To think that your social life should revolve around your child/ren, not the other way round?

[Bubblegum89]

My daughter is from a previous relationship. Her dad left me when she was 6 months old as he had been sleeping with someone ruse behind my back for quite some time. He was extremely controlling and emotionally abusive (I was 19 when I had my daughter and was away from my family and whenever I said I wanted to leave, he would mock me saying nobody would want me, I was worthless etc). I was very vulnerable and when we split, he played on that. Texting me abuse, telling people I was a bad mother. He cost me my job. I lost all of our mutual friends and worst of all, he tried taking my daughter off me. We ended up in mediation and I got a solicitor and eventually after a lot of nastiness on his part, we came up with a reasonable arrangement.

He has stuck to his arrangement for the most part. And I can’t say he’s a bad dad or anything, he isn’t. After all the drama when we first split, we were able to relax the legal arrangement and that’s been fine. Up until this year.

He works away and so the arrangement was changed accordingly however he now sees her every other weekend rather than every weekend. Which doesn’t bother me, it means we get 2 full weekends a month now instead of one day every weekend. But he’s starting to take the piss a bit.

Since the new arrangement, my daughter has been brought home by someone other than her dad on numerous occasions. When I ask what she’s been up to, she says she’s been with her grandma/auntie and that “daddy wasn’t there”. I of course don’t mind her spending time with her other family but really, the time is meant to be bring spent with her dad, at least with him alongside his family. But a few times now, he has made other plans such as seeing friends, going to festivals and most recently, going to Spain, on the weekends he is meant to be with our daughter. She’s 10 and very bright and she is getting on to the fact that her dad is off doing other things when he should be with her. He went on holiday the last weekend he was meant to have her and when she came home she said “you’ll never guess what, my daddy left me AGAIN”. I found it quite sad because she picks up on it and I worry it makes her feel like she’s not important.

I know everyone is entitled to time off but I don’t understand why, instead of making plans for the weekends he is supposed to be here with his child, he doesn’t book time off work instead. Maybe it’s just me but I’d rather use up work holidays than not see my child for potentially 3 weeks. He didn’t see her last weekend as he was on holiday, he didn’t have her this weekend as it’s not his weekend and he has changed his days this week to have her today until Wednesday as he’s obviously made plans for the coming weekend when he was due to have her again.

AIBU thinking that he should really be arranging his social life around his daughter and not his daughter around his social life?

Does your dd want to go when he’s not even there? I was expecting to disagree with your title because we are all entitled to a social life regardless of our dc but in this instance he’s behaving really badly.

Can you formalise the arrangements? If dd isn’t keen on going when he’s not there then she shouldn’t be made to.

If he’s previously been ok as a dad he needs to be told straight that she’s sad and missing him and he needs to step up.

You are not being unreasonable at all. But unfortunately some people are just like that, and are never going to change. Trust me they don't change, my Eldest DS is almost grown up now & has now for many years made his own decision of meeting up with his Dad when he is "free".

I got a lot of grief from Ex to begin with, as DS started to say no he wouldn't drop his plans to meet up with his Dad - basically why should he be constantly expected to drop things as his Dad could suddenly slot him in this weekend!

Be there for your DD, accept you can't change the ex, ultimately he will be the one that misses out on knowing his daughter - as he too busy seeing friends and having fun. And when he finally matures and wants to spend time with her, she may be too busy doing her own thing.

Thanks for your replies. I have spoken to DD and said that if there’s a weekend her dad isn’t there and she wants to stay with us then that’s fine. She said okay but usually I don’t know if he’s going to be there or not until last minute (I.e. someone other than him picks her up) and the times I do know of, I don’t think she would say she doesn’t want to go even if she doesn’t. She doesn’t like to upset anyone and I think she thinks if she doesn’t go then her dad will be annoyed at her.

I wouldn’t mind so much if it was now and again but it’s starting to be almost every week he’s meant to have her. He either can’t have her so wants to swap weekends, has other plans that I know about and DD goes to her grandmas instead, has other plans I don’t know about that I only find out about after the weekend or he asks to have her random days in the week instead of the weekends because he has other stuff to do. He’s doing it so much that my daughter, who never says a bad word against her dad ever, has started vocalising the fact he’s never there. And when she is there, she tells me he just leaves her to play on the iPad or computer or they go out shopping to get clothes for him, a lot of the time he goes to his best friend’s house and his best friend’s girlfriend looks after my DD. His thing is big gestures. He’s taken her on quite a few holidays, he’s taking her to DisneyWorld in Florida in a few weeks with his mum and sister, which is obviously amazing for my daughter (she’s been twice but was too young to remember it properly). But the little things that kids really need like someone to help them with their homework, someone who will sit and play silly games with them and that kind of thing, he doesn’t do. I once sent her to his with some homework, just a class project on space, and said to ask her dad for some help. When she came home, I looked at what she’d done and it was a load of rubbish (lol bless her) and I asked if he’d helped and she said she’d asked him but he didn’t so she just made a bunch of stuff up and so I stayed up late doing it with her instead.

He’s in his thirties now and it’s not like she’s a little baby and this is all new to him, she’s ten. I just don’t understand why it’s such a difficult concept to grasp. You see your child when you’re meant to and you do all the other stuff when you’re free. She has made comments that she prefers being here with us and that she prefers my partner of 5 years over her dad. She even told me one time “I love you more than I love daddy because you give me hugs and play with me and my daddy doesn’t do those things” and it made me so sad. Like, if you’re not going to make the time for her instead of going out and then not even spending proper quality time with her when you ARE there, then what’s the point?