to be sick of DP's ex wife's demands

[forestcookie]

The dc live with her primarily but DP does loads. He takes the dc to school 2 mornings a week so she can go to work early and miss the traffic, he has to be at her house for 7.45am. He picks the children up once or twice a week, depending if it's his weekend or not - has them EOW for 3 nights. He would pick them up more but he works late 3 nights a week. He is on 25k, she is on something like 40k but she has standard office hours - 9-5, no late nights etc. He is in a tiny rented 1 bedroom flat, she has a large 3 bedroom house with a garden, driveway etc. She also gets child benefit and UC help, DP doesn't see any of that.

DP has just given her £300 towards their swimming lessons and summer holiday clubs - his "half", IMO she should pay more because she earns more, and I don't know why he is paying towards childcare because UC pay for it, but he didn't want her to kick off.

Now he usually picks up the children on Wednesday nights from after school club, again this enables her to work. She has just told him that tomorrow night she is going to see a friend for dinner and won't be back until 9.30pm. DP usually likes to leave her house by 9pm so he can get home and have dinner and prepare for work the next day. DP has told her this and she has kicked off saying she doesn't have a life or time to socialise (she does). I don't think she should be going out that night anyway, because DP has to be in her house without her which I don't really like. He has offered to have the kids overnight Wednesday nights but the dc don't want this.

AIBU to tell DP to put his foot down? He is knackered all the time from working late or looking after the DC while she gets to earn more and get home late as long as he is looking after them!

This is nothing to do with you. Your boyfriend only parents his kids 4 days a month- that's utterly pathetic. Taking kids he chose to create to school two times a week is also pathetic.
Stay out of other people's parenting drudgery, just enjoy dating your boyfriend.

Ummmm…. I think you need to leave your DP to work it out himself. You only know his version of their history. Hang back and see why he is working a low-paid job and lives in a one bed place. He may very well have arranged that to suit himself.

So you don’t live together and he’s more of a boyfriend than a partner? So this really has nothing to do with you. What’s your problem with him being at her house seeing his children? Also you don’t mention anything about regular maintenance, is he paying that? If not then paying £300 is him getting off very lightly, it doesn’t matter what she earns, he still needs to pay towards his children. And if she really is on £40k she won’t be getting much if any help from UC.

Not her problem he only earns 25k a year, maybe he needs to step up and do more rather than play victim and blame her

Nose out.

Literally nothing to do with you , but don’t marry this man because your life will be dictated by his ex forever as he quite clearly is absolutely fine with continuing to dance to her tune!

You don’t ’tell DP’ anything. It’s nothing to do with you. He’s not doing ‘loads’ he’s being a parent.

He doesn't do loads.

He's just parenting. It's his responsibility too.

You will get a lot of angry posts from disgruntled ex-wives on here, but you are not BU. Mothers using their kids as a weapon to get their own way over their ex is far too common and she does sound unreasonable.

AIBU to tell DP to put his foot down?
but no, don't do that. Let him manage his own kids himself. You will only make things worst. Imagine how she'll react if she hears about the "new girlfriend" having an opinion, she's going to make his life hell.

He married her and he had children with her.

You are just someone he hops in and out of bed with from time to time right now, so his family (because whatever you think those will ALWAYS be his children and she will ALWAYS be the mother of his children) is nothing to do with you.

If you don't want to deal with ex wives and children, don't date someone with an ex wife and children.

That's not doing loads. And you're far too involved. It is literally none of your business.

You're coming across like you feel his money should be primarily directed at you, not his DC. That says a lot about you, and you sound quite controlling.

Sounds like he doesn't have the money or the time for a GF, that's the problem when you make a family, they take a lot of time and money. Unfortunately you will always be second to his children.as it should be. You might want to rethink if this relationship is what you want.

I was kind of with you until you said this...

I don't think she should be going out that night anyway, because DP has to be in her house without her which I don't really like

Stay out of it. How they parent their children has nothing to do with what you are or aren't comfortable with. Christ

But he's their parent - he should be parenting them! And he doesn't actually do much of that, EOW and a few school pick-ups. And surely her earning more is good for the children. Is he paying maintenance?

I don’t call taking his children to school twice a week and seeing them every other weekend ‘loads.’ It’s still a lot less than she does.

Honestly? He's doing the bare minimum. If he was doing 50/50 then sure he could maybe complain, but he's not is he?

How does he have them 3 nights EOW if he lives in a tiny one bed flat?

It's fairly typical for the lower earner to do more of the childcare, but in this case he earns less than her and does less than half the childcare. But that still counts as loads apparently, because he's a man.

Every other weekend and a few school runs is fuck all! And so is his financial contribution! Seeing as she’s the primary carer and he only has them a few days a month, he should be earning more than her and contributing far more than what he is. You seem to think he’s doing her a favour or something, when all he’s doing is helping facilitate her looking after his kids almost full time. You say he’d have them more but he can’t because of work, so she has no choice but to have them as much as she does. His small contribution to this is a couple of drop offs to enable her to get to work, so she can pay for and look after their kids, which he should be doing!

How much CM does he pay?

Why can't he eat at her house, with the children, that one night?

It's nothing to do with you btw. They are not your children and they need to figure out coparenting between themselves.

That post went well for you op 🤣

OP, you only have DP's side of the story here. Does he pay maintenance? How long have you been together? Why does he only have 1 bed flat when he has children (of course they don't want to stay over)? Why is him having a lower paid job his ex wife's fault?

Ex can't work late can she? She has the children every evening. And if you think that's loads, then I can only assume you don't have kids because that is not loads.