Perfectly willing to accept we are BU but wanted to get some perspective/advice.
DP has two DC from previous, we have them every other weekend. We also have a DS together. They live with their mum and her DP and his DS. Quite a lot recently she has been asking us to change our weekends with the DCs because of issues they are having with her DP's ex over their DS. Her reasoning is so they still get to spend weekends together - however these weekends are usually when its a holiday/birthdays so for example - we were supposed to have the DCs over Christmas this year but because their plans changed regarding who was having her DP's DS she asked us to swap 'so they get to spend Christmas day all together'. After much discussion we eventually agreed although we made it clear to her we weren't particularly happy that she was essentially stopping our DS from spending Christmas with his brothers. (actual blood related brothers)
Anyway, we sent her a text tonight (she never answers the phone) after she'd asked us to change weekends yet again, basically saying ''yes ok we will agree this time but you really need to sort things out with the ex because its affecting our time too much, we end up losing time with them whether by a few hours or a full day and it's not fair, why should our DS lose time with his brothers in favour of the boy who gets to spend time with them everyday not just every other weekend. We know its not his doing its the mum but you need to make a plan and make her stick with it instead of expecting us to agree to changes all the time. It's not fair to expect us to agree to only see them for a few hours instead of 3 days. We don’t mind the odd favour but when it keeps happening for the same reasons it starts getting a bit much, your SS is not more important than our DS and vice versa, they should both be able to spend as much time a possible with their brothers. From what we’ve talked about in the past regarding the ex she is being awkward for the sake of being awkward and she need to realise that her decisions don’t just affect her child they affect mine too with him not getting to see his brothers when he expected too''
I tried to be as nice as possible and said obviously we don't want to fall out or cause anything just want to let you know how we feel as it keeps happening.
She hasn’t replied to us yet and now im stirring myself up thinking we’ve been really harsh but the reality is that it should have been dealt with at Christmas – that was the main upset to us really, it had been happening a few times leading up to Christmas and more often since and this time she expected us to give up our whole weekend and just have them Friday night and bring back Saturday morning, so basically no time with them as they usually go to bed an hour after arriving and don’t get up til midday so we would have had to wake them up to take them home. Eventually she agreed to let us bring them back Sunday morning instead so we at least get a full day but we felt like it just needed to be said now otherwise she’s going to keep expecting us to give up our time (or more rather our DS’s time) with them for someone who isn’t even a step brother. Were we BU to send that text or was it ‘well overdue’ as my DP said? I’m just worried now that we might have unwittingly started something now and I don’t want to fall out with her or her DP as usually we all get along pretty well but feel like she’s trying to manipulate our routine to suit her new family without thinking about any of us or what her our DCs might want to do.
Sorry its long-winded!