in this situation, has DH BU to book holidays for DSS?

[balia]

DH has a court order for contact with his DSS including half holidays. This last bit is quite new (18 months) and in the summer is 2 weeks in a block and an extra week. Because ex is quite chaotic (MH issues) the order says that DH can book the two weeks for a family holiday, and they need to agree the other week.

DH asked about it last year and wrote 3 times from Jan to March.

Last week he gave her a reminder of the holiday dates. She is really annoyed. She says he shouldn't have booked the single week as they hadn't agreed to it. She doesn't want to change the week we've booked for a different week; she still doesn't know when/if she is going on holiday, but she wants us to cancel our week. She's threatened to 'just book a holiday when I like' which puts DSS right in the middle. Should we have left the single week? She's not objecting to our main family holiday.

Well she does have a point. He has booked the single week prior to it being agreed. OK, so she didn't reply but technically she is right.

Is this worth fighting over? Can you work round it? What else could you do to resolve it?

I am guessing you feel she will use the no reply trick again, so you need to find a solution right now. Hopefully someone will pop in with a really good solution. Sorry it wasn't me, but I didn't want to leave your post all alone

They didn't agree the other week. I appreciate he wrote to her and she didn't reply, but nonetheless the other week was not reached through a mutual decision.

Do you mean that the child is his son, or is it a stepson as you said DSS?

He wrote 3 times? And she ignored?

Sorry..but she's spoiling for a fight. Not communicating and then kicking off when you go ahead.

I say she's BU and setting things up for a fight. If she chooses just never to answer does that mean no holidays?

They are both bu she is apparently put to cause trouble but your dh should not have booked it without getting her confirmation on the dates

Sorry - my DSS, his DS.

Firstly, we are very lucky in that my DF pays for a pretty fantastic holiday abroad every year, and we also have a caravan and go for a week at a seaside town to meet up with DH's family. Two very different holidays but DSS (11) loves them both and TBH was the driving force behind us going back to court to get holiday contact. He told Cafcass that being allowed to come on holiday with us would make him "10 happy" on a scale of 1-10.

But we have to book the caravan site in advance. If we wait, we won't be able to go. In fact DH phoned the camp site to enquire about the possibility of changing and they are fully booked. Of course if she said she wanted the week we have booked we could perhaps find another caravan site somewhere else, but she doesn't want us to book anything. At all. She wants the other 4 weeks of the summer left open for her in case she decides to go on holiday.

If she won't pick a week, how can we agree anything? DH did say in his 3rd letter that if he didn't hear from her then he would assume it was ok to book (giving her a month to respond).

In that case, YANBU.
How frustrating! I would just leave things be, don't cancel, and wait and see whether he's still free to join you nearer the time.

You wrote, you gave deadlines...what more can you do except live your life waiting for her to decide to talk to you and ensuring that you can't plan anything and live on the knife edge.

Been there. Got the t-shirt.

Be fair. Give lots of warning. Be clear. Be firm when she messes.

This is for the kids. She needs to co-operate.

Bit of an update - we decided to go with clam's advice; if we cancel we lose our money and our DS misses out on his week caravanning and spending time with DH's family.

So now ex is saying she wants two weeks together, because that's 'fair' - if we get two weeks together, so should she. So DSS is with her for the 1st week of the holiday, then with us for 2 weeks. But she is refusing to have the fourth week as one of her two, because her older DC (not DH's) has got A-level results so she can't be away from home. But we can't have it either, because that would mean we would have DSS for 3 weeks together, and that is 'too long'. We can't have him in week one either, for the same reason and because it is his birthday. (Which is why we avoided it when we booked our 2 week holiday.)

This makes it impossible for us to have the single week at all, of course.

Back to court/mediation. Don't hesitate. You have tried, she has tried, let someone else sort it out now!