep arguing/asking your exH to have them. And if that's the case, you're going to have to find some way to make peace with yourself over it. Because in the end, you're only upsetting yourself, you aren't upsetting your exH one tiny bit. And if he's doing it to punish you, you're actually making him happy by reacting. Sucks, but there it is.

I don't know the actual 'dynamics' of your conversations but I assume it's you ask, he says no, and an argument ensues. So why do you continue to butt your head against that stone wall? I mean, he's not going to change because you demand he does nor even if you ask nicely, is he? What do you think would happen if you simply stopped asking and bided your time. Would he eventually step up out of love for his children?

But also consider whether or not was a caring and involved father to begin with. Did he do 50/50 with you on caring for all of the children before you separated? Did he take them all out or care for them all at home on his own, even if you were there? Did he happily send you off for an evening with friends without frequently calling/texting about some 'disaster' or other? Because if not, it's not likely that he'll ever step up, and it would be more to do with his inability to parent rather than you going out.

Sometimes we do what we think we should do (or want to do) and we don't get the result we think we should get. This may be one of those times.