To stop my kids dad's new GF take my kids for the day

[Sunsparkles]

My ex has a new GF, been together approx 4.5 months. Our kids (both under 10yrs) have met her a few times and she has stayed over at his and they have stayed over once with their dad at hers. He will soon be moving in with her and the kids will visit there on his weekends.

He intends to let her take our kids to a theme park tomorrow without him.

I have said categorically no to this. AIBU?

"This is the 8th or 9th gf the kids have met in the last 2.5yrs, the 4th he has been going to move in with."

Oof.

"He and I have a VERY strained parenting relationship which is way too complex to update here, but generally goes along a pattern of him wanting the kids more for a bit, then meeting someone new and refusing to have them as much and round and round we go. This current cycle was wanted the kids 50:50 Feb/mar time, I agreed to almost that much, then new gf on the scene suddenly he was withdrawing time with kids and now once he moves in with her (planned for sept) he is dropping his contact time to a day or two for 4 weekends then nothing for 4 weeks, then day or two for 4 weekends again....."

So he's just shit all round. Being a very inconsistent part of their life, that is NOT good for children.

In this particular instance, I expect the planned theme park trip is known to the children, they are excited to go and would be disappointed if it were cancelled. They're 6 and 9 - how familiar with children this age is she? Do you think she can keep them safe - in which case the trip can go ahead. If there are doubts about her ability to manage two excited children - tricky. Could she take another adult to replace your ex? A mother, sister, friend - yourself?

I spoke to the kids in the end and asked them if they would be happy to spend the day with just her at her house with nothing particular planned and they both said that would be ok as long as they weren't sleeping over without their Dad. On that basis, plus that she's late 40's has grown children and similar ages nephews I took the children back to their Dad's knowing that ultimately whilst I have made it clear I'm unhappy about her taking them tomorrow that that is likely what will happen.

I spoke to him before I took them back to assess whether he is in any state to actually care for them with a broken ankle, and see if she was around. He said she will be there to take them all back to hers to look after him and the kids for the weekend.

Guess what - just had a message that I'm going to need to collect the kids sat lunchtime (they are planned to be with him until Monday evening) because she isn't going to be around to look after them. I guess she hadn't received the memo that she was on childcare duties all weekend when I spoke to him.

Also would not be happy but feck all you can do. 4.5 months though, already met kids etc. Its so soon it really is.

He is a crap dad, there is no denying that.

It sounds as though she likes kids though and so hopefully she may be a positive influence and encourage him to spend more time with them.

I would let my kids go to the theme park with her because they already know her now and will be looking forward to it.

They may feel a bit awkward being at her home all day.

Well I'd have an issue with this and rightly so. Its one thing for the dad to be there, but to completely sod off leaving this new girlfriend in charge is a no in my book.

He's broken his ankle and she stepped up so they weren't disappointed. She's trying to do a nice tuning for your kids and you "catagorically said no".
Don't complain when she refuses to step up and help with childcare later on down the line and it inconveniences you. You might well have shot yourself in the foot if this relationship lasts!

He sounds an all round shit- unsurprisingly ☹️

Guess what - just had a message that I'm going to need to collect the kids sat lunchtime (they are planned to be with him until Monday evening) because she isn't going to be around to look after them.

I imagine she didn't feel like doing childcare because of the way you reacted to her taking them out and thought sod it their mum can deal with them.

Your update makes me think you haven't a formal agreement in place for where/when the children stay @Sunsparkles .

Get that in place. This will stop you having to step in and be at his beck and call when he can't manage.
Broken ankle, his time…tough he needs to find a way to manage, just like the rest of us.

You need a life too.

He sounds like an utter tool OP. Now I actually feel sorry for the girlfriend, she sounds as if she's trying to do the right thing by the children. If he cared about them, he wouldn't dump them the minute he meets someone new - disappearing from your kids' lives for weeks on end to prioritise your fucking sex life is despicable.

I 100% get that she is doing a nice thing for the kids. I'm sure that she's perfectly lovely. I know nothing about her though (I'd argue neither does he having met her online less than 5 months ago) so, I think understandably, I am cautious. And perhaps if he'd handled telling me about her and being even remotely considerate, and this relationship was longer than a few sneezes, and he didn't have form of relationships lasting longer no longer than about 5 months then I might think slightly differently about this whole situation.

The thing is though, I don't need my ex's gf to "help with childcare" at all. In the 4.5yrs we've been separated I haven't ever once needed or wanted to rely on anyone other than my parents, and very occasionally a friend for an hour, for childcare support. My ex has the kids because he is their Dad, not because I need childcare. If it were purely for childcare purposes and I didn't believe that (regardless of him being the twotwaffle he is) kids should have a relationship with their father, he wouldn't ever see them!!

If that is what happened then good! I don't want or need her to do childcare, they are their Dads and my kids, not hers 🤷 He needs her to do childcare, not me!

No, we have no formal agreement in place. And I have taken legal advice on getting something in place to formalise our informal arrangements. The advice I was given is that the NRP needs to apply for a CAO, and even if we have one he can still pick and choose if he decides to have the kids or not. So if we have one and he decides he isn't going to have them one weekend then I can't do a thing. On the flip side, I will be legally obliged to give him the kids when they are due with him, and during his time he can let whomever he likes look after them. It's honestly a bullshit situation , but there are other threads on that and this thread isn't for that convo.

Thanks for your supportive suggestion though, and if I've mis-understood and you know more please say, because I would love to have something more formal in place to hold him accountable to his responsibilities as a parent!!

I agree that when it's not your 'time' with DC then you don't get to dictate or veto what the other parent does - but if the other parent isn't going to be there, then I think OP should be able to say she'll have them in her care instead. Not a veto per se, but a 'first-dibs' on childcare should the other parent not be present.

Obviously if OP can't have them for that time then the Dad's decision for childcare is final, or if he's agreed the GF can take them for a bonding exercise or whatever then that's also up to him. But if it's simply because Dad's working or busy then I think OP having them instead of GF is totally reasonable?

Mmm. I would be especially careful if an ex partner meets someone through OLD. They could be perfectly lovely or like my ex, he could meet a woman with all kinds of 'issues' (in her case, binge alcoholism and MH problems). But you wouldn't employ a childminder unless she had been checked out, there is always a risk involved with leaving your kids with a near stranger, so again yanbu.

You could be as against it as you like, but you do not have the right to meet her, or veto it etc. Even if you do not trust the dad.

Thanks, just lots of experience of managing a difficult ex. Mine had visions of living next door to me with his OW and the kids ‘sometimes being with me and sometimes being with him’ - which in practice would mean that I had no life at all as I would have been their nanny/babysitter as and when it suited them. I wasn't living my life like that.

We did have an agreed pattern, DC’s require stability. The maintenance calculations were also based on the agreed pattern.

Sometimes Ex wouldn't turn up at school to pick them up…i had provided the school with our calendar. They would contact him. His responsibility.
It is like training a child, with consequences!

We followed this ( though ex did storm out of mediation when he didn't get his own way). www.gov.uk/looking-after-children-divorce/types-of-court-order

How do you read all of that from what the OP had said?

@LewishamMumNow

thats not how the law works & next time he just won't tell the OP.

parents are entitled to decide who looks after the kids on their time.

you don't have to like it, but that's how it is when you're no longer together.

This is all well and good until there's an emergency and you've alienated the person who would have been available and known to the children.

I never did childcare for my SCs until one day, dps ex's brother was in car crash they thought to be fatal. Her parents rushed to their sons bedside and my husband was working away. I canceled my plans went to her home and babysat so she could go to her brother. Had she behaved like you in early days we would not have been at the point where I could do this.

Starting off your relationship with her by being hostile isn't doing anyone any favours. Another adult who cares for them is a positive thing.

I love how on here women are told they are wrong for introducing someone new over a coffee if it's been under a year but OP is expected to be fine with a virtual stranger taking her kids out unsupervised. It would be a firm no from me.

No you can't dictate this same as he can't dictate what you do

Yabu unless you have any reason to think she's not safe?
They'll have fun and you don't have to pay for it. Think of her as a free babysitter.

If you needed childcare and organized it you wouldn't expect your ex to be able to veto it would you?

I agree

I'm really on your side btw he is a waste man scrub from the tlc song just like my ex