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?

That is a really good way of putting it hilda - OP, does your new partner see this in terms of you having a committment to your DD, do you think, or do you think she sees it as her committments being more important?

It seems to me this is an issue you need to sort out, because in your projected scenario it's your new partner who will do a lot of the caring for your DD, so she would have to be completely on board with that for it to have a chance of working.

I get the impression that, like lots of us, you are really wishing something would work when in all practical ways, it's clear there is a lot against it.

You've fucked up royally but I expect you know that. Suggestions for minimising the awfulness. Earn more so you can pay for these two families properly. And I find Berrocca helps with exhaustion. And grovel like a bitch to your ex wife so she feels benign towards you. You're going to need all the help you can get.

OP this is a problem of your own making. Now you need to find a solution that doesn't mean your 18 month old dd travelling a 600+ mile round trip, no matter how (in)frequent the journey.

It is not in your child's best interests to have no contact for a month and a half and then be taken 300 miles from home to spend a week away from her primary carer with people she will not be comfortable or familiar with.

She is a baby. I would think this unfair to a 10 year old.

It does not matter that you and the woman you now live with are responsible for the breakup of your daughter's family but it does matter that you are both placing your needs above hers again. That isn't what you have DONE, it's what you are DOING.

It doesn't matter that you are tired. Tough, live with it.

It doesn't matter that access is costing you too much, give up something else, move to a smaller house.

I would sacrifice my last penny and live on three hours sleep a night to see my child.

I work, I have a toddler, I'm pregnant, we're often broke. I would like to be well rested and have more money but I signed up for this when I had children.

Anything less than whatever she needs is failing in your responsibility to your daughter. Grow up.

This doesn't work short-term or long-term.

I don't believe substituting your exhaustion over makng a 600 mile round trip to make it your young dd's is an acceptable swap. Doesn't change the cost implications either.

Come up with another plan.

As I have said, my Ex-H cheated on me when our DS was tiny. NO FUCKING WAY would I be giving up the entirety of the school holidays for a cheating scumbag who ripped apart my family.

I am happy to split the school holidays 50-50, exactly down the middle. But even 9 years+ down the line, I see no reason why I should lose out on seeing my DS for the other half of the holidays because my Ex-H couldn't keep his dick in his pants.

And the courts agree - cheating IS relavent in this instance. Your Ex had to cope with a tiny baby while you fucked off with your bit of fluff. Why SHOULDN'T she move to get the support from her family that she would have and should have got from YOU, OP? Instead of giving her that support, you were busy sticking your knob in someone else!

Or are you so blind as to be unable to see that YOU are the controlling, unreasonable one here? YOU didn't support your Ex because you were too busy having an affair. YOU didn't want her to have any support when YOU fucked off and left her/she threw you out for YOUR unreasonable behaviour (Yes, fucking someone else when you are in a relationship IS unreasonable, and even more so when you have a child in that relationship...). YOU weren't happy with your Ex moving away - but YOU would have moved away anyway.

If YOU had moved first, would it still be unreasonable for her to have then moved afterwards? Would you STILL have expected HER to fit in around YOU, as you are doing now?

In fact, I can't be arsed to continue typing on here, it's just too gobsmacking how much of a bloody entitled ARSE you are, and I can normally see both sides of everyone's story on here. I just can't see yours, and IMO, you have to suck up the travel time etc, and the issues it is probably causing with your OW 'new partner', who is probably insecure when you go and stay away every other weekend.

I'LL BET IT'S YOUR NEW PARTNER SAYING THAT ACCESS HAS TO CHANGE. AND IF I WAS YOUR EX, I'D BE TELLING YOU TO FUCK RIGHT OFF, AND WHEN YOU GOT THERE, TO FUCK OFF SOME MORE.

And I'll bet that your new partner can't move because she doesn't want the access arrangements for HER older DC to change. Yet she expects YOUR access arrangements to. FUCK THAT.

Op this is the price you have to pay to see your DD.

I can never get my head around the fact you had a loving wife and a newborn DD and you went and you went off to have an affair.

Are your new partner's commitments her children from a previous relationship?

How can anyone actually be this myopic or deluded that they can't see they are so entirely the author of their own misfortune? Feel very sad for your DD and ex having to deal with your fecklessness. You're going to sacrifice your relationship with your DD in order to appease the insecurities and neuroses of your current partner (she'll know the old saying about marrying the mistress and creating a vacancy) and you won't even realise what you've thrown away.

OP imagine that your Ex was the one who had had the affair and fucked off.

You had gained custody of the baby and left, heartbroken, to live near your parents, who you depend on massively (leaving your job/friends/ life behind you).

Then your Ex wife moved even further from her own child, to be with new man, and is now pregnant.

She is complaining that it's too expensive to keep popping up to visit, and would like you to send your baby to stay with her and new man for a week, even though the baby does not spend much time with her.

Because of her work, the baby will be mainly getting looked after by new man (you know, the one she had the affair with).

Sound reasonable? If not, surely you are being controlling and mean! After all, what she did to you was, oh, ages ago!

people cheat, people break up shit happens and people get over it and move on but to do that both have to work at it,in your case you need to grovel a bit give in a bit and ridgedly listen to dd's main carer with regard to whats in her best intrests.(so far nothing you have said strikes me as her being unreasonable or controling or nasty)

talking as both a mum and having experance of being a very involved stepmum to 6 children (the mothers of those relivant children and i are all very good friends still even many years later) i cannot imagine why you think its ok to not bother for 6 weeks then have a week on because its easyer for you to cope with because of your suituation when ds is still so little.do you want your daughter to forget who you are because you are leaving it so long?

obviously the arangement you have now is better for your dd but understandabley you now find that YOU cannot keep doing it so why demand a week after every 6 weeks why not a weekend every 3/4? and ffs why on earth do you think its ok to not have to fund everything in regard to your contact?

what portion of your income is paid for maintainance? you can bet its a damn sight less than the RP contributes towards dd so why on earth would you want to increase her outgoings. who is going to pay the nursery fees for the time you want her its not a pay as you go service.

i know damn well if anybody told me i had to fund my ex's contact arangements i would tell them to get stuffed. if any partner i had, talked about saying this to their ex i would jump ship as i dont want anybody like that in my life especially if there also going to use any children i have to reduce their maintainance liability.

if it took me to walk 300 miles to see my kids i would and i would carry on doing it till i dropped down dead or my feet wore away

NO FUCKING WAY would I be giving up the entirety of the school holidays for a cheating scumbag who ripped apart my family.

Thank God, that is why we have courts to stop vindictive "mouthycows" controlling using and abusing their children as tools to get at their ex partners. just because you both weren't able to maintain a relationship doesnt mean that fathers should be excluded from the lives of their children

Jumpingthroughhoops - was wondering how long it would be before someone came along and I could complete my 'cheats bingo scorecard'. Next thing you'll be telling the OP he was justified in cheating cos he wasn't getting enough blow jobs from his pregnant wife

Um. I think he has successfully excluded himself.
Controlling? I wonder how "in control" Ex has felt this last year? I hope she is on MN. I would like to buy her a drink. I bet she fucking needs one.
I hate when people claim that men get an unfairly hard time on here because they are men,
I ALWAYS do a gender swap in my head when reading these things. I WANT to be fair.
But in this case, whoever it was who said he needs to crawl like a bitch to accommodate Ex wife is spot on.
You made your bed OP. Lie in it.

Oh, and being a parent is not a right. It's a privilege.

oh and i also think its pretty pisspoor to not arange your limited contact so your work shouldnt be an issue thats what days off and weekends are for.

fair enough if you are coparenting but you are not.your dd has a right to expect to be in your care during the limited time you have her

Nothing of the sort - but RP should not use a child as a weapon or form of point scoring. Just because a relationship has failed - for whatever reason -you cannot make the child disadvantaged.

The likelihood is that a court would give you half the holidays when she started school with you expected to journey to see dd 1 weekend in X to maintain contact. It would be your cost given that your exP would still have the ongoing costs associated with bringing up a child.

Courts advise when dcs are young, that access should be little and often. They would not look so favourably on a young dd making a 600m round trip. The times when dd stays with you should be when you are off work and you need to arrange your holidays accordingly.

Your exP does not appear controlling. She is not denying you access but is thinking about the physical and emotional welfare of dd.

??It doesn not sound like Ex is using the child as a weapon. Most mothers of 18 month old babies would think that a whole week away from Mummy, (and being looked after by a stranger) is not on.

Come on, jumping, that's absurd. The OP objects to her DD being taken over 300 miles, out of her routine, to be cared for by a woman she doesn't know, who will have just had her own newborn baby.

This is hardly using her child as a weapon!

What the hell is this man up crap?

Seriously, the man wants to see his daughter and didn't say there would be no contact at all did he?

Only on MN would a man get this appallign reaction, bunch of fucking vipers on here sometimes.

OP, my parents live abroad, a long way away. My boys (7. 4 and 2) speak with their grandparents regularly and see them on skype etc...

My two year old knows his nanny and yet he's spent very little time with her physically. You can make this work!

Don't give up.

And irrrespective as to what the nature of the relationship is with the OP and his Ex Wife or why they broke up, it should not affect his relationship with his daugher!

Jumpingthroughhoops - How is splitting the entire year 48/52 by weeks 'controlling using and abusing their children as tools to get at their ex partner'??

We split the year almost equally, we split the school holidays exactly down the middle, we split his birthday every year by doing changeover at 1pm (his birthday is always in the school holidays, we also split another day those holidays to make it equal, so we both spend half a day with him on his birthday), we alternate Christmasses by one year having Christmas eve and Christmas day, and the following year having Boxing day...

I am ever so slightly perplexed as to how you can see that as an abusive or controlling situation on my part?

And it was a contact AGREEMENT, not a contact order. Which means that we decided all this between us...

There would STILL be no way on earth I would give up ALL of the school holidays to his cheating lying sorry arse though. Half of the school holidays each is perfectly adequate...if he ever chose to move miles away, I wouldn't be changing that!

jumping thats very unfair mouthy very clearly stated her and her ex have a very good contact arangement he has the child 48% of the time and both parents agree to use each other as opposed to step parents or childcare for social arangements,both parents also pick any work related childcare.

how exactly is that using a child or abusing a child or even being remotly controling so you can punish the absent parent.

imho that is a extreamly good example of a very good mum facilitating contact as best as she can without actually handing her child over so the dad can be the main carer.

why should anybody give up every single school holiday not be able to take a child on a holiday or just enjoy proper down time as a family why shouldnt it be split so both parents have the opertunity to do those sorts of things mouthys child is at least 9 or over hes old enough to cope with that

sorry x posted

I haven't got 'baggage' or History and have never been through a situation like this but i think YABU.

'It was her decision to move so far. I can't be penalised forever for what's happened in the past. My partner has comitments where we live so I can't move closer to my daughter.' and your ex can't start her life again somewhere else then? She can't move on like you have? Maybe she moved to be nearer family or friends for extra support? Why the hell should she help you with the costs of seeing your child? It was your choice to have an affair as much as it was hers to move away from you and the other woman.

'It is in her best interests that she sees her father and is involved with her new family- at our house- here. Not in a series of hotels every other weekend!' So suck it up Buttercup. When the new baby is born no doubt you'll start thinking of more excuses not to visit and go on about how exhausted you are and how 'controlling' your Ex is.

Yes, the responses are harsh and rightly so, sorry.
Wonder how you would feel if your wife had an affair and got pregnant and set up home with another man. Try looking at it from her perspective. It is still very early days and you are expecting her to fall over backwards to accomodate you.
Stop looking at her as an enemy and try to work with her. Yes, it might take a long time but you will have to be patient. And don't let the current woman dictate to you an how and when you see your other baby.