So I have 1 DS with ex who is 6 years old. I have chronic health issues and have just spent 3 weeks in hospital as a result. Have no formal agreement with ex over contact so we sort it out amongst ourselves depending on availability (court is costly, timely and often bitter when it comes to children which is why we’ve never gone down that route).
The 3 weeks I was in hospital ex didn’t have DS once, saw for one day and took him out but then returned him to my mum who had to give up 3 weeks worth of plans (works in a school so had holidays off) to have DS because ex didn’t want to take time off work.
Ex spent the day with DS and was due to bring him back at 7pm. I’ve been unwell all week with a nasty infection, finished antibiotics and still not well, I have a compromised immune system so any infection could turn into sepsis and I was already showing quite alarming signs that the infection had come back quite badly (high fever, nausea, etc).
I rang 111 and was waiting to hear back from them. Heard back from them and they said because of how busy they was they couldn’t guarantee they could get back to me with a doctor within a certain time frame and advised me to attend my local a&e to be assessed and given medication there because they were cautious of leaving me a long time with a raging infection.
I let ex know as soon as I knew this, DS has autism and can’t cope in hospital environments, my mum is away for the weekend and my Nan is unable to cope with my DS alone due to severity of autism and my Nan’s age (she’s nearly 70 and has health issues of her own).
I asked if ex could keep DS until I was home from the hospital (very small and quiet a&e where I live so would have been 3-4 hours max and I offered for ex to bring DS home and put to bed here if easier).
Ex refused based on the fact that he had plans at 9pm and couldn’t cancel them and didn’t want to do me any favours and said that I could either be selfish and take DS to the hospital with me, get my elderly Nan to have DS or wait until the doctors is open next week because my health isn’t his problem.
I tried explaining that it wasn’t doing me a favour, that it was a medical problem and it was in DS’s best interest to not be stressed out at a hospital all night and that sometimes as a parent it means cancelling plans last minute if your child needs looking after.
Who is being unreasonable?
In the 5 years we’ve been separated, ex has never had DS whilst I’ve been in hospital, my mum and younger sisters have even had to take time off work because ex refused to have DS.