desperate dad, controlling ex

[Helplessdad]

Split when dd was v young. Ex wife moved 300 miles away to live with parents while she got back on her feet. Several months later I also moved to be with my partner (currently pregnant) which unfortunately was I the opposite direction. Since then I have had as much contact as poss, every other weekend staying at hotels near dd plus a week here and there for holidays and Christmas.

I just can do it anymore. It's exhausting doing all the travelling and I can't afford petrol, hotel and eating out every other weekend.

I have suggested a new plan- 6 weeks no contact, but then a whole week with my girl up here so we can spend quality time and she can get to know her other family.

Ex has said no- it's not in the interests of our daughter, it's out of her routine, it's too long away from mum, etc etc. but how is it not in her interest of she gets to spend proper time with me?

Ex isn't budging and I don't know what to do. I just can't carry on like this. I'm broke and exhausted.

Aibu to try to take this to court?

not read the whole thing so appols if covered but here's my two peneth...

so - My ex cheated on me with his now Gf - my family live 150 miles away and yes initially I did want to move away BUT he was/is a good dad and they love him and I couldn;t do that to my kids so I stayed - and yes THEY have my kids for access and taken them away and yes it hurts like fuck BUT the kids are the thing that matters NOT me and my feelings/resentments

that said OP YOU also moved away - you both need to find a compromise - such as YOU move nearer and she commutes half way to drop off - you have regular arrangements and STICK to them ( 1 weekend a month and longer in holidays)

I do feel for you as I would hate my kids to be 300 miles away but I can totally understand why she felt she had to move and I think you are being a bit stubborn

I honestly don't think it is fair to say that the OP has got an unfair response in the main (there were some harsh comments, but it is a long thread and everyone will get a few harsh comments). Lots of people have tried very hard to understand his situation and have posted with a lot of sympathy for the fact he obviously wants to see his DD and he's obviously got a very natural human emotional state about his ex.

I don't think that disagreeing with him that his history is relevant, is being nasty or rude.

It may seem nicer to pretend everything will magically be ok and the practicalities will sort themselves out, but they won't.

Shame you weren't this desperate to see your daughter before you decided to start shagging around.

• You had an affair when your daughter was a baby.
• You (and your wandering cock) were the cause of your family breakup.

- You moved miles away to fit in with your mistress after your wife had moved to be nearer her own family for the support she no doubt needed after her husband had (literally) fucked off.

• You are refusing to move to be nearer your daughter.
• You are having another child when you claim to be skint.
• You have unilaterally decided that your daughter's routines and paid-for nursery sessions can be jettisoned.
• You are not going to take time off work so you wouldn't be seeing your daughter in those weeks anyway.

And now you have the fucking cheek to come on here and slam your ex-wife for being controlling, and you are complaining about being exhausted!

BTW I have no personal axe to grind, I have not been in this situation myself- but I have every admiration for the partner who is left to pick up the pieces of the family when the other one does what the hell they like with no regard for anybody else. I'm amazed your Ex is still being civil and facilitating contact to this extent.

Oh god, please don't take an 18 mo old away from her mum for a whole week this is absolutely not in her best interests.

My parents split when I was tiny too - even at the age of 6 years, just a weekend away from my mum was horrible - all the separations had a long term impact. And FWIW to this day I blame my dad for moving so far away, which was choice of him and his new partner.

Trying to be objective, my own XH left me with 2 DS youngest was 1, some years back post affair.

The issues from my perspective then and now were trust was broken ( this takes a very longtime to rebuid) DS's had a family this 'new family' talk was antagonistic particuarly when I fought to create emotional and financial stability, other women was not part of dynamic for me and DC it was X's chosen issue not relevant to our family.

With little ones Ideally little and often is good for contact. 6 weekly seams unusual. We used Skype, recorded messages and recorded bedtime stories.

I would have been very strongly against a week so far away every 6 weeks. Could you rent a cottage for a long weekend near your DC every month instead as a possible compromise on what you're currently trying to do?

Have you thought about mediation either formal or using a person you mutually respect to keep things on track? It was very beneficial to me and XH. His dad mediated for us. We each had three issues to discuss that we emailed each other in advance and took it in turns to put our case across. It's not about winners and loosers itsabout your DC growing up to respect themselves and where they came from. That's not about hours of access, from my perspective it's about knowing both parents and feeling wanted and loved by both in their own way.

What do you really want? I'm guessing a positive relationship is high on the list. A life for yourself, time with your expected child. Can you step back and work this through potentially from everyone's perspective.

Do you have family who could also visit your DC and offer them positive feedback on you? My XPIL's, who I affectionately call the outlaws, regularly visit with me and the DC, they live several hundred miles away. They talk with DC about XH as a chid and the greater family. It all builds on the DC's self confidence in knowing who they are.

So many ways forward just make sure that the path you choose is a positive one and try to avoid antagonism and digging over the many mountains of resentment that will no doubt exist.

Cheers, sock. DS1 was 10 in the Easter Hols. This arrangement has been in place since he started Reception. Before that, we were building up to this level of contact, as he frequently disappeared for months at a time, because he was 'too busy' to see our DS. Which corresponded to times when his OW 'new partner' was struggling with HER DC from a previous relationship, or I had got into a new relationship.

Twice he did that - from when we split up when DS1 was 9mo, when I kicked him out after finding him and OW shagging in my bed, with our DS AWAKE IN THE COT IN THE ROOM, he was 'too busy' getting his end away with his bit of fluff to see our DS for 6 months, I restarted daytime contact with a view to DS getting to know him again, before going to overnights, but because he had to be away from his OW, he stopped seeing him again after just 3 months.

It was then another 8 months before he took me to court for access (despite not having asked me at all, not an email, not a call, or text, or knock at the door of our marital home...). He was offered 2 hours a fortnight in a contact centre by the judge. After just 5 weeks, he stopped going, because his OW wasn't allowed in.

3 months later, he applied to the courts again to see DS. He was again offered a Contact centre. Which went well for 11 weeks, until he discovered I was in a new relationship and had had another baby. So he stopped seeing DS AGAIN.

6 months later, he took me back to court AGAIN. And it is only since then, when DS was 3yo, that contact was able to be properly agreed on.

Between the age of yo and 4.5yo, when he started Reception, we built up from 2 hours a fortnight in a contact centre, to the current 48%/52% split.

6 years down the line, we are just starting discussions about how contact may have to change on transition to Secondary school in a years' time.

I hardly see that as controlling and abusive?

My first Christmas apart from my DS was his third Christmas, the first one he really understood. I MISSED that experience with him in the name of 'fairness'. When Ex-H could quite easily have had the opportunity to see it AS WELL AS ME, if he hadn't fucking cheated on me.

Instead, because of a choice HE made, I have to miss out on quite a few firsts and special moments with my DS, which would NEVER have entered into my head when we decided to TTC. I didn't have a child so that someone else could witness these firsts when I can't...these are memories of my DS that I will never HAVE.

All because of HIS choices. Not mine. So forgive me if I sound less than compromising when it comes to people saying that I should give up ALL of the school holidays because of HIS CHOICES.

Half each gives both of us to have the opportunity to make SOME memories with him, though through HIS CHOICES, I now get to miss out on half of those. Yeah, I'm bitter. When you spend half of your Christmasses in tears because one of your DC isn't there, yeah, you get very fucking bitter WHEN IT WAS NOT YOUR CHOICE for it to be this way...

What about a youth hostel?

Read the whole thread and these are some reasons why what you are suggesting practically is not in the interests of your DD IMO and if I were your ex, I would be concerned about your proposals too:

When DC1 was about 18 months we took her on holiday approx 220 miles away. We thought if we went in the evening she would sleep. She didn't. We had a tail back on the motorway meaning we couldn't pull off at services or get her out of her car seat. She was hysterical. About 5 hours later, we finally arrived. The journey back was slightly better but still hard and we had two adults to one child ratio in the car (am assuming you're not planning on making the round trip with new partner and newborn in car? How will you pass food/drink to your DD or try and keep her entertained/reassured during long stretches of driving without overnight stay or lots and lots of stops meaning it's going to take a full day of travelling I would think?) In fact, the journeys were such a nightmare we swore we would not holiday that far away again until she was a lot older.

To want your DD to travel that distance x 2 every six weeks sounds unreaosnable to me.

DC 2 is currently 19 months and I really wouldn't want him to be away from me for a week at a time, even with his father let alone with someone he doesn't know very well (you say your ex will be doing several days childcare)

Finally, having had a newborn and older DC (bigger gap) that is hard enough work. At 19 months DC2 is at maximum hard work phase - mobile, knows what he wants but largely non verbal, tantrummy, into everything etc.. an 18 mo and a newborn is going to be a huge amount of hard work and if I were your ex I would be very worried about that, and how your new partner would cope, particularly when the 18 mo is not her own DC.

Holy you made me spit out my wine then I pmsl at that after the other thread

Should add am also separated and DC see XH little and often, including several bedtimes and one full day a week. He also lives in same town and I still would not think 18 mo could cope with a week away from me.

Would say he also took a little while to get back into his routine with nursery after recent week off so again not sure taking 18 mo out of nursery every 6 weeks is good plan.

So I can think of a good 5 reaosnable objections to the plan. Not sure why you see your ex partner as being unreaosnable given all this.

And BTW - I can see why the Ex is refusing to do Skype.

Cheating Ex pops up on Skype. Mother doesn't want to see him, hear him, or generally be reminded of his betrayal. Yet she is expected to sit there for half an hour holding a wriggling toddler on her lap FOR HER CHEATING EX'S BENEFIT. Having to see him play the doting dad, when he didn't think of the long-term effects his cheating would have on his DD, breaking up her family, leaving her shuttled between two parents for her entire childhood.

Yeah, that's not controlling...minimising his Ex's pain for his own benefit, making her sit there politely trying to hold a wriggling toddler, probably at a time convenient to HIM, ignoring the toddler's routine (which obviously doesn't matter to him, he's quite happy to want to pull her out of Nursery for his own benefit, and presumably expecting the DC mother to pay those costs too, as he's skint - Nursery fees have to be paid whether the DC is there or not), not giving a shiny shit how much this will affect his EX emotionally.

Now, I can see the point in Skype if the DC involved are old enough to manage this form of contact by themselves - but if it involves a mother having to have a form of contact with a person who causes her emotional distress, as the DC isn't old enough to use Skype alone, I think it is completely irrational and abusive of the OP to expect that to happen.

OP - your Ex may NEVER get over your betrayal - because she is reminded of it EVERY SINGLE TIME your DD is with you and not her. If you hadn't cheated on her, she would never need to have been separated from her DD throughout her childhood. She would have been able to gaze on her EVERY night while she was sleeping. She would have seen ALL of her firsts, and been a part of every single day of her DD's.

It is SOLELY down to your cheating that she is not able to do that, and it is a PERMANENT reminder. Nearly a decade down the line now, and tonight when I kiss my other sleeping DC's goodnight, there will be an empty bed in one room, and a tear rolling down my cheek.

It doesn't matter how 'fair' I am to my Ex-H, he is NOT fair to me. I do my best to do the best thing for my DS. But it has been at the expense of my personal happiness, and I will regret having a DC with a cheating scumbag FOREVER, for every night I have been unable to kiss my DS goodnight while he is sleeping, for every time I have seen something funny that my DS would have liked, turned to share it with him and he is not here, for every first word I didn't hear, for the time he was at his dad's and got injured, and I wasn't called to go and see him in hospital so I wasn't there to comfort him, for every birthday where he leaves a pile of presents not yet played with because it is time for him to leave to go to his dad's. For every Mother's Day I don't have him with me because it is his dad's weekend. For every Christmas day there is a pile of unopened presents under the tree till the next day.

I put a brave face on it in RL, so that it doesn't affect my DS, or my other DC. But it doesn't mean that my pillow isn't wet with tears frequently, even ten years later.

THAT is the legacy you have left your Ex with, putting a brave face on it for your DD's sake, while dying a little inside every time your DD is with you. And you call HER the selfish one?!

I can just hear Jeremy Kyle now..............!!!!!

Next Christmas is going to be my worst Christmas yet. Due to arrangements with Ex's work etc, I will have NO DC on Christmas day, and I have no family to go to either. So I will be sat alone in my house with a microwave meal for one. That is Christmas 2013 for me.

Looking forward to that one - I won't even have the other DC's here to keep a brave face on for.

I may be seen snivelling my way around MN that day!

Jeremy Kyle? Who the heck is Jeremy Kyle?

Couthymow this year I will be working Christmas :( not sure if it will be 8 or 12 hours

I have some experience of a similar situation.

My H left when dc2 was literally weeks old. He then spent much of the next couple of years working abroad so I decided that in order to get back on my feet (not least because my solicitor advised me to get my financial ducks in a line) I moved 200 miles away in order to access some family support.

I accept that my H left me, not our dcs, and I understand that he misses them terribly. I cannot, however, be sure that he won't fuck off elsewhere when the fancy takes him and our dcs need stability. I do my best to facilitate their relationship but I won't be left vunerable again.

I have heard all the same arguments about mileage and exhaustion OP but really, this was all your choice. You decided to cheat on your wife. This is how this situation is panning out. I'm sorry, I'm sure you love your children, but I don't sympathise with your situation.

sorry - didn't mean for you to waste your wine just desperately trying to not conform to the bitter ex wife stereotype ...I DO have a shitty ex husband who also happens to be a good father to our children

had I moved I have no doubt he would have followed

am not sure what other thread you mean?

IGNORE ME just realised I don't have an actual HOLY name on Mumsnet ...only other dark places - ergo you where not actually addressing me ...my bad!

Was a thread about someone being offended about a youth hostel posting a picture of a tortia on Facebook

couthy imo you have the patience of a saint im am extreamly impressed with your ability to NOT punish your ex

Couthymow your post made me cry. I know SO many women in your exact situation. Their feelings irrelevant cos the partner who left them when they were so vulnerable wants to see the kids NOW. The mother always has to work around him and if not she's a bitch, she has to do all the actual care and childrearing but asking for cm makes her money grabbing. She's the one actually being a parent but he sees his 'rights' as more important. I wish being a mother was more valued appreciated and I wish more fathers actually acted like fathers.

Mchappy. What's a tortia?

Amber I know it is a spelling mistake, can't spell it but it's a wrap kind of sandwich

CM? What's Maintenance? At least from Ex-H. He can't be arsed to work - I have worked for 4 out of the last 8 years despite being fairly disabled, AND two of my other DC's having disabilities. He hasn't had a job AT ALL in the 9.5 years that we have been divorced. And as he and OW his 'new partner' (not-so new now, but will always be the OW to me...) keep having yet more DC while he can't support the one he already has, due to being on JSA, I get nada, zilch, nothing.

I think McHappy means tortilla...