Holidays without children

[PIPPA74]

I have been separated from my X for 7 years and have shared contact of our children.

I am planning 2 holidays next year, the first with my current partner of 6 years and our son and my two daughters from my previous marriage.

The girls are then going away with my X and new spouse. While they are away I am planning on going away with my partner and my son.

My X has texted going crazy because I am treating my girls unfairly and that i should not have a holiday with my son and partner unless i take the girls as I am apparently favouring my son over them.

I have argued that while my girls have two families and therefore half of the things they do is with one family while half is done with the other. My son however just has us and so all the things he does are with us. The girls will have one holiday with me and one with their other family and my son will have one holiday with his sisters and one holiday with us so they have all had two breaks with their families.

My X is saying the girls are really upset and and crying and i feel awful but they go away as a couple numerous times without any of the children which they say is ok because they are not favouring one over the other. The girls are also upset when they do this as they state they feel like they are being dumped.

I feel really bad that I am apparently upsetting the girls but my X is so adamant that what I am doing is really awful and is damaging my girls that i am considering just not going on the 2nd holiday.

This is obviously causing issues with my partner who says they have been dictating to us for 6 years and that they have no right to dictate to us what we do and that this will mean our son always has less than the girls as they will always go away with their mum and us while he does not get that opportunity of a second break.

So, I would really appreciate some honest opinions as to whether I am being unreasonable, is my X right that i should never go away with my partner and our son as it is unfair on the girls. Also am i explaining it fairly to the girls?

I think this was so much more simple when I was a kid and we couldnt afford any holidays ha ha #firstworldproblems

What would you do if the children were to stay with their DM but she didn't take them on holiday?
Would you still go away with your son?

So your girls' time with you at their mother's behest and you didn't challenge this?

You also have one DC who you never see. That must be hard for you all.

In your shoes I would be working very hard indeed to seek to address the situation with my ex and make the most of and increase contact with the girls again, with legal assistance if necessary. And to get help with my mental health if this was affecting my ability to address problems affecting the DC (I have a MH problem too by the way).

Don't think you should worry so much about what your youngest child might think in the future and think more about the impact of events between you and your ex, the changing contact arrangements and the ongoing conflict on your older DC.

Also the fact your DS gets to live with both his parents really trumps an extra holiday for the DDs.

Nanny Ogg, no I wouldnt, if we can only afford one holiday this year then we will all go, if we can run to two then we will do one with them and one with my son while they are on holiday with their mum.

If they were not going away a second time with their mum then we would not be going on our own.

I agree with you SrAssumpta but sadly that was their mothers choice. I was not happy in the marriage but would have stuck it out for the kids. Day to day we did not fight, it was not a destructive environment etc but neither of us were happy.

I do not blame her at all for ending the marriage, it was absolutely dead and had been for some years, her behaviour since the split hasnt been great though and yes the children have been caught in the cross fire and at times shamefully used as weapons to hurt me imho. Again Im not going to claim total innocence in that, im sure she will claim the same thing about me although I tend to react to stuff rather than start it as i simply want a quiet life.

Sorry I'd missed the part where you'd been "outed" as the dad. My opinion is still the same though, I'd be very very hurt for my DD if I was in your exes shoes but I wouldn't bat an eyelid if you were to go away with just your partner. A family holiday should involve all the family imho especially in this case where I think it's more important than ever to show the girls that they are part of your "new" family (hate that term)

Everyone in a really settled routine now Duckdeamon, they have had the new routine for 4 years now and seem happy with it although it was a nightmare for us all when it changed as the girls were devastated that they would only see me twice a week.

I did start to take the situation back to court but was told that CAFCASS would have to interview my children about who they wanted to stay with etc.

Their mother was perfectly happy to do this but that is not a chance in hell my children were going to be sat and put through having to tell a social worker who they preferred to live with, that is just sick imho.

So i backed away and just swallowed the changes as i did not want that to be the girls lasting memory of their childhood. Thankfully after a long settling period things calmed down, we are all in a routine and day to day everyone seems happy with things the way they are. It also helped when my X remarried, i suspect because she had other things to do rather than making mischief for me, either way things have been much more stable.

The holiday thing is the first blow up in a while but is definitely a throw back to what at one point was a constant stream of things I was criticized for. There could have been others but day to day i just ignore the provocation etc (like kids having schools changed without my knowledge)

And to those saying its not fair, how is it fair to the ds then that his sisters must always get more than him? does he not matter because his parents are still together?

it's not fair. Life's not fair. It's not fair my next door neighbours can afford 2 holidays and I can only afford one....

These are children with two different sets of parents (with an overlap) with two different sets of circumstances. It isn't necessary to make things 'fair' or in some way 'even' because you can't make things the same when the circumstances are different. I personally can't stand the 'we'll not take X and Y on holiday because they already get two holidays and this poor little cherub only gets one'....leaving children confused about where they fit into the family, left out and ignored. If it were the neighbour's children, they would be told to suck it up - and so should the child who gets only one holiday. That's life. It's rarely fair.

I guess you could apply the "lifes not fair so just get on with it" point to all the kids to be honest and you might be right. Perhaps i need to stop worrying about trying to keep everybody happy and just do what i thinks right. Trying to please everyone certainly hasnt worked

I'm sorry but I think YABU.

You cannot compare your ds's situation to that of your dd's; he has both parents as a unit whereas your dd's (assumedly through no fault of their own) have no choice but to live between two families. I was one of those "stuck in the middle" children and when I read parents here talking about how their children have "the best of both worlds" it really saddens me.

You talk of a family holiday and then one just spending time with your son. This makes it sound as if you do not consider your girls to be part of your family unit. It is irrelevant to your son how many holidays that the girls get; as he is not part of their other family, only yours.

I think you seem to be doing what pleases your partner rather than what'd be best for the DDs.

In the holiday instance that is.

I'm totally with you Yankeecandle - being a stuck in the middle child is bloody awful, especially when the parents remarry and have more children. Yes the children going between the homes get two holidays, two Christmases and double the material stuff but emotionally they get half of everything at best. They are often torn between homes and warring parents and acutely aware that in their absence the parent and their new family are getting on with normal life without them. There are very few exceptions to this and any parent telling themselves that their child is lucky post-separation because they get double of everything is sadly deluded.

I definitely have never said they are lucky, any split is awful and being forced to do that to my children was the worst thing i have ever had to do as i am conscious it broke their hearts.

I've hardly mentioned my partner at all in this, she is simply stuck in the middle and tries to keep out of it despite the fact it affects her badly.

Its interesting following the thread, look at the change in tone since it was revealed i was the childrens dad. First few pages largely supportive of my position as the "mother." Last page after it was revealed I am the father and its largely against the position i am taking. Maybe that is just a co-incidence but perhaps shows why i tried to gender neutralize the issue

Sometimes it happens, OP. Sometimes people are pissed off that someone concealed their gender, which implies we are all sexist harpies. Give a dog a bad name and all that. Men who conceal their gender to get advice and then say that this place is anti-men? Weeelll I tend to think they could have asked somewhere else, couldn't they?

More frequently, what tends to happen is that the thread starts one way, then all the lurkers disagree with the first posts and pile in. Have a look at some other threads and you will see the same.

Or, you can assume this place is full of prejudiced women.

Yes the consensus has changed now hasn't it. This issue comes up quite regular on step parenting and I've hardly ever seen such measured and tolerant responses towards step mothers.

I don't think the issue is that you are the dad, I think it's because you're the NRP.

If you were the RP then spending a holiday with just your son doesn't seem too bad, your girls would have plenty of time to spend with you all, and the girls having a holiday with the NRP would be a big treat, leaving you to do something with your son so he doesn't feel too left out.

However, as you are NRP then I can see that going on holiday without your girls might make them feel you are leaving them out on purpose and are more interested in your 'new' family.

Im certainly not saying everyone is prejudice and i apologized for misleading people (although to be fair i never actually said i was not the dad i just neutralized everything and didnt correct any assumptions)

I simply wanted to see where other people (largely women) stood on this issue and not to have to worry that any responses had been clouded by any gender issues or negativity brought from their own experiences. I know my own opinion on this would be clouded by my experiences of my X so suspected others would unwittingly do that too. For that reason it seemed a logical thing to do to take that out of the equation as i felt I would get a much more balanced view.

I agree that the tone towards you has changed because you're the NRP, not necessarily because you're the dad. Quite sad really.

U don't think you should feel guilty about going on holiday. Everyone has had a holiday so all fair.

We did this when dss was younger. He always ended up with plenty of hol between us and his dms family.
luckily his Dm was reasonable about things.
It would be tempting to ask her of she wants your dds to grow up as spoilt and entitled if she is going to insist on everything being the fair with your dc. It would be tempting to say she has to take dds away on all her jollies too. You won't because you sound very reasonable and don't want any more grief than is necessary.but Yanbu and shouldn't feel guilty (although you're being made to feel that way)

What would happen if it was half term and the Op's ex booked a holiday and took the girls? what if the OP wanted to book a holiday for that same week? Should he just not book it and deprive his son of a holiday because his daughters are already on holiday?

To be honest they tend to book holidays a year in advance so i would try and work round them anyway. They have just let me know they have booked a weekend away in november without the girls and asked if i could have them extra. My other half is not happy as its her birthday weekend and she wanted to do something but given we had not already booked anything and its October we can hardly turn round now and say no we cant have the girls an extra night or indeed our contact night as we want to go away. Our fault for not getting sorted earlier.

As a further aside the X and her hubby have a good few weekends and holidays away leaving the kids, they are getting increasingly upset as although they are married the relationship is only 18 months old and they think since they got married they have been dumped. I agree that this is what it does look like as it is happening more and more. However i explain to the kids that adults sometimes like to have times by themselves and there is nothing wrong with that and anyway its cool cause they get to spend more time at my house. This seems to take the sting out of the situation and the heat off their mum. I cant help but think if she did the same with our situation then there wouldnt actually be a situation but i guess thats not my call.

She sounds like she's shooting herself in the foot with the argument that you are dumping them when you go on holiday because it sounds like they have internalised the message that if an adult goes away without them they are forgotten about.
Maybe that's away to bring up to x that they are saying similar to you about her and you both have to work to back each other up?

Tried that as you are 100% right. Sadly my X will not acknowledge that she too is upsetting the children and claims i am just making it up. I have no reason to make it up cause i genuinely dont care what they do as it means i get more time with the girls. It seems that because its what she wants to do though its ok even if she upsets them.

Just looking through the diary they have two long weekends booked and also two weeks without the kids. Then they are taking the kids away for a week.

I have one week booked with all the kids and and potentially one with my partner and son the week the girls are away with their mum.

Personally i think their four breaks with no children to the one they are taking the children on is actually significantly more of a slight to the kids than anything i am doing but then i guess i am looking at it from my point of view.

Maybe i should agree to cancel my planned holiday with my partner and son if she cancels all hers and then neither of us will be upsetting the girls. I suspect i know what the answer will be