To think my ex is an absolute prick

[ExFury]

I've NC'd for this in case anyone linked to my ex sees it, I don't want them to know my usual name.

I have two teenage DD's with ex. They've had an up and down relationship with him over the years. He goes through stages of being super attentive and then hardly seeing them for months. Things settled quite a bit when he got married 4 years ago. He moved 4 hours away, but he wanted the girls every other weekend and has been pretty regular at taking them. They get on well with their step-brother (similar age) and they now have a young half-brother who they adore.

His wife isn't the most welcoming to them, but she's not awful. She refuses to be an "unpaid babysitter" when ex is on call (he does 1 weekend every 12 weeks) so despite the fact he's been called out once in the last 3 years contact has to be cancelled on his on-call weekends. She spends every Christmas with her parents and won't "impose" the girls on them so they don't ever get to spend Christmas with them (this suits me, but the girls would like to spend 1 Christmas with their brothers). When they are there she's nice to them, she's just not particularly interested in them.

Last summer DH and I wanted to take the girls to Australia for a holiday. I asked if we could take them for 3 weeks and he said a straight no. So I tried to juggle round days, but with flights and the likes we decided to wait as messing with his contact weekend just wasn't worth the hassle. The girls were having a particularly good time with him and their new baby brother we felt it wasn't worth any arguments so we just went away for two weeks.

The girls were told by their step-brother at the weekend that they are all going to Australia on holiday next year. The girls were as hyper as anything and came home full of talk about it. The eldest even wondered if DH and I could go on holiday before or after that so they could get 4 weeks in Aus.

Got a text this morning from ex. He is going to Australia. His wife is going. His son and step-son are going. Unfortunately they are going when the girls are sitting their exams as it's the only time that fits in with his family (charming turn of phrase there) so unless I'm prepared to let them miss their standard grades and highers they won't be going with. Apparently he's sorry for the confusion. So, I get to tell them tonight (he won't tell them on the phone and I can't see them excited for over a week). Fucking prick.

I was so cross for you and your girls reading your posts. Then I read your update OP. Not answering the phone to his own know kids! He really is a piece of work. Luckily they have you and other good people around. Hope you all get to Oz next year and have a wonderful time.

Awful though this is some good may come out of it if they have a better relationship with his extended family even if their shit of a dad gets relegated due to his shitty behaviour. Double standards and 'my family' bollocks. What a shit.

That is really cruel and shameful behaviour.

I would tell the kids. Console as you can. And send him a message explaining the impact his selfish shitty decision has had on their children.

You willhave to pick up the pieces unfirtunately but id get on now and tell him, not ask,that you are booking something to suit you all now. He should at least have the common decency not to resist that given his shitty behaviour.

Your children not their children sorry

It sounds like in the end it’s positive for your girls. They see their dad for what he really is, they get closer to his (and their) nice sounding extended family, and you get to take them on amazing holidays because you have been too accommodating to do before. Long may this improved situation work! (I know ideally he’d be a better dad but he isn’t)

What a bastard

If I was one of your daughters I would want to hear the news from you. I would feel like my dad had tricked me and wouldn't want him to see my reaction. I wouldn't want to communicate with him or see him for a while that's for sure...

I'm the opposite. I'd want him to tell me himself, so that I could give him a piece of my mind. It would probably be the piece with all the swearwords in.

He's a dick and his wife is a cunt.

Wow OP, what complete shits! How dare they let his family believe that YOU are stopping them going to family stuff when it's the stepmother.

I think she is behind all of this, she plainly doesn't want to extend HER family by including your daughters. She's an absolute fucking bitch.

It sounds as though your daughters have been pretty mature in how they've taken this, all credit to you for that.

I feel so sorry for your girls, how dare he not pick up the phone to them to explain his actions.

I couldn't imagine going on holiday without my DSS, or saying "My family" in a way that excluded him.

I don't get the step Mum either, to me my DSS is my responsibility as well as my husbands and his Mum and step Mum on maternal side.

I am so upset for them. Thank goodness their extended family now know the truth and will be able to have a relationship with the girls

Poor girls. What shit to learn you are lesser in the eyes of your father than his new family. Atleast they have a stepfather who loves them.

Oh and def book Aus next year. If the twatsack doesnt like it, he can fuck off.

Can’t believe the cunt didn’t answer the phone

This shit makes me so angry. But at least there are some positives, they can be more involved in their extended families life. They can finally make their own minds up about their father
Will he regret this. Who knows a lot of men seem to be very good at moving onto a new family without any qualms
It’s fucking sad

Your poor girls. I think you’ve done everything right regarding the communication and how you’ve explained it to them.

It’s good that they’ll focus on your holiday later on.

I hope your ex will see and realise what he’s done and the damage to his relationship with his daughters

I'm so angry for them. I think it's worse than when he first met his wife things really seemed to settle down. Because she had her DS and the three were all the same age the did a lot of things together. He'd been flaky for so long and he finally became a seemingly decent Dad.

I've always had issues with his wife. She and I had a run in very early on over maintenance. She seemed unable (or unwilling) to grasp that the reason that my ex pays considerably more in maintenace than her ex does is a) we have two children together rather than one and b) my ex clearly earns a shitload more than her ex. I never grumbled when his maintenance went down when they moved in together, but she grumbled when it didn't go down when my DH moved in.

The on-call weekends have been a major bone of contention between us. I think it was completely understandable when he first started the job and no-one knew how often he'd be called out, but once it became clear that it's a once-in-a-blue-moon thing I called it out for the piece of nonsense that it was. Especially because he frequently swapped his on-call weekend, or took extra on call weekends because he gets paid an allowance for being on call so it's extra money.

I'm not sure how the girls will handle it tbh. I think he's burnt his bridges with DD1. She's a very black and white kind of person. Sometimes a bit too much, struggles to see grey areas sometimes, but on this I don't see her coming back.

Youngest I'm not sure at all. She always had a closer relationship with him because she's very into sports. She's always struggled more with the element of being "replaced" by her step-brother.

Also they have a life down there that they've probably just lost. They have friends they've made visiting every other week. DD2 went to a youth club most Saturday evenings that she was there there that she enjoyed. I totally back him in not doing 'big' things every other weekend. They went down there and did normal things, but they've probably just lost that. And of course their little half-brother, that will be very hard for them.

I'm so disappointed for them. In many ways it would have been so much better if he'd just stayed flaky and shit. Certainly if he had, if things hadn't been so much better I would neve have accepted his stance on our holiday. I only let that happen because he was so adamant that they were working hard to make the 3 older kids feel included with the new baby. Prick.

Confusion??? How? Wtf? Hes a class A twunt☹️

Wow. SO the asshole has been excluding them from his family's events, too, and blaming you for their absence. What an absolute bastard.

Your poor girls.

But at least they know the truth about him and his wife. It will allow them to protect themselves, and they need that ability going forward.

Yeah that's true. At least they know. They've never needed to know so far because I have always kept any issues I have with him/his wife as a thing between the adults. If I'd realised they hadn't I would have spoken to the girls before.

To be fair to the girls they both didn't think the maintenance comments was a big deal. They know it's not me who decides the amounts (it's always been CSA/CMS organised) so said they just assumed she was having a bad day and ignored it.

It’s horrible for them and him to have it end up like this. He’s a weak man, very weak. The stepmother should be ashamed.

It sounds like he was never a good dad. Just a 'seemingly' good one for a short while - presumably when he was trying to create that impression in the earlier days of a relationship/marriage, before happily realising that he'd got together with someone who was just as much of a wanker as himself, so he could drop the pretence.

They are better off knowing now - he'd just hurt them like this eventually, anyway. Let him rot with his new distasteful idea of what a 'family' is.

It's great that this has opened up communication re his wider family, though. Definitely follow that up. Let him and his bunch get a shock coming face-to-face with you and your daughters at some future family get-together. Sounds like he's busy burning bridges there too - or being encouraged to burn them by his wife. Hopefully this will be a way for your DDs to feel part of their paternal family and make up for some of the lack on his part. That way, some day they might end up getting to know their younger half-brother anyway. Time has a funny way of workign these things out.

One thing is sure - as vulnerable young teens who are just learning aobut self-esteem and placing a value on themselves, losing the input of this arsehole as a 'father figure' might be one of the best things that's ever happened to them.

I had tears in my eyes reading your description of you telling your daughters - I can totally imagine my ex doing this to my kids. Bsds.

I think I would have called his bluff and said ‘sod the exams they can go’. Just to see the reaction.

He is an absolute twunt.

Your poor kids. I am glad his family have heard your side of the story but no doubt you will be made out to be a complete liar.

So he is paying CMS MINIMUM maintenance and his wife thinks thats too much?

He reduces his CM to his two existing DC because he has 2 more because presumably your two need less now?If he couldn't afford more DC he shouldn't have had them?

They are best of without this individual in their life!!

I've read this thread a couple of times now and I just can't get over someone treating their kids like this.

My heart goes out to your girls, its worrying how much they already knew. I think he will well and truly have burnt bridges. When is he due to see them again, do you expect it will happen?

xx

Call bullshit and say the school have said they can sit exams late. See him wriggle out of that

My god @ExFury your update is awful . I am so so angry and sad for you.

I want to kick your useless ex from here to kingdom come so I can’t imagine how you feel right now