My DD is 10 and I’ve not been with her dad since he left us when she was 6 months old (he was cheating on me and left me for them). He still sees her but over the years the amount has changed but generally he was having her one day every weekend and was free to have her for things like family dinners, weddings etc.
Recently he took a new job which meant he would be working away some weeks so instead of having her one day a week, it changed to a full weekend every other week with him having her one day after school in the week where he wouldn’t be seeing her at the weekend.
This arrangement has been in place since about March this year. And other than the first month or so, he has chopped and changed as he pleases.
He has been guilty in the past of organising her around his social life instead of the other way round. It annoyed me but tbh it meant I spent more time with her and she was too young to really understand that daddy decided he wasn’t going to see her because he was going to a festival with his mates instead.
He has recently got a new partner. Within the last few of months I believe. My daughter was the one who told me, I haven’t actually heard it from him yet. The past few months he has also began missing weekends. Either completely because he “had other plans” or sneakily by picking her up, taking her to his mums and then going out or whatever and having his mum look after her. One time he picked her up, took her to his mums and then went to Spain for four days (?!). Anyway, he has just told me that he won’t be having her after school that one day in the week when he doesn’t see her at the weekend “for a while”. No explanation as to why but it doesn’t exactly take a genius.
Now, I know when you’ve got kids that you need to make time for yourself and whatnot but he has two weekends a month he could book off work if need be. Out of the 30 days a month, he was only seeing her 6. Now he’s cutting it to 4 and even they aren’t guaranteed because he messes it around so often that he can actually sometimes go three weeks on the bounce without seeing her.
She’s at an age now where she’s noticing and she has said many times things like “my dad wasn’t there this weekend, he’s abandoned me AGAIN”. I feel bad for her but there’s not a lot I can really do. He’s messed up our anniversary plans this month as me and my partner had planned to go out for a meal thinking DD was with her dad so we could get a bottle of wine and just chill but he’s told me he can’t have her that weekend now because he’s working. Not the end of the world but it’s annoying that we can’t ever make any plans either the two of us or with my DD because we never know for sure when he’s going to change his mind.
I know I need to put my foot down and I’m fully prepared to but I don’t know if I’m just being over sensitive. And if I’m right about it, what the best way to deal with it is without making things awkward and creating a conflict?