I have refused to let DSS here every weekend

The mum is the one controlling contact. She refused more during holidays, and moved an hour away limiting any weekday contact. She also refuse to do any of the commuting.

The only point I agree with is the dad should have done more, by getting a court order to prevent her from being so unreasonable.

What she’s proposing just makes life as hard as possible for OP - no full family time together, but a two hour round trip every single Saturday and Sunday and never a child-free day off.

He needs to go to court though.

The whole thing is pathetic, a mother threatening to withhold her kids from seeing their dad and a dad who sees his kids 2 nights out of 14 and complaining because he wants some alone time with his wife.
As usual, the kids suffer.

Some of these responses are wild. Every other weekend and holidays in my opinion is a good arrangement - and clearly one that’s been working for yous. It gives both parents weekend family time and the children time to enjoy at both homes. There’s also nothing wrong with you both enjoying a child free weekend I’m sure most parents do?! I would advise trying to have it ordered through court and as it’s been working for a number of years it shouldn’t be a problem. Also £500 maintenance sounds fair unless your OH is a really high earner, child maintenance isn’t supposed to cover the full cost of raising children!

If I were you I would simply say you are happy to do the driving every fortnight. If she wants to change the arrangement she has to do the driving on the additional weeks. And that you will go to court if this cannot be resolved.

what do parents who have their kids full time do when they’ve got things to do with their kids!?! They get on with it .

Well neither parent has the kids full time so your point is irrelevant.

I’ll never be on board with any thread where dad and his new wife only want EOW. Shameful

I'll never be on board with any parent who threatens to withhold contact unless they get their own way. Disgusting.

Everyone's an arsehole

She unreasonable for unilaterally changing the contact and using the kids as a weapon to get her own way. She is only punishing her own children by stopping contact.

Your H is an arsehole for letting her move and repeatedly disrupt the kids. He could have got a prohibited steps order. He should have got a court order when she was acting like she has the final say on contact. She didn't make the kids alone. You Hs inaction is a huge problem. She's dictating because he's allowed her to dictate.

Everyone should be working in the best interest of the kids. That means putting their own needs above your wants. That means 1:1 in her case and a quite life / conflict aversion in his case.

This isn’t your fault. But your DH really isn’t stepping up as a father. His long working hours, the fact she left him, or that he pays maintenance are irrelevant. None of that changes the reality that there are children who need caring for every single day of the year.

Having them for two days a fortnight is frankly shocking. Their mum has them over 80% of the time, and he should be doing a lot more.

Before he met you OP how did he see his kids as he doesn’t drive?

Seems a bit weird to make this the new way so the kids wouldn’t spend time together with each other at the wkends at all. That would def be a strange set up. There obviously is a reason she’s asking so why is she not sharing as it may change things.

If you DH is not opposed to the idea fully then maybe there’s a compromise. You do as normal and then once every 6-8 wks (or whatever is agreed) u have one child each and then switch the following weekend.

He may be better getting a court order though as sounds like she thinks she decides and he has to go along with it.

This is a good idea but OP did say the mum has moved away with the kids so maybe not practical logistically.

I do think it’s a shame when the parents live so far apart that one parent ends up not being able to any of the after school and before school stuff. And kids have to be away from their friends hobbies etc on the NRP’s weekend.

But both parents should always have some weekend time with them, so it’s never fair if one parent gets all the weekends - all the quality time! Whilst the other does all the weekday grind.

SC and their mum may want to spend weekend time together though. If they’re in school this would mean all their ‘fun time’ is spent with dad and mum has limited quality time.

Sounds like their mum is struggling. Could/should your husband be doing more in terms of childcare during the week? Maybe they could each alternate an extra Wednesday night at yours. EOW is nothing really.

But this is all his responsibility. You would be unreasonable to stand in the way of him seeing his kids just because you like child-free time, but you're not unreasonable to refuse to take the whole logistical burden on yourself.

I also think it’s a badly titled thread though.

I think it’s a bad idea to separate the siblings every weekend, as per Mum’s suggestion, so for at reason alone, YANBU. The rest of it is somewhat just noise compared to that consideration.

I think the occasional weekend, or pair of weekends, maybe a couple of times a year, where you each have a weekend with one of the boys for some 121 time is a great idea. Even to facilitate a solo trip with each of them maybe?

But siblings shouldn’t be spending all their weekends apart.

I think the title of this thread is quite harsh. You seem a good step mum but the title reads harshly.

So if you dont think friday is a full day because of school, thats the same for the mother every week

But what she's offering would be even less time with the kids.

She's suggested early Sat morning to early Sun morning every weekend, but only one child at once so on a month with 4 weekends, each child will have 2 days with their father instead of 2xFriday evening to Monday morning.

It's also doubling the amount of driving that OP has to do and the two children don't get to see each other on a Saturday ever.

Well, it seems their Mum is pretty shit too.

Oh you're right, five days (since Friday is after school) a month is stellar parenting. He's wonderful.

Agree. The comment that was from that poster seemed unhinged and was totally inappropriate. It seems that some people cannot assess a situation without projecting their own issues onto it.

In this situation it’s seems clear that the resident parent is being completely unreasonable to both the children and the non-resident parent as she’s provided no plausible explanation for this demand to change arrangements in a way which would have a detrimental impact not just on their relationship with their other parent but also their relationship with each other as siblings.

Yes, usually it is the resident parent stitched up, but that doesn’t mean that is always the case and here there is no evidence of that at all.

Sounds like his ex has worked out she's getting a bum deal parenting for 12 days out of 14 and fancies sharing the joy with the other parent