To not take step kids on my holiday?

thanks everyone for your input. I will ask for this thread to be deleted now as too many people don’t read the updates and just tear into my husband for being a shit dad without knowing the circumstances and I can’t explain it all without being too identifying.

It’s not about it being detrimental to the children. Some parents would genuinely miss their children and want to spend time with them.

People don't like to admit that women can be like this, she's fought for him to have as little time as possible and then frequently cancels their contact. He's probably not super close to his children because he's been forced to barely spend any time with them.

I would normally agree and yes three weeks is probably a long time. However the mum is the one who moved three hours away so it’s very difficult to arrange stuff during the week. She also frequently cancels his time with the kids when it suits her, my husband has already taken her to court twice but she keeps doing it and now they are aging out of court orders anyway.

He does try very hard to make the most of the time when they are here but also not put them in a difficult position. By arguing with mum about contact time and forcing them to come when mum has made plans and is telling the kids they can’t now go to the lovely family bbq because they have to be at dads and things like that. I don’t want to go into it in great detail but it’s not always so clear cut as in “dad is a shit for not sitting in a cupboard when the kids aren’t with him” and “he should have uprooted his life and followed the kids across the country” like seems to be the expectation of some people

No way he would voluntarily go three weeks without seeing them.

I find it hard to believe that some posters consider 3 weeks away - as somehow detrimental to their children!

Not everything revolves around the children though, does it. Only EOW does for this Dad and he can’t even manage that. Why couldn’t he have gone for two weeks (just under) so he was able to see his kids when he’s supposed to?

I don’t plan to split from my children’s father any time soon but I can confidently say there is not a cat in hells chance he would accept only EOW contact and there is no way he would voluntarily go three weeks without seeing them.

Of course YANBU. The mum sounds deranged. Why would DCs (step or bio) be taken on a grown ups holiday?

I’ve been on holidays when my own bio DCs haven’t been included and they’ve stayed with relatives.

But on MN, people act like your DCs should be taken into care if you don’t take them to Disney twice a year.

Oh don't be so ridiculous. Not everything has to revolve around children and it doesn't kill them to not be put first in every single thing all the time. You say this would piss you off too but would you actually behave as the mum has in this instance?

And do you seriously think OP shouldn't have gone on this trip, something that sounds really meaningful to her and her family, just because she is a stepparent? Bloody hell. I suppose she should have settled for a wet week in Clacton with bored stepkids because after all, she knew what she was signing up for. 🙄

It's incredible how on these SM threads the ex/bio mum is always a screaming crazy woman. 🙄

Oh don't be so ridiculous. Not everything has to revolve around children and it doesn't kill them to not be put first in every single thing all the time. You say this would piss you off too but would you actually behave as the mum has in this instance?

And do you seriously think OP shouldn't have gone on this trip, something that sounds really meaningful to her and her family, just because she is a stepparent? Bloody hell. I suppose she should have settled for a wet week in Clacton with bored stepkids because after all, she knew what she was signing up for. 🙄

I'm not a bitter single mum DH and I are together. But I think it's shit to use 3 weeks of your leave to not see your kids, to be honest.

I imagine the children's mother could not and would not take 3 weeks off parenting to go on a lovely adult holiday!

He already only has them every other weekend, and he gets loads of time off work apparently, so he won't lack for holidays.

It sounds hard-line but I believe if you have the terrible misfortune to not live with your own children, you have to accept that you have made a huge life error and you must live with its consequences.

Anyone can get divorced and relationships break down, but in terms of your children, you have to accept your part in fucking up a core bit of their stability, and therefore it's now on you, to go the extra mile, to spend as much time as you can with them.

We'd all love a jaunt with a great new sexy spouse with no kids wouldn't we? But once you have had children, adult child free holidays tend to be off the table for the time they are young, for both parents. And the more so if you are divorced. The greater needs to be your effort to stay close and have multiple touch points through every single week of their lives.

Maybe this is a one off, this holiday. But it is statistically likely he doesn't pay the real costs of taking care of them, he doesn't do their life admin, he doesn't have them that many days in total.

So, hearing about a luxury American break would piss me off too, if I were the children's mother and daily holding myself to a higher standard of care and being present.

Also. New wife, wind your neck in. "No we can't come visit, dear family, for three weeks, you know DH has young children and it's too long for him to go without seeing them" is what you should have said. Maybe he doesn't get that holiday, you signed up for that when getting together with a man with children.

I think what people are missing is that this was approached this way because of the volatility of the relationship with the mother
No it really isn't. He could have gone and picked them up, explain that he was going away unexpectedly and drop them to his sister himself for a start.

He didn't because he didn't give a shit about the impact it would have on them. Nothing to do with the ex at this point.

In nuclear families it's pretty common for parents to take a trip without their kids. No issue there.

It's pretty uncommon for it to to be for three weeks, and for a parent to take that much annual leave that isn't used to spend time with children when they're on school holidays.

No I already answered this. He takes them camping. It’s more age appropriate than being so far away from home for so long especially since they are fairly insecure children. They have holidayed internationally with the mum before but not with him and he doesn’t want to book something because in the past she has cancelled them coming over when she knew he had something planned.

I agree with the poster saying “who would do that to their kids” and I can’t believe it either that she’d rather have the kids miss out on experiences and trips so that her ex is losing the booking but I have witnessed this myself .

Sure:

1. that he went for 3 weeks (I don’t know any parent that does that)
2. that the holiday wasn’t a gift, he paid for flights himself, they just paid for events out there (I don’t know any parent that does that whilst the only holiday they’ve ever taken their children on is camping in the uk)
3. that he didn’t tell his children he was going, nor where he was
4. that having not seen his children for near on a month, and not bothered to tell them where he was, or communicate with them at all throughout the trip, he found it strange that they weren’t excited for him when he showed off his photos
5. that he has no relationship with his children as he only sees them (if he’s not on holiday) twice a month

I‘m sorry op, but I laughed out loud at your first few sentences. He takes them camping because it’s incredibly cheap. That’s it. You seem to believe everything's he says, even when it is very clearly bullshit. The more you type, the more I’m thinking the mum has very good reasons for limiting contact.