To not want my son to go back to his mum's for the time being..

[nyorksdad]

Stressing badly about this so would appreciate feedback

Share custody 50/50 with ex wife for 12 year old son. We don't have a good relationship and it's difficult to have a constructive conversation with her.

I have a 9 month old baby with my girlfriend (living together)

My ex-wife is a nurse. There have been a number of Coronovirus patients in her hospital where she works (bank shifts) since her last batch of shifts. I can't get a straight answer out of her whether there are CV patients on her ward or not as she likes winding me up,

My son is with us from Saturday when she is working on the ward for four days then he's supposed to go back to her on Wed for a few days and then back to us.

AIBU to think he should stay with us and not go back to her for the time being to avoid potentially spreading it across 2 families and putting us all at risk.

She's a good nurse and I completely respect her bravery for being on the frontline and I'm sure she'll take every precaution but I've seen how many medical staff have been infected in China and Italy despite every precaution.

Thanks

Personally, if I was in your position I wouldn’t want my child exposed to that risk, so I would be equally reluctant to send him back.

I appreciate things aren’t great between you and your ex-w but is it worth seeing if, in the circumstances, she’d agree to him staying with you? If she’s been treating Covid patients she’ll know how bad it is and might want to shield him from that risk too.

What does your son say?

Why not ask her simply "would it be safer if DS stayed with me for the time being and when this is over he can stay more with you?"

Hi

Thanks for replies

Already tried asking and saying it's the safe thing to do but she won't hear of it and she doesn't want to be denied her time with her son which I totally get, just really worried about the risk.

Totally understand where you are coming from and reasonable to not want him to be going between the homes if you think she is at more risk of catching it, but it is unreasonable to demand it - so I think you need to tread carefully. I doubt she'd be happy with him staying with you indefinitely which is what really you are suggesting as this is going to go on for months, which would be a pretty miserable existence for her and not fair on your son. I know nurses are more at risk if they are working with covid patients but she may be more careful being a nurse and have PPE at work etc or may not even be dealing with covid patients. Also you or your girlfriend could pick this up anyway just going to the supermarket. If it's the baby you are most worried about are there other things you can do to protect them more? I would try and have a serious and calm conversation with her about it, surely she will be able to see how worried you are about your son and baby and you could both reassure each other of things you can do to minimise the risks.

Thanks Optimummy

Totally don't want to be making demands, I know I would hate going a longer period without having my son with me.

It's such a difficult situation, espcially with worrying about the baby after he was a bit of a miracle arrival (girlfriend's first at 43 after 4 losses and she'd been told she had no chance of having children) . Obviously I don't want my older son to be at risk either.

We've gone to great lengths to try and keep safe, avoiding shops, potentially hazardous siutations (although I couldn't stop my dad from visiting the week before the lockdown but that's another story!)