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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Is this unreasonable?

75 replies

Yecal321 · 05/04/2021 15:08

Hi,
At a lost cause really, I’ve been with my partner 7 years now. Throughout the first 4 years his ex made it a living hell. They split on bad terms, they have a child together and I have been in their life since 3. We have a lovely relationship and since being with him he has had his child every weekend plus majority of school holidays as we always do something. My bf mother, child’s grandparent has them usually on a Saturday every other weekend which allowed us as a couple & also him as he works so hard a break. He works 50+ hours a week and has always paid child maintenance as she got csa due to thinking she is entitled to more. Anyhow, circumstances have changed & his mother is quite unwell and is unable to have her grandchildren overnight so my partner has said if things can be changed to every other weekend but will also have child over night during the week and do a school run plus keep school holidays the same. This has caused uproar and she ‘will not allow it’ are we being unreasonable? Is this too much to ask for...this will be the battle we have :(

OP posts:

Chocolateismakingmefat · 05/04/2021 15:12

Your bf needs a contact order. ASAP or this is your life.

HollyBollyBooBoo · 05/04/2021 15:15

So the mother doesn't have her child any weekends? And now you're saying she needs to she won't allow it? How awful. I think you might have to get a solicitor involved which I hate saying as it's so much better if the parents can work it out.

Eaststreet · 05/04/2021 15:16

I don’t personally think that you are being unreasonable. Have you asked child’s mum if there is a particular reason why it can’t be every other weekend? Or do you think she’s just being difficult?
How far away do they live from you? Maybe she thinks that child staying during the week is not manageable ?
Could child stay Friday night until Saturday afternoon and then go home so you could still have Saturday night and the Sunday for a break every other week?

NeverDropYourMoonCup · 05/04/2021 15:18

So he's trying to halve the regular contact that the child has been used for seven years so he continues to 'get a break' from them at the weekend?

Changing it to sometime Wednesday night for a couple of hours before bed (and possibly not even seeing them with those working hours) and then for around 35 minutes on the school run is not the same as an entire weekend contact that the child has been used to for almost their whole life.

CatFaceCats · 05/04/2021 15:19

I think yanbu, but does she work weekends or something?
Me and my ex work on every other weekend so we both have equal “free” time. I think EOW with a night every week would work better.

CatFaceCats · 05/04/2021 15:20

Oh and to add, me and my ex live 5 mins apart and are on good terms, so my children so actually see him more than just his “official” time.

Mumoftwoinprimary · 05/04/2021 15:23

Ok - not confusing but I think....

Currently your partner has 10 year old every weekend but actually his mum helps out every other weekend. His mum is now ill so can’t help out so you want to change the agreement but ex was happy with it as it was?

To be honest I don’t blame her. What you had was working for her. No time off from the kids other than when you are working is normal life for most parents. As the child is 10 it shouldn’t be particularly hard to look after him / her every weekend. (I have a ten year old.) It isn’t as if the child is a toddler.

Couple time is nice but just doesn’t happen for many many parents. (Me and dh haven’t had any time away from our kids since before the pandemic. And even then it was a meal out every 3 months or so - nothing else. It’s just life and the choice we accepted when we became parents.)

Reinventinganna · 05/04/2021 15:25

He has his child every other weekend? Or just one day every other weekend because his mum has them one day?

He needs a break?

UserTwice · 05/04/2021 15:35

Contact every weekend is pretty unusual for a school age child. Is there a particular reason why it was set up this way? Which might be why the child's mother doesn't want to change? Aside, from that, the proposal effectively means swapping a whole day for an overnight from after school to drop off the following day i.e. much less contact.

Weirdfan · 05/04/2021 15:37

Your bf needs a contact order. ASAP or this is your life.

This, 100%, stops all the arguments and everyone knows where they stand. You don't need a solicitor, you can make the application yourself and I think it costs around £200 to submit if I remember rightly, you also have to have (and pay for) one mediation session which is about £65. But it means all his ex's power to mess with your lives or threaten to stop him seeing his DC is gone and that's worth every penny of the cost ime.

Mumoftwoinprimary · 05/04/2021 15:43

I’m not sure how useful a contact order is. The problem is - no one wants the poor kid every other weekend. Contact orders really work when the parents each want the child for more than a total of 168 hours a week.

IceCreamAndCandyfloss · 05/04/2021 15:45

He is BU. It’s four days out of fourteen so the mum is already doing the bulk of the parenting and he wants to cut it down to have couple time despite having ten nights a week in which to do that? No wonder the ex has said no.

Tinydinosaur · 05/04/2021 15:47

He looks after his kid once a week but sends them to his parents every other week because he needs a break?
So she has the kid most of the week, but now he wants her to have the kid even more so he can have a break? Do you not see how it's a bit silly that she should take on even more of the child care to give him a break when he does the least already?

IceCreamAndCandyfloss · 05/04/2021 15:52

Given the OP is TTC, I would be thinking twice and than again if he can’t handle eight days a month parenting.

dontdisturbmenow · 05/04/2021 16:08

They had an arrangement that suited both of them. The fact that circumstances have changed for your OH doesn't mean it can be taken for granted that mum should bare the changes whilst it has no implications and you and oh.

Any changes to a set arrangement must be discussed and negotiated. Whether she has good reasons to refuse is another matter.

Rillington · 05/04/2021 16:13

He needs to step up and look after his child. Men like him are pathetic.

Graphista · 05/04/2021 16:17

Wow! What a prince - not!

1 he is not seeing his easy to care for child very much at all even now given his MOTHER has been picking up much of his slack from the sounds of things

2 alone couple time is a luxury most parents can ill afford and recognise is simply not possible while kids are young enough to need a fair amount of supervision still

3 your comments about maintenance are pretty ignorant and insulting to be honest. I suspect what actually happened was she went to csa cos he was messing her about. Even if not the amount stipulated by the csa is a MINIMUM amount. How much is he actually paying? Cos I'd bet good money he ISN'T paying enough to cover half the total costs involved in raising his son

If you are as pp stated ttc then you have several areas of concern (red flags) wrt his attitude to parenting:

A - they split quite some time before the child was 3 so likely when the child was a baby. I'm thinking it's like he couldn't hack the stressful, exhausting, full on days of baby parenting. He either bailed or was useless and she booted him

B - any chance he gets he palms the child off on someone else, even at this age when they're fairly easy to care for

C - his attitude to his responsibility financially speaking sucks

D - you're already doing his share of the mental load to a fair degree with this child that isn't even yours

E - what do you both think is going to happen regarding alone time when you have a newborn of your own?!

F - his working hours suggest to me he's the type to avoid being at home and playing on "I work so hard" to get out of his responsibilities. Does he pull his weight in other ways? Genuinely?

I'm guessing his ex isn't really a nightmare just she knows what he's like and as they're no longer together is not inclined to continue being his mug!

You don't know what went on before you were on the scene, plus you're mainly getting his side of the story.

I've been the 1st wife in a similar scenario, at first ex did all he could to prevent 2nd wife (a former friend and ow) and I from communicating in anyway and told a whole load of lies to each of us to deter this from happening. He was of course unable to maintain this and then we had one day in particular when he was unconscious that led to us spending time together again and talking and we unravelled a lot of the bullshit! After that she and I mostly communicated well and could easily spot when he was trying to do this again.

Among the things she (the person in your position op) learned were:

That far from preventing him from seeing dd I was going nuts at him keeping cancelling, failing to show or showing hours late for contact - he'd been telling her it was me cancelling last min and playing the "woe is me" card

That I was not holding up the divorce - which I had instigated - but that HE was sitting on various papers, I believe in order to avoid her push to remarry. Once she learned the truth on this miraculously he got on with signing, completing and returning various papers fairly quickly.

That far from me bugging him to pay "excessive" "extra" maintenance he didn't pay anything at all for the first few years. Indeed he had fooled his parents on this one too. Once they knew the truth this improved slightly for a short time but he never really fulfilled his responsibilities there. Dd is now 20, a few years back I calculated how much he owed in cm - it was over £20k!

Yet to hear him tell it to those he is around now (he forgets I know some of these people) I'm the evil witch who kept him from his child, demanded high amounts of cm that I spent on luxuries for myself and was jealously obsessive over him to the point of trying to prevent their marrying.

On the last point he actually propositioned me the day before their wedding and he has massively kicked off EVERY time he's even heard a rumour about me dating anyone.

So bear in mind that you may well not be getting the whole truth.

Elieza · 05/04/2021 16:18

So their mum has them Monday to Friday and he has them one weekend night and his mother, their gran, has them the other weekend night.

So basically he wants them one day/night a week. No wonder she’s cracking up.

His problem is the relentless working. He needs to work less and have a better home life balance. Then he’d have more time for you and his kids. It’s nice their gran wants to see them but to be honest that weekend time is more so their actual parent can see them. Which he doesn’t if his mother has them.

Why is he working so much, is he a doctor or something? Is he working for a short period of time to pay debt or buy a car or something and this pattern of working won’t be forever?

How long do you get together? Can’t be more than an hour a day. What’s the point of a life if it’s spent working and you never live it.

You have a DH problem not a problem with his ex.

Hankunamatata · 05/04/2021 16:22

Why cant you have her every weekend? Have your couple time during the week.

Sayitaintsoiwillnotgo · 05/04/2021 16:25

Rather than just slagging off OP husband like many PP I wonder why the ex doesn't want to spend more down/fun time with her child if they are with OP DP most of the holidays and every weekend. Surely the ex is only choosing to do the drudgery of school drop offs and pick ups. It seems very strange that 1. She would not appreciate not having to do all these if it is being offered one night every week plus EOW 2. She does not want the "fun" time with her own child.

Mylovelyhorsee · 05/04/2021 16:26

You get 5 child free days a week. It’s unfair on the child to change what they are used to. It’s so unusual for a grandparent to be doing that much childcare as well. You guys have had it easy until now, he’s a parent you don’t really get “breaks” or “couple times” apart from the 5 days a week you get them of course.

Teardrop2021 · 05/04/2021 16:26

You need to clarify is it fri-sunday every weekend or is Fri night through to Sat or Sat through to sunday drop off at tea time if the later and its one over night a weekend then yabu if its all weekend then I would question why she doesn't want to special one day off with her child.

IceCreamAndCandyfloss · 05/04/2021 16:27

I obviously missed the memo where children only have fun on a weekend night

Sayitaintsoiwillnotgo · 05/04/2021 16:28

Sorry posted too soon... and 3. She doesn't agree to you having him a school weekday night but then you have him the majority of the school holidays. It just doesn't make sense or add up!

SpongebobNoPants · 05/04/2021 16:30

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss mine certainly don’t, I barely see them in the week due to working full time.
I would hate my children to be gone every single weekend

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