his pain in the rear ex wife!!

[nulnulcat]

bit of a rant here!

dp ex wife and 2 sons live in scotland and we live in watford and it has been a battle to get her to let him see them, she has agreed he can see them every other weekend but he has to fly up to edinburgh to collect them on fri and take them back on sunday which is a PITA as he is a squaddie and based in wiltshire so i only get to see him one night during the week and at the weekends.

anyway that is not the problem, he is being posted to afghanistan next month and she thinks the arrangement should continue as it is part of the boys routine (they are 6 and 4) and she enjoys the chance of a break! she is saying if we dont let the boys come and stay whilst he is away he shouldnt expect to be able to see them when he gets back!

she thinks i should travel up to scotland to collect the boys and return them to her despite the fact i have a 3 year old of my own and a business to run! i also work fri and sat so i dont know who she thinks is going to look after the kids - i have a part time nanny who looks after dd when i am at work but i pay her to look after my child and why should i pay her to look after someone elses kids!

am i being selfish thinking they are his kids and dont live with us so why should i look after them so his ex can have a weekend off. i know it is hard being a single mum i was one myself and i had no family support to give me a night off let alone a weekend off. her mother lives down the road why cant she be there babysitter!

nulnul

it doesn't sound like YOU are the unreasonable one, but I know nothing about the complications of being in this kind of situation.

though I cannot imagine expecting my ex's partner to look after my own dc in these or any circs.

legally can she threaten dp with not getting regular access?

until recently he hadnt seen the boys for 3 years! from when they split up really. she had loads of conditions like having to give ridiculous amounts of notice which is impractical as he is in the army has exercises etc she is also in the army so knows all of this

she is in a new relationship now and has decided he can see them, there are problems though as the youngest is only 4 so doesnt really know his dad

i think its awful that she would want to send him at that age to some woman he hardly knows. he is not much older than my dd and i know she would hate it

she is probably reading this and it will cause more problems but you know what I DONT CARE!!

nulnul

don't get me started on exes and their unreasonable demands!

IMO, no you're not being unreasonable.

in all honesty if it were me and we lived reasonably close i might offer to have the skids once per month whilst dh is away. but that's just me coz i adore my skids and they adore my dd. dh's ex allowed us access last weekend for 1st time since early October so.......

as for the legal position, IME legal shmegal. she can do what she likes, how she likes, when she likes and as long as she's not harming the kids (altho define harm because to me keeping them from their daddy and half sister is harm) the courts have little power to enforce any access agreement.

our family law solicitor advised we reconcile ourselves to the ex being obstructive at every opportunity going on past evidence.

sorry, i've hijacked your thread with a rant of my own!

hope you work something out without too much heartache!

blimey.

she sounds a bit of a selfish old loon tbh. expecting you to go up and get her kids while he is abroad?? its madness i say!

it would be nice for you to think of the kids as your own childs siblings, and therefore more to do with you than jsu any old kids... BUT having a strained relationship with my own dp's xw, i now know how bloody difficult some of this blended family shite can be... tis a bloody shame, coz would be nice for everyone to be civil and for the kids to benefit from that and have good examples of reasonable adult behaviour....

i feel for you. she IS being unreasonble. to her own dc as well as to you (and it is you at least as much as your dp she is being bloody unreasonable to!)

how strange that she wants you to have the boys even though they dont know you very well. i think shes making the suggestion because she knows its not physically practical for you, so therefore gives her the excuse to stop dad seeing them.

could he have phone contact with them or write to them, at least they know he hasnt forgotten them.

they seem a bit young to be staying with their dad's girlfriend.. just say no

x posts...

theyre not even really your dd's siblings. do you know them at all?? its wierd her wanting to foist them off on you, she doesnt even know you! why would she want some stranger looking after her kids??

and paddlechicks comment re legal shmegal.... SOOOOO true. good point well made.

feel so sorry for those kids...

i think she is weird, playing games...my mum wouldnt have wanted us to stay with our step mumif our dad was away!

thanks everyone i dont feel like a total cow objecting now! as brandy knows as well my dd has loads of health problems and i wouldnt be able to cope with the 3 kids on my own, his ex knows this, not sure what she thinks im going to do if my dd has to go to hospital suddenly so think she is just looking for an excuse to stop them seeing there dad again

brandy an email to you is on my to do list! dd has chicken pox at mo so got my hands ful but your email is working its way up the list!!

yes. she's psyching you out. say you'd prefer a formal agreement and suggest that she contacts a solicitor. then see how quickly she drops it.

naughty naughty for not emailing me

hope dd is ok, im still waiting for a referral to London. its driving me mad!

Agree with Persephone, she's seeing how far she can push it. Bet if you actually turned up in Scotland she'd change her mind PDQ. Not that you should even dream of it, of course. Mad idea.

Would be worth putting something short and factual and polite in writing though in case she does get funny when dp comes back, giving the dates when he expects to be away and stating that access or whatever they call it these days will resume on his return.

Do the boys have an address so they can write to him? Would be good to keep contact up if he can.

Good luck while he's away, btw. Hope he's back, safely, asap.

If you knew the boys well it might be a different story. It sounds to me like she's looking for a reason to stop contact again, and if you don't agree to have them, then she's got one - at least in her eyes she has.

I agree about getting some legal advice and maybe getting something formal agreed about when your dp will be back and able to start seeing the boys again. And also getting agreement on indirect contact while he's away.

Is there any possibility of Skype or other videophone service where he's going? It would be helpful if he and the kids could at least 'see' each other as well as speak, once in a while.

I reckon the op may have discovered a solution in the 10 years since she posted this!

Blimey! This really is a zombie thread!

ZOMBIE

Oh Tabby. 😁

Would his Mum be prepared to have her grandchildren EOW to keep up the routine, facilitate FaceTime or calls (if possible) with their Dad?

Would that be a possible compromise?

Arghhh!! I thought they were marking Zombie threads these days!!

How on Earth do these zombie threads reappear? I'm always amazed that anyone can find them.

Hi everyone,
Many apologies for having wasted your time here, it should have been marked as a zombie by now. We will close it off so as to prevent further confusion.