DC can't go to their dad's because ONE of them is ill...

[Zoflorananana]

3 DC with ex who has gone on to have a second family. His partner is in her ninth month of pregnancy with their 2nd and due to have a cesarian but, in my opinion, being bloody ridiculous.

DC were due to go round for their dinner today. I let ex know when he was on his way to collect them that one wouldn't be coming as he's ill with a sick virus but the other two are fine.

He picks up the two who are fine and off they go with no problems. 15 minutes later I get a phone call from him saying there's been a change of plan, he's going to take them to play football in the park instead as with DC3 being ill he doesn't want to risk household to household transmission and DC1 and DC2 could be asymptomatic with what DC3 has or just not showing symptoms yet and his DP is due to have a cesarian.

They are absolutely fine and have been to school, no problems.

I know his DP is behind the change of plan because this isn't something he would ever care about and I have told him as much. Kids get ill it's a fact of life and you can't wrap somebody in cotton wool or ban them all from their supposed second home just because ONE isn't well.

AIBU to be royally pissed off?

You sound unhinged.

Such hatred.

It's the pregnant lady's home, not the home of OPs children. That's the bottom line
This.
And kids don't trump all - this attitude produces entitled and disrespectful teenagers. Love them, care for their needs, make them feel secure and treasured but they are not the only people who matter in the family.

One of mine had a stomach bug last week Saturday to Tuesday. My other child was fine, until the following Sunday then he came down with it!!

@Billandben444

It's the pregnant lady's home, not the home of OPs children. That's the bottom line This. And kids don't trump all - this attitude produces entitled and disrespectful teenagers. Love them, care for their needs, make them feel secure and treasured but they are not the only people who matter in the family.

This!!!

Are we wanting 9 month pregnant women to shoo out of their own house now? Should she sleep on the park bench for a few days so that OP's kids can pass D&V on to the sibling and the sibling get through it? When there's no other option and a D&V bug you go into different rooms, extra bathroom cleaning etc... But when there's any other option you absolutely don't knowingly share D&V with anyone, never mind people about to give birth or have surgery. I think some people are just getting muddled up because they're so keen to judge the useless barely-there father.

@Billandben444

It's the pregnant lady's home, not the home of OPs children. That's the bottom line This. And kids don't trump all - this attitude produces entitled and disrespectful teenagers. Love them, care for their needs, make them feel secure and treasured but they are not the only people who matter in the family.

Absolutely this. It's almost like the ex's new wife has no right to want to protect herself from a nasty sickness bug - in her own home!

It's the pregnant lady's home, not the home of OPs children. That's the bottom line

I don’t think the kids should have gone in this situation (do believe the DH should have fed them takeaway though!), BUT to say or make the kids feel as if they don’t also have a home with their dad is abysmal. Imagine being a child and being made to feel like a visitor every time you went to stay with a parent, whether it was for overnight, weekend or even just dinner. To get the message that ‘this home is for the new family only and not you kids’ and they are visitor/guest status is one of the most appalling things I have read on this site.

They go for dinner once a week. It's not their home and they will always feel like visitors there because they don't live there. The rights and wrongs of the wider set up are another discussion.

To get the message that ‘this home is for the new family only and not you kids’ and they are visitor/guest status is one of the most appalling things I have read on this site.
So, do all first-family children have their own bedroom, toys, ipads, spare clothes, guinea pigs, football kit at their dad's new home? Probably not. Look up the meaning of the word - permanent residence/where you live. Does this apply in most cases? Probably not.

@HoppingPavlova unfortunately that often is the case though. My DC are very much just visitors in my exh home. They don't even have a bedroom and he only has to feel a bit tired and he'll cancel an entire weekend visit. It's a shitty situation for kids who have a flaky nrp.

Can I also just point out that if the exh had given his DC a McDonald's some people would have still said he couldn't be arsed and was feeding them crap. This is MN after all.

Fwiw my ex and no doubt countless more would've cancelled entirely in this situation. I'm not saying the exh deserves to be applauded for doing the bare minimum, but he did at the very least make sure he still saw them for a bit. Crappy, yeah, but I also think OP was crappy to only give him a heads up on the actual day of visitation that one of the DC was ill.

@Billandben444

To get the message that ‘this home is for the new family only and not you kids’ and they are visitor/guest status is one of the most appalling things I have read on this site. So, do all first-family children have their own bedroom, toys, ipads, spare clothes, guinea pigs, football kit at their dad's new home? Probably not. Look up the meaning of the word - permanent residence/where you live. Does this apply in most cases? Probably not.

I didn't have any of those things at my dad's house. However we always felt welcome and like it was our home. Because of how we were treated.

My dc otoh have none of those things at their dads and it's made very clear to them that it is not their home. And, even worse, they are not part of the family.

Home is so much more than possessions.

The OP said that the DC have a bond with their half sibling, which suggests that their dad has made some effort to make them feel like they’re part of the family. This isn’t to say that he does enough for them, it sounds like that’s far from the case.

I was fuming but I did what any self respecting new mum would do in that instant...made a post on AIBU to vent (many name changes have gone by since) and had my arse handed to me on a plate for even daring to suggest his exw was bang out of order 😂😂 I was also told that, as it was DH daughter, it was none of my business if she was sent over infectious 😳
I chose to leave it there 😆

Oh, that should have a quote attached to it 😂 oops, for context that was in reply to someone a few pages back.

None of this conundrum would even exist if the OW hadn’t shagged a married man and started churning out his babies while he neglects his existing children. She wouldn’t have this problem if she was a decent person. Of course he is the primary shit in this but wow, I’ve never seen a thread with such sympathy and support for an OW! I feel for her unborn baby (for many reasons!) but not one jot for her.

@MayorGoodwaysChicken

None of this conundrum would even exist if the OW hadn’t shagged a married man and started churning out his babies while he neglects his existing children. She wouldn’t have this problem if she was a decent person. Of course he is the primary shit in this but wow, I’ve never seen a thread with such sympathy and support for an OW! I feel for her unborn baby (for many reasons!) but not one jot for her.

You mean none of this would've happened if OPs ex wasn't a cheating scum bag? He was the one with a responsibility to OP and their DC, not the other woman.

She doesn't have this problem. She can lock her own front door if she likes.
The only one with a problem here, in this particular instance, is OP.

Or another perspective @MayorGoodwaysChicken and @KurtWilde

None of this would have happened if the OP's marriage had been sound in the first place. Marriage breakdowns involve myriad complexities and affairs are often a symptom, not a cause.

The "OW" is no longer the "OW": she is the ex husband's wife and the mother of the first batch of DC's half siblings. In this particular scenario she has done nothing wrong at all.

Of course the cheating spouse if the worst party. As I acknowledged in my post. Personally I still take a pretty dim view of people who have affairs with married people. Vile, skanky behaviour on both their parts. And yes, of course marriages go through tough patches and even fail. But affairs are not an inevitable consequence of circumstance. They’re an active choice made by weak and immoral people. Plenty of people manage to navigate relationship breakdowns without having an affair.

And talking about ‘batches’ of siblings?! What the actual fuck? If this is the value people place on families and children’s security I despair. I really do

@MayorGoodwaysChicken

None of this conundrum would even exist if the OW hadn’t shagged a married man and started churning out his babies while he neglects his existing children. She wouldn’t have this problem if she was a decent person. Of course he is the primary shit in this but wow, I’ve never seen a thread with such sympathy and support for an OW! I feel for her unborn baby (for many reasons!) but not one jot for her.

Oh that's fine then, because you place a high moral judgment on someone for their relationship issues, we won't exercise caution for that person before a major operation. Because how that's how things work.

@MayorGoodwaysChicken

None of this conundrum would even exist if the OW hadn’t shagged a married man and started churning out his babies while he neglects his existing children. She wouldn’t have this problem if she was a decent person. Of course he is the primary shit in this but wow, I’ve never seen a thread with such sympathy and support for an OW! I feel for her unborn baby (for many reasons!) but not one jot for her.

Christing Christ.

And what if the ex had split from OP anyway. And a year later he met this woman. She's not entitled to her own children? OP said he didn't see them overnight because he was living with his family when he left her for quite a while (and for some reason not with the woman he was definitely with?). So his actions towards OP and their shared children have not been great since the separation. It's not his partner for having the audacity to have her own child. And she's not the new girlfriend. She's his partner of at least 5 years?

But considering he left OP (5?) years ago, and when asked if he has form for this (given how OP is behaving over this non event, pp presumed this is a regular occurrence), and OP replied he'd done this "once before," it does lean towards OP perhaps BU about other things. To be this ranty and irate because of a one off occasion she has to give her children dinner, preferring to risk a heavily pregnant woman's health instead. It took a lot of people on this thread, unanimous in yes OP, yabu, for her to finally say, that maybe she was.

If her mother was having surgery next week, and it was the norm for OP to go round with all DC on a Sunday for a roast, but one of them was ill, and her DM had said, "sorry, do you mind if we skip this week, I don't want to risk an illness prior to my operation"....would OP being claiming that her mother had "banished" her grandchildren from her home?? Looking for support that on this one occasion, having given her mother no notice until the day, that it's ridiculous that her mother said "we can go to the park instead, but can they have dinner at yours today, I really can't be ill for my surgery"

Imagine the response OP would get. Well, to be fair, it is pretty much the response she's had here from 99% of posters.

Some women are so full of hatred for someone they believe has stolen their rightful place, they can't see how ridiculous their behaviour would be in any other situation. I don't think the "ow" is seeing support on this thread, more that people can't believe OP is serious.

There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in your post @TwinsandTrifle which all amount to ‘if the situation were totally different to what it actually is’. So some of your points don’t seem very relevant to me. In any case perhaps we disagree and that’s fine. I just don’t personally have any respect or time for people who have affairs.

I don’t believe the OW has ‘stolen the rightful place of the first wife’. I doubt the OP or any woman with a shred of self respect would go near a man like her ex now he’s shown his true colours. I certainly wouldn’t. But that wouldn’t stop me being hopping mad that my children got the crumbs of their dad’s parenting and even less as a result of her pregnancy. The OP can be angry with her ex for many other reasons than jealousy or wanting him back.

OP I think you care so much for your children that you feel completely "lioness" towards them at any perceived rejection. I'm sure your DC didn't feel rejected - they still spent time with their dad. It's difficult to do but important not to project your own feelings for your DC on to them and react accordingly. In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a big deal or a big rejection for your DC. I do think their dad should have taken them to McDonald's or something to get some food - that was his responsibility and would have been the right thing to do, especially as you are at home caring for your other poorly child.

I think YABU - sick bugs do spread like wildfire & noro is just as contagious as C19 as it isn't killed by hand sanitisers and household cleaners, just bleach solution. Your kids could easily have passed the bug on and it's just sensible to prevent that, especially given the fact his DP is heavily pregnant and due for a section. I can really sympathise with her feelings and think that on balance, the impact for your DC of the change of plan compared to the potential impact for her and her baby of getting D&V just in time for the birth was by far the smaller.

I do understand why you feel a bit aggrieved, especially about the no dinner, and think people could have been a bit nicer and more understanding about saying YWBU.

@MayorGoodwaysChicken

There’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in your post *@TwinsandTrifle* which all amount to ‘if the situation were totally different to what it actually is’. So some of your points don’t seem very relevant to me. In any case perhaps we disagree and that’s fine. I just don’t personally have any respect or time for people who have affairs.

I don’t believe the OW has ‘stolen the rightful place of the first wife’. I doubt the OP or any woman with a shred of self respect would go near a man like her ex now he’s shown his true colours. I certainly wouldn’t. But that wouldn’t stop me being hopping mad that my children got the crumbs of their dad’s parenting and even less as a result of her pregnancy. The OP can be angry with her ex for many other reasons than jealousy or wanting him back.

There aren't a lot of "ifs"

It's putting exactly the same scenario, but with her mother having surgery, as opposed to a heavily pregnant woman having surgery plus ramifications for a newborn.

Bet OP wouldn't be ranting at her mother.