my ex has just announced he wants the kids for christams

[workshy]

my ex -who hates christmas, has never had anything to do with it and spent the last one we were together in bed, -has just messaged me to say he is assuming he is having the kids this christmas as I had them last year!!!

this is the first time he has mentioned christmas, it's my weekend to have them (mutual agreement, no court order) they are expecting to go to my parents with their cousins and are looking forward to it, he hasn't bought them any 'santa' presents

just want to tell him to fuck right off but would should I consider it?

(they are 8&10 btw, last year he came to see them for an hour in the morning before we went to my mums, and I have no problem with him doing that again)

And I still think that maintenance is a TOTALLY separate issue to access. And so do the family courts. Yes, it means that the father is a shit-stain of the highest order if they don't pay maintenance. But they can still be a shit-stain of the highest order and be a GOOD father at the same time. Maybe not a good PROVIDER - but good emotionally. I'm NOT saying that is the case always, but Ex-H won't be paying maintenance after January. IMO it makes him a shit-stain of the highest order. But in my DS1's opinion - he will still sit down at the weekend and play Monopoly with him, he will still get a cuddle from his dad when he is feeling upset, he will still be able to see his siblings at his dad's house.

You ALL need to separate how YOU feel about your Ex's from how you think your CHILDREN should feel about your ex's. Because to your CHILDREN, that person is NOT their Ex-FATHER. He is, purely and simply, their FATHER.

"Yeah, it's SHIT if the father's haven't been involved for 6 months - but in that case, I would be telling them to go to a contact centre to re-establish contact FIRST. As I did with Ex-H BOTH times he decided he was too busy to see DS1 for 6-9 months at a time.

No, in that situation, I wouldn't be sending the Dc to spend Christmas with their father - but I would be trying to re-establish contact, and would expect that when regular contact was resumed, christmasses would then alternate."

He stopped seeing the kids as "punishment" for me seeing someone else (6 months after we split, and he'd already been seeing other people) and then moved 400 miles away to live with someone he barely knew. I think it's highly unlikely at this point that any sort of regular contact (save for the weekly phone call in place atm) will be established. I have tried to arrange contact with him and have gone so far as having a solicitor do the same when XP started threatening me with court action when I wouldn't do as I was told agree to what he wanted (basically to turn up when he felt like it on an ad hoc basis which DS1 would not be able to cope with). He didn't reply to the first solicitor's letter and I am waiting to see if he replies to the second one sent out this week. DS2 only has vague memories of him, DD none at all. They only have one home, and it is here, with me. That is where they spend Christmas and that's how it will stay for the foreseeable future unless things change immensely. It has nothing to do with what's best for me and everything to do with trying to maintain their sense of normality and repair the damage done to my eldest son by his father summarily abandoning him and going to live with another family. To alternate Christmas in the situation as it stands, or even if more contact were established, would not be thinking of them, it would be thinking of him and what's fair for him, and quite frankly I don't give a shit about him, or what he thinks is fair.

Thisis - in your case - it IS different. He won't commit to regular access. He won't even commit to regular supervised access. In your case, no I DON'T think that messing about with Christmas is best, at least not until your Ex grows up and starts seeing his dc regularly.

My Ex-H stopped seeing DS1 for 6 months because I got into a new relationship (despite the fact that we had divorced due to HIM cheating). He then took me to court without having even tried to ask me if he could see DS1. He was told to have regular access in a contact centre. He got as far as having unsupervised overnight contact one night a fortnight. Then when I gave birth to DS2, he stopped seeing DS1 again. Waited 9 months, and THEN did the same thing again.

Planned process, from contact centre to daytime unsupervised, to overnights. Now, however, 8 years down the line - Ex-H IS a good father, has a mid-week overnight every week, every other weekend from Friday afternoon through to Monday morning, half of all school holidays, split birthday, alternate christmasses.

Thisis - right now, your dc spending Christmas with their father obviously isn't in their best interests. But in 2/3 years time - it might be.

It isn't 'fair' that some us of have lived a nightmare for years and now we've finally got out of it, we are supposed to paint a smile on and bow down again to the demands of abusive men.

lol i would love to repeat that to all the silly little idiots who get up the duff a month after meeting Mr Right, "because we are in lurrrrve"

There are a lot of people parading their baggage on this thread and saying "it's all about the kids!" when it patently isn't about the OP's kids, it's about situations in posters' own homes.

My parents split when I was a child, we spent every Christmas at home which was absolutely avowedly my mother's house. Despite the fact my father was an alcoholic, my mother never spoke ill of him in front of us and as he had left because he had fallen hopelessly in love with another woman and had no animosity to my mother, he never said anything to us. There was no "influencing" done by either parent in terms of the fact we viewed my mother's house as home other than the fact that my father was an abusive alcoholic who married a woman who barely made eye contact with us let alone welcomed us into the house. I never wanted to spend Christmas with him but I loved when he came to the house on Christmas morning, as it was the only time in the year he would be reliably sober. They were wonderfully polite together and we really enjoyed the experience, which was really the most fair solution for everyone. All this "but it's HIS turn, normal weekend rules don't apply"... erm, says who? Surely there are no rules, per se, it's up to people to work out their own arrangements? There is form in this family that when an event occurs on one parent's weekend, that means the children stay with that parent. So there you go.

Separately, I also agree with people who say that a responsible, loving parent pays towards their children's keep. It is not a terrible thing for the RP to consider it as "their" money because it is part of the household income that pays for everything, seeing it as that does not mean they want to splurge it on shoes. It is tiresome when people are pedantic about how people talk about it. I have no time for parents who are "Santa Claus's of fathers", who burst in with presents and are all singing and dancing in front of kids but actually not willing to contribute in a responsible way to their children's upkeep.

It very much sounds like OP's ex is on the wind up.

Omg he didn't let you see your own dd on her birthday!

Sounds like he's still emotionally abusing you.

Personally I wouldn't want my dcs around an abusive person, biology or not.

thepeoplesprincess who were you previously? I feel I 'know' you, just not in this name iykwim??!

I only joined MN two weeks ago, so's you certainly don't know me from here. I used to frequently post on a rival parenting website and its FB spin-off tho.

*I have seen so many 'possessions' grow into totally fucked up teenagers who end up respecting neither parent in the end.

Children are not tennis balls to be batted to and fro between warring ex partners.

If parents can't put them first at any other time of year, they should bloody well try at Christmas...no matter how much bitterness they have towards their child's Father or Mother.*

I can perfectly well see why you might think my relationship with my ex is warring and bitter from what I've posted on here, but it couldn't be further from the truth in actuality. We're on pretty good terms, and I certainly give him far, far, far more consideration and respect than he could possibly hope to expect.

I'm also not entirely sure why you seem to think I'm not putting my girls first by not letting them go to their father. I don't personally teaching them to run to an abusive, violent manipulator every time he clicks his fi;ngers and wants to play happy families is in their best interests at all.

He fails them as a father just as much as he failed me as a partner, and he quite simply does not deserve them at Christmas whatever way you want to look at it.