Who is B U here? I honestly don't know which way is up any more.

[NoOneLikesBlueQualityStreet]

I have a 10 year old DS with my ex and a 2 year old and a 5 year old with my DH. DH and I have been together 7 years.

We live 20 mins from my ex and are supposed to share care 50/50, but in the whole time we've been split, he's never had DS the full number of nights he's supposed to have him. Maybe I can count on both hands the amount of months he's had DS and not cancelled at least one night.

Unfortunately my ex has form for cancelling contact with DS very last minute. Sometimes this has been a legitimate reason to do with work, but the majority of the time it's been to do with a new partner or just going out on the piss. He's had about three different 'serious' partners in the time we've been split - all of whom he's introduced to DS. He goes on frequent holidays (4 last year!) but has never once taken DS away with him in 8 years. In contrast, we have never been on holiday and NOT taken DS with us.

DH is fab with DS. Because DS spends most of his time here, we are like a tight family unit. DH works from home so does the nursery and childminder pick ups and drop offs for our two and I do the school run for DS, which is closer to where his dad lives, because it's on my way to work.

The only fly in the ointment is that DH and I keep having the same argument about how crap my ex is with always cancelling contact last minute and pissing off to another city where his new girlfriend lives on weekends he's supposed to have DS.

Because I work an hour's commute away and DH works at home, I rely a lot on DH to pick up DS from school and DH is starting to get annoyed because it's often on days that aren't our scheduled days with DS, which means he has to make a 45 min/hour round trip to do DS's school run most days.

I see it as DH helping me out, which is what partners and families should do. But DH sees it as me helping my ex out and then passing the 'favour' onto him to do for my ex.

I don't see what I can do. I can't force my ex to see DS. If DH doesn't step in and help then I'm forced to ask my ex MIL which I don't want to do.

AIBU or is DH? (I already know my ex is BU!)

So you and your ex are both benefitting

Your dh and most importantly son are both losing out

Agree with PPs who say that this about a child not about "fair shares". I have never been able to understand that attitude.

How would you feel if you knew people were passing you around? Even if at work you overheard a colleague say "I had to sit next to her all day yesterday - it's your turn". It's shit. If your Ex cannot be the parent he should be then your DS needs to be absolutely sure that you will put him first above all. I would expect a new DP to treat DS in exactly the same way as his own DC - or I wouldn't be with him.

But her husband is treating the son exactly as he would his own in fact it seems he is the only one going out of his way to make sure the poor lad has some consistency!

this isn't fair on DH

you're basically expecting him to keep himself available to sort DS despite the fact that your ex has the responsibility

that's nothing to do with him stepping up or being unfair

you're basically enabling your ex to have a pick and mix attitude towards parenting - he has DS when he can be bothered. surely that's more damaging in the long run!

stop enabling this, your DH is working (working!) from home, and he shouldn't have to keep stepping in indefinitely whilst your ex figures out if he wants to parent on the day or not

you need to resolve this with your ex

either re-do the custody arrangements so that it's 100% clear that e.g. you have DS most of the time, or make it your ex's problem. don't keep expecting your DH to swoop in and save the day when it's your ex's responsibility to sort it (and by that i don't mean you stepping in to arrange your ex MIL to sort it.. that should be your ex doing it!).

Another vote for after school club so you can collect after work, see a pp beat me to it. Make sure secondary school is near to you and that ds is able to get himself to & from it independently if needed. I do think your dh will have to accept that he has 3 children, if he hadn't already. Same for my dh.

I think you need to speak to your ex about changing the contact schedule to one he can maintain (does he want 50/50 on paper to avoid maintenance?). You don't have to say it is because your DH doesn't want to step in, just say you need to know in advance as you can no longer do last minute pick ups and need to book after school childcare when he can't have DS and that can't be chopped and changed.

It's tricky as if DS was your DH's son then presumably he'd be in the same school as your younger one and this situation wouldn't arise? Or you'd know that DS would need to be picked up every day and could choose to do some afterschool club days and some pick up days. It'd basically be easier to plan a solution that would suit everyone.

Keep a log of all the times he blows out the arrangement, calculate the percentage split and reformulate it to that number e.g. if its 70/30 then do it that way, sounds like you and your DH are happy to have DS around. Then this way you can make it official and ExH can realise that he need to step up for the rest of it and also he can see how much he's missed.
Also there must be other school options. A 45 minute trip is a big trek, especially if you are working at home, you miss a huge chunk of your working day (or your DH does) I work at home and simply couldn't afford to take that much time out of they day without having to make it up in the evening.