Quick background, I'm a Dad with two daughters who I have full time apart from every other weekend and three or four days a week over half term or term time holidays when they go to their Mum's.
Now Mum lives 150 miles away so every other weekend on a friday after work I will drive 100 miles to drop them off where the ex and her partner meet me. I am seeing somebody local to the drop off point and have been for 2 years now.
The problem is this..... There is always a drama with the pick up, or dates get changed often with very little notice. I find this so frustrating because it seems that I cannot make plans (nothing too exciting, cinema etc) with my other half because we just don't know if the weekend will fall through or not.
I have checked up and in the last 2 months there have been 7 requests to change dates or cancel for various reasons and 3 requests for petrol money for them to meet us. I get no financial support from the Mother and if anything am out of pocket myself. There have been occasions where I have had to drive the 150 mile trip to drop them off then 50 miles back to my GF's 50 miles back to pick them up and 150 miles home in the space of a weekend.
Tonight there has been another attempt to cancel this weekend in exchange for next weekend, scuppering plans I had to watch Taken 2 and then scuppering plans to take the girls to a water park next weekend. I am at the end of my tether and the ex cannot see that this is driving me mad!
Advice desperately sought...........
And breathe!