Who is being unreasonable here?

[merlinsway]

Me and my ex share a DD (8). He has her every second weekend Friday to Monday and every second Wednesday from school finish till school start.

I got impromptu tickets to go and see a show on Thursday night. I have asked my dad to watch my DD and said I would pick her up after the show. She gets really, really, homesick and won't stay anywhere other than my house and her dads. She has tried many times.

I just realised if I pick her up after the show it will be after midnight and she has school the next day. So I phoned my ex and asked him, he sighed and said he was free but I really need to get a handle on her not staying places, I should just tell her she is staying at my dads and not care if she gets homesick she just has to deal with it. I said it sounds to me like it's an inconvenience to have your daughter and you would rather she was upset and crying and homesick at someone else's house when she could be with her dad and happy and content? He then said 'I don't have time for this, I can't be bothered with you' and just hung up.

I agreed to do something for him for his work, he has offered to pay me but to be honest I don't need the money and it's hanging over me when I have better things to be doing. I am just so wound up and am just going to pick my daughter up after the show and if she's tired for school oh well.

The favours I do for this man, I am always pleasant to him, he always asks for lifts here there and everywhere. Is always appreciative in the moment then turns round and speaks to me like that for dare bringing up the fact that it seems to be an inconvenience to have his daughter who he only has 8 nights out the month!

2 questions -

• was I unreasonable talking back to him and questioning his thought process?

• would I be unreasonable to drop his stuff for the work favour back to him today and tell him I'm not doing it or would that be unreasonable due to the fact I had agreed to do it?

This

post this about a man and you’d get complete support in telling him to get stuffed

I didn't 'cock up' my plans. I got free tickets last night. And not many separated men have their child/ren full time.

As it’s another case of

am i being unreasonable?
yes
no I’m not!

Why is it OP's sole responsibility to deal with her dd's homesickness? She has a dad too.

But she's not being unreasonable.

I feel like there are more issues than just this one.

It shouldn't be a hardship for him to have her if he's free and I agree it's not nice to make it sound like an inconvenience. She's his daughter and he doesn't see her often.

But at the same time I don't think he's wrong that her not being able to sleep anywhere but yours and his needs addressing. That's a separate issue though.

Thirdly, I'd do the work thing because you agreed to it but I'd take a massive step back from now on. Why are you giving him lifts and things? I'd just stop doing things like that now. You need an amicable co parenting relationship that's it, you don't need to do him favours, give him lifts, do work for him etc... You should disentangle yourselves from each other in every other aspect apart from DD imo.

It's not unreasonable to ask your ex to have your DD - although I think the timing of it is very short notice and I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than ask my ex to help me out.

What was unreasonable is using emotional manipulation and a guilt trip especially after your ex agreed to it (albeit reluctantly, which I understand given the short notice) to substantiate your point. I'm not surprised your ex didn't want to tolerate it and ended the call. I would be apologising to the ex for the comments you made and thanking him for stepping in at short notice, definitely not refusing to do work for him after agreeing.

I get that these sort of things are hard, and perhaps the bluntness of your ex in not being thrilled at helping you out considering how you help him out hurts - I really do, because I've faced the same issue with my ex being less than forthcoming when it comes to helping out with our DS (although, as above, I wouldn't ask him at all now) - but you can't rise to it. You have to accept you've split and whilst in a cooperative world, two separated parents can and do work amicably together for the sake of their children, there are also an awful lot of us in separated relationships who just have to keep their exes at a very careful distance to avoid rehashing the same sort of petty arguments and emotions that they experienced whilst in the relationship. It took me a while to learn this, and I'm still learning, but it does happen eventually!

I'm just wondering where he is when his twin sister is with her dad?

Also, if you genuinely are training to be a social worker, you might want to work on your people skills a tad.

@AdobeWanKenobi the other post was outing so I changed some details around which happens often on mumsnet. I forgot to name change afterwards. And yes I am starting masters course in social work in September. Thanks for your well wishes.

Its not just the mothers responsibility but it is the mother the child will be most affected from being away from. And by that I don't mean when the mother wants the child to stay elsewhere. I mean for things like party sleepovers, school residential trips, and so on. A good introduction to staying away is to stay at a grandparents house, the child is with someone who they like, somewhere familiar they visit with parents and someone who loves them as much as their parents do.

If I knew my child was going to be distressed and crying at their grandads I'd have asked the only person who she's feel safe with before booking the evening tickets.

He has a point, if you want impromptu nights out, especially on a school night when lack of sleep and the distress will impact your child's ability to learn at school, then you need to work on building her up to stay elsewhere because he's free this time but might not be the next and it's you who suffers by having the cancel or decline nights out. Or you could speak to her Dad about extra contact when you've calmed down, and with his extra nights he could work on building her up to leave her with someone he trusts too. I suspect if he started leaving her overnight when he only has her 8 you'd criticise him for that.

For tomorrow night, I'd do one if the following three, phone your ex and apologise for the sarky comments and have her stay there where you know she's calm and will sleep well and won't be feeling shitty all day at school, ask your dad to come to your home and care for her there, pay for his transport home or have him sleep in your room and you crash on sofa or something, or cancel the night out. I would not choose to leave her somewhere I know she'd be distressed after having a go at her father for the same thing.

But you said in your OP that you do him favours - surely the same applies to you - either both of you do favours for the other or both of you are just parenting, not doing favours or childcare?

Yep, it's you.

again: your current contact arrangements are that the tickets are for your ex's non-contact time. If you want him to have more contact, that is something you could and should discuss. But this isn't the time.

You and other pp are all on your high horses about his lack of contact, but there is no evidence on this post that OP wants it any other way. And yes, as RP and the one with by far the most contact time with the child, it would be more up to OP to be tackling her DDs nervousness about sleeping elsewhere. But that's probably not a priority if this is something that doesn't happen often.

Op, regarding him not making any attempts to get DD to stay over at places other than yours and his.
I suspect that if you caught wind of him sending DD to stay at his parents/sister's/friends overnight while she is supposed to be with him, he'd be in very big trouble with you for farming his child out on one of his 8 nights.
I don't think he can win with you!

Sorry OP but you give exes a bad name. He is not your babysitter. Its easy to say that he should be happy and grateful to have her more. Surely if that is so because he misses her so much, why not agree a 50/50 arrangement?

He is doing YOU a favour. Maybe he does have to change his plans, even if it was to have an unhealthy dinner with beer watching a film not appropriate for an 8yo.

You sound very entitled. When I hear similar stories from stepmums, I think that they are exaggerating. I guess not.

Me too.

OP: "was I unreasonable"
People: "yes"
OP: "no I'm not, sorry but you are all idiots and I am right and here is why"

Why bother posting?

Why would he farming dd out? He could take dd with him to stay at a family member's house.

Oh because he couldn't do that on one of his other 21 nights out of the month? 😂 eh no, we had 50/50 custody up until just before covid hit but I had to go to a lawyer and change that due to the fact that he wasn't doing what he needed to, constantly late for school, looking like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. He agreed to the new arrangement without argument.

This isn't really relevant which is why I didn't mention it but don't make assumptions.

So then why are you doing him favours OP? He sounds like a deadbeat. No more lifts!

we had 50/50 custody up until just before covid hit but I had to go to a lawyer and change that due to the fact that he wasn't doing what he needed to, constantly late for school, looking like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. He agreed to the new arrangement without argument.

So he's a shit dad and you know he won't care for her properly or get her to school on time but your last minute event is more important?

You can't keep moving the goalposts.

"I said it sounds to me like it's an inconvenience to have your daughter and you would rather she was upset and crying and homesick at someone else's house when she could be with her dad and happy and content"

Surely he could say to you that you would rather she was happy and content with her mum as planned, rather than crying and homesick at someone else’s house so her mum could go and see a last minute show

So you wanted him to have your daughter on a night that wasn't yours so in effect he was doing you a favour!
I would have just agreed and said yes o do need to get it sorted but thanks for having her. You have no right to be pissed off!

I said it sounds to me like it's an inconvenience to have your daughter and you would rather she was upset and crying and homesick at someone else's house when she could be with her dad and happy and content?

YABU this is needlessly aggressive, he's agreed to do you a favour . He's right , staying at her grandads for one night really shouldn't be a big deal. He hasn't spoken to you nearly as bad you spoke to him. You say he's appreciative when you do something for him but you've shaped and insinuated he doesn't care about his daughter when he's doing you a favor.