I’m sorry because this has more than likely been done to death here but I would like some opinions on who is being unreasonable here.
Me and my ex separated 2 years ago, I instigated the separation, never been another person involved or any issue like that, just because of what I perceived to be long term issues with controlling behaviour from him. I stayed in our rented house and he moved around 80 miles away because he wanted a change of location, he still works regularly in my area and travels here several days a week.
We were managing the kids fairly amicably until I finished my degree and started working, he has the kids at his every second weekend and will turn up at my house regularly in the evening on his way home from work which would be fine if it was after school but it’s normally at bedtime and he usually appears with huge bags of sweeties, which is really not an ideal situation from my point of view.
Since I have been working I have tried to make him commit to taking more responsibility for childcare but he doesn’t want to move back to this area so his contribution is extremely limited. Under extreme duress he has agreed to have them after school/ nursery 1 day per week, however it has recently come to light that he has regularly been picking my youngest child up late from nursery on this day, sometimes 2+ hours, and I have been paying for the extra time without realising.
I am currently only working 3 days a week although this is mainly became that’s all I can manage with out any more help with childcare. I also have to work 3-4 nights a month over the summer. He is self employed so for the most part he picks and chooses his own work schedule, he’s not very particularly hardworking and regularly takes days off just because he feels like it.
Things have recently come to a head because I would like him to look after the children overnight while I am working, he can’t do that at his house because he lives too far away to get them to school. I feel that he could just stay at mine with the kids but he refuses to do that. I have had to get my mum or friends to look after them for me overnight which was manageable in the school holidays but doesn’t really work now. My mum has a lot of issues which make it very difficult for her to stay at mine and look after my kids.
My ex told me not to bother asking him to look after them anymore through week because it’s not his fault that I have taken on a job that I can’t manage with the kids. He accused me of inconveniencing him and my mum/friends by asking them to ‘babysit’ just so I can do a job that shows off my degree and that I should just get a job in a supermarket or somewhere less demanding (I can’t really see that this would make a huge difference as I would still need childcare!).
I feel that the kids are our equal responsibility and if we are both working the we should be organising it so that we are sharing the childcare over the week, but right now I either provide or organise and pay for childcare 4.5 days of the working week. And really all I’m asking is for him to look after them overnight 3-4 nights per month, which doesn’t interfere with his ability to work. He seems to think that because I am the resident parent that all the responsibility for childcare is mine.