AIBU or is my partners ex

[TheSunnyLemonShark]

Just to start, my bonus child has a full wardrobe at our house, coats, dresses loads of shoes at ours so wouldn’t go without.

So we have overnight visits every second weekend sat 1pm-sun6pm and her mum usually packs a little bag for her (completely unnecessary as she has everything she needs at ours anyway) ex refuses to return clothes from our house if she goes home in them meaning we always send her home in outfits from mums as nothing comes back that’s from our house.

my partners ex has started demanding that we wash the outfit from Saturday and dress bonus child in it on a Sunday for pick up as she doesn’t want to pack a bag for her anymore (leaving very little turn around to actually wash and dry it, 9pm bedtime and out the house for 10am Sunday for swimming lessons). We’ve always sent what she was sent in back home with her until last weekend when I forgot to pack her cardigan from the Saturday), bonus child is 5 and we have a 2 month old baby as well so it’s a little chaotic sometimes!)
we do all pickups and drop off (ex moved to a location 40 minutes away when they broke up) and it feels like my partners ex is just trying to make it more difficult.

I would have no issue washing the clothes and sending them back the next weekend I just think my partners ex is being unreasonable expecting the outfit to be washed and dried from Saturday night to Sunday. last thing I want to do it get the baby sorted get bonus child to bed then have to go stick on a wash at 8/9 a Saturday night and get it on the radiators and keep the heating on a decent temp overnight all because mum is demanding it be the same outfit she’s returned in.

AIBU if I refuse to do this?

The unnecessarily antagonistic, snipey tone of some of the comments you have received here OP is the reason I would never post an AIBU! To focus on your agreed term of bonus child or suggest a 5 year old doesn't get dirty shows complete ignorance of anything outside the commentors own small world. We have exactly the same issue here but no baby to consider and we do have a drier. Added to this the clothes coming to us were horrible material or excessively used 2nd hand items and the new outfits or really lovely hand me downs were never seen again!! You do not have to comply with her wishes - a court will always promote a child centric approach. Send the clothes back dirty if it isn't possible to keep them clean and insist she is sent in clothing appropriate to the weather.

Because if OP had 5 t-shirts in her house that are used one a fortnight, in 10 weeks time OP would be having to buy more t-shirts!

OP says they've got clothes for her, but it's not an infinite pile of clothes that they can effectively gift to the ex one outfit per visit.

Something tells me if they just kept and didn't return the clothes the SD turns up in there will be hell to pay, yet she'll happily keep anything that they send her home in.

I'd be replying with a simple "Timing wise this isn't possible. We can either return the clothes from Saturday worn, or will wash them during the week and return them next weekend."

If she has a problem with either of these options, she's really, really silly.

This…Can the Mum not just send two outfits to begin with and it gives a week for you to wash them and return them and wash the next dirty set?

I send in clothes...and ex sends back in clothes. No bag given.
I wash the clothes they return home in and put aside....then they wear them back to ex the next time.
It means that now it's only ex's clothes going back and fore for the kids.

Just start and don't get into convo with ex about it. She can choose the first time to send child back in mums outfit or dad's outfit she want home in. Simple

Can’t believe the number of people on here who are absolutely flummoxed by the problem. If I was the OP I’d have lost my mind by now explaining again and again!

The child coming in one set of clothes and going home in another set of clothes is not a solution!! It’s not a direct swap of clothes going on. Because the OP would have to return the child wearing new clean dry clothes (bought for by them) AND a bag with the dirty clothes she arrived in the day before (bought by the mother).

Come on people!! It’s not a riddle.

I would change her into an outfit from your house as soon as she arrives, and then swap back into her Mum's clothes right before she leaves.

I'd just change her out of it soon as she's at yours so it's not dirty and then put it back on her to go home again in the morning?

Bonus child….quite easy to understand really so I don’t get all the “wtf” outrage! The op uses it, the child approves it too. Op has a partner and his daughter is a bonus (rather than baggage). People need to get a grip.

Keep Saturday's clothes, and wash them during the week. Don't return her with them, clean or dirty. Send her home in your clothes, and ask that mum washes them and puts her into them for when you collect (ie exactly the same request she's making of you, except that she has all week to wash them). The following Sunday you put her into the previous Saturday's clothes.

If she arrives the next weekend in clothes from mum's rather than yours, continue the process - keep those for the week and send her back in the previous weekend's. You'll only lose one outfit. If she's not been sent with a coat, take the coat off her when you return her, so you return her with the amount of clothing she was sent with.

Get her changed as soon as she visits and dress her in same clothes
Only clean underwear is needed

Genuinely can't belive there is 8 page of nonsense! 😂

Its about packing a bag/cleaning clothes for goodness sake!!

'Bonus child' is a lovely expression. You clearly love her and see her as something extra and wonderful in your family. I smiled as soon as I read it. It was quite clear to me what it meant.

I can't believe there's 8 pages mostly of people deliberately twisting the OP's words, leaping to conclusions and being no more than playground bullies.

Just get her changed when she arrives and stick her back in those clothes to go home in the next day.

Don't refuse outright to wash though without offering an alternative, as this can be painted as 'unreasonable behaviour' 'he refuses to wash her clothes' - DP should address this in writing so the courts can see it ifnecessary.

Explain that washing in that time frame isn't reasonable, but that you're happy to facilitiate a reasonable exchange of clothing, as long as it is an exchange and not a one way clothing vanishing trick! If clothes are being exchanged and moved back and forth between homes then of course you're happy to wash them through the week.

Agree.
keep your clothes for use at your house, send her back in ex clothes.
No need to get into a dialogue.

if she complains, just say, excuse like - sorry Sunday is not our wash day. Just be so nice while not obeying her dumb request

same each time just say, no time, doing my best. No laundry on weekend.

You must be fucking joking, right?

You can always tell the lucky ladies on here who’ve not had to experience divorce or lone parenting. And have zero clue about how important it is for children to develop strong parent-child bonds with BOTH parents (not just as a brunch guest).

And who haven’t any idea of what it might be like as the mother, doing 100% of bath-times/bedtimes by herself, night after night. Alone every single night, unable to go out to see any other adult company after 6pm, night after night, for years?? Sadly some mothers and kids HAVE to contend with this as there is no father in the picture or they’re widowed…. But where there’s a perfectly alive father (who’s capable of having sired more offspring recently) then that father SHOULD be doing proactive, normal, everyday child-care. It should be EOW and a night in the week, in my opinion. Healthy balanced families. Not some Disney-Dad and ‘bonus mum’ bollocks.

Just send her home in your clothes this time, then next time she can go in mums clothes. Sacrifice one outfit and you'll be a week ahead from now on. It's not really that big of a deal.

Same - get her changed as soon as she arrives and get her to pop on the same outfit just before she leaves.

Her mother is a twat. Doesn't she have to wash the rest of her clothes fgs??!

And who haven’t any idea of what it might be like as the mother, doing 100% of bath-times/bedtimes by herself, night after night. Alone every single night, unable to go out to see any other adult company after 6pm, night after night, for years?? Sadly some mothers and kids HAVE to contend with this as there is no father in the picture or they’re widowed…. But where there’s a perfectly alive father (who’s capable of having sired more offspring recently) then that father SHOULD be doing proactive, normal, everyday child-care. It should be EOW and a night in the week, in my opinion. Healthy balanced families. Not some Disney-Dad and ‘bonus mum’ bollocks.

Of course. There are deadbeat dads all over the place who walk away and leave it all to the mother.

But this dad isn't one of them. He is fighting against an ex who is using the DD and everything to do with her as a weapon, whether that's limiting access or being petty over clothes. If this mum can't go out with friends and is doing 100% of bedtimes than that's on her. The father is going back to court to increase contact and would happily have his DD a lot more than just EOW and one night a week.

Whilst I know nothing of the background, from reading your posts OP, this little girl is lucky to have you. I don't understand why her mother is dressing her inappropriately and it just reads that she is being awkward and almost spiteful, neglecting to realise the one suffering is her own child.

No. Send the child home in clean clothes and OP keeps the dirty clothes. That's the direct swap people are talking about. Next time mother then sends the child in OP's clothes and OP sends her home in her other clothes. I don't know why that's so difficult to understand.

Yeah, and do you believe everything you read on the internet? There’s clearly a whopper of a back-story here.

Besides, my post was aimed at the comment saying that ‘little children’ should have one brunch per fortnight with their father, as anything more would be almost morally wrong to the child. Which is just naive, mum-shaming bollocks.

Personally, I suspect in this case that the father is shit (squabbling over collecting her when he does no school runs etc) or there’s a DV back-story or an affair etc… there’s always an interesting other side to the story, and it pays to keep an open mind when separations & custody get petty & messy.

But the childs mother demands the child is returned with the clothes she arrived in, and refuses to return any clothes supplied by her father, it seems the child never sees those clothes again!

So this doesn't work. Its a one way stream of clothes leaving OP's house and never coming back.

She can demand all she likes. Doesn't mean they have to do it. And how is it a one way stream? OP sends the child home in one set of clothes. Mother keeps those. But from then on she's only sending her back in her mother's clothes. So simply buy one cheap outfit from Vinted or Asda to send the child home in and that's all she will lose.

Op, I haven’t read the full thread. Someone has probably already suggested this, but O would just take her mums clothes off her on arrival and pop her into dad’s house clothes. Hangs mums clothes up, then pop her back into them the next day. She’ll hardly have worn them, they’ll be clean.

So is the OP.

Everyone on this thread is writing in English.