Ex pissed off im changing childcare arrangements. AIBU?

[Childcare101sans]

Background (I have friends on here who will guess who I am with this info - please don’t out me!)

-I left my ex husband after I had an emotional affair with a woman
-I am now live with and in a LT relationship with her
-Ex inherited a house 6-7 years ago which we sold and we bought the family home which he lives in and up for sale
-he see’s the kids 2 hours after work twice a week and every other weekend
-when we broke up, because he earns little, I asked for 50% of the house, will count that as him providing for his kids and he doesn’t need to pay maintenance

Ive just found out I have a new job, I have moved up in my career rapidly and will be getting a higher paid banding.

It means I’m less flexible and have to be in the office 9-5 M-F

We currently and have never had childcare on Fridays, so I collect our primary age son from school every Friday and either keep him if it’s my weekend with the kids or drop him to his dads later if it’s his weekend.

Ive asked my ex if he will collect him from school on his Fridays and I will have to somehow figure out my Fridays since I will be starting this new job.

He’s gone mad.
He hasn’t said yes or no.
He’s just said “so I lose out on work and money while you go to work for more money?” (He’s self employed)

I feel like I’m providing for the three kids on a day to day basis and 4 hours less a month for him isn’t that much of a hit.

I live rurally and I’ve been searching for 2 weeks for alternative options.
No after school clubs.
No friends available for that time.
No other childminders or teens of friends that could help. My older kids work/don’t drive unable to help.
Im still trying to find alternatives but failing.

Am I being unreasonable changing the goal posts to benefit the fact that I have a new and better paid job?

Because the op said they were meant to be with dad butbshe was able to cover the hours so sorted that out.
Not sure why you're getting on me this much 🤷‍♀️ Regardless we disagree. I believe dad needs to sort childcare for those hours and you don't.

This thread would have gone so differently if the op hadn't mentioned that she had began her LTR before ending her marriage.
Grow up haters, it happens!
The exh sounds like a plank, he's obviously not and has never pulled his weight.
He's had to use inherited money to house himself and his family, instead of working. Of course he needs to contribute towards the division of the marriage assets, the op has clearly been contributing way more in ever other aspect.

I hope he sees reason and picks his kids up on Fridays rather than wanting randoms to look after them until he strolls in from his half on job.

I’m not sure I even believe a lot of what the OP has said tbh there’s been a lot of drip feeding as soon as people disagree with them OP adds ‘oh but he was so awful to me for 25 years’ ‘this is about keeping a roof over the children’s heads’, really? I thought it was about your new job?

What she actually said was:

"We currently and have never had childcare on Fridays, so I collect our primary age son from school every Friday and either keep him if it’s my weekend with the kids or drop him to his dads later if it’s his weekend."

What about this suggests he's meant to be with Dad?
It has always been their arrangement that it's her time.

It's the arrangement they made, and she should stick to it unless they mutually agree to change.

And I'm not picking in your posts (sorry if it seems like that). I'm just factually correcting people who seem to think it's not OPs agreed responsibility when, by her own words and actions it was very clearly agreed that it was.

OK and? That doesn't change my view point.
You can be as pedantic and factually correct as many posts as makes you happy.
It doesn't change the fact that I disagree. It really isn't an issue we have differing opinions

Well, OP also used his inherited money to fund her/their family home. Why does that make him the only 'plank' here?

He also did/has/does work, he just doesn't earn as much as OP, it happens.

You sound very hateful towards him, given you only have one side of the argument and some of that side doesn't sound great at all.

So, your viewpoint is that one person can unilaterally change the mutually agreed custody arrangements without the other person agreeing to it? And the other person has to suck it up, even if they have work commitments on that day?

That's not a viewpoint that most people would consider reasonable.

So yes, let's agree that we have differing opinions on this and leave it there.

🤦‍♀️ I'm trying to leave it but man you're like a dog with a bone.
There's lots of things I could say about your view point but at the end of the day we don't agree, it really isn't a big deal that you're making it out to be

Not sure why you have issues with that. The world is full of people with differing viewpoints.

I can only image the responses on here if the sexes were reversed on this.

I look forward to such a nuanced and understanding response when we see a poster, devastated, because her DH has an EA and then leaves her for another guy at the gym / golf club. I cant see this being controversial at all.

That's actually worse as he'll lose out on a whole afternoon of work every other week. And you still have a problem the rest of the weeks. I still don't see how your new job is his problem

Can’t your new partner help out? I assume she is invested in her new family.

There’ve been quite a few threads on MN where similar has happened. Wouldn’t say the responses were exactly nuanced but marriages ending because one partner has realised they’re gay isn’t exactly new. The difference is that when it involves the man, there tends to be an element of covert promiscuity before they ‘fess up’, causing a lot of distress and putting the health of their partner at risk. That doesn’t seem to have happened here.

OP’s affair started out as emotional, confirmed the fact that she’s gay and provided the impetus to leave. There’s no suggestion of promiscuity and OP is in a relationship with the affair partner. If she hadn’t mentioned the affair or the inheritance l think the responses here would have been very different, but as usual MN picks apart the OP and refocuses on a detail which has nothing to do with the point of the post.

I haven’t seen many threads where an OP is told she should suck up 90% of the child care and not expect a fair split of joint marital assets amassed over 25 years. Her DH was and is a low earner and preferred to focus on his own job satisfaction rather than improve his earnings. Sounds to me as if OP has been saddled with most of the financial responsibility as well as child care for most of the marriage, so if the only way ex could help finance a family home was through inheritance, and OP has contributed by paying a mortgage on top of that, then l’d say she’s more than entitled to her fair share.

I think this is hilarious. How many threads have we read where men are castigated for using their new partner as ready made child care ? Somewhere upthread another poster actually suggested OP’s partner should be contributing towards the cost of the children. The double standards are astounding.

Because its his day and she has been doing him a favour doing the pick up on that day.
How has nobody got the point here? It's dad's Friday. It's his responsibility to pick up. It's not OPs responsibility.

No, it's not "Dad's time". How have you not got this point.

The agreed handover time is and has always been after work on Friday. So that is the point at which it was mutually agreed that "OPs time" ends and "Dad's time" starts on the weekends he goes to Dad's.

She was not "doing him a favour", she was looking after her child during the period that was mutually agreed was her time.

OP wants to unilaterally change this handover time. That's not OK, it needs the agreement of both parties to make changes. In the absence of mutual agreement, the status quo remains, which is that OP has the child until the agreed drop of time of after work.

OP should have considered her responsibilities and made alternative childcare arrangements before making herself unavailable during a period where she had agreed to be responsible for her child.

I don't doubt that OP is doing more than her fair share and ex is doing less. But the point remains that the arrangement they mutually agreed was that she was responsible for the child up until after work on Fridays on the weekends he goes to his Dads. That arrangement stands unless there is mutual agreement to change it.

This 100%
@HipToTheHopDontStop Op is well within her rights to think her ex isn't doing enough (she can't complain about lack of maintenance because they agreed she got money from the house sale in lieu of this) and she can ask a court for a set child arrangement order to try and balance this better - though its worth bearing in mind if he doesn't want more time she'll not be able to make him - what she can't do is unilaterally decide she's changing the standing agreement (which, like it or not/understand it or not, is that he has them from after work on Friday) and then complain that he doesn't roll over and do whatever she wants. He has to have boundaries too. They are divorced and she can't decide what he does with his time.

Yup. It’s the 3pm-6pm slot that’s the problem. It was always her time. She took a job that isn’t flexible around this and thinks he should be ready to change his entire life around her work choices. My actual husband and I wouldn’t do this without a discussion - if one of us wanted to change our own family arrangements for childcare we have to talk about it first.

sure he should do more and should be paying maintenance etc etc but that isn’t relevant.

She can't make him, but judges will tell him, you either want Friday evening or you don't in the CAO. If you want Friday evening, you sort childcare until you are available. That is normal.

Quite possibly, and if she chooses to go to court for a cao then the decision will be up to him. She cannot force it. He may decide he cannot take the financial hit and therefore not do Friday evenings at all. Which would be worse for everyone. It's completely up to the op if she wants to take that risk or not. However until she does she can't change the arrangement they have purely because she wants to. He has the right to say no, as he has done, and that leaves her with the choice on how she manages that time. She can't force it on him though.

This

This, you want a better job so it's to you to sort out the Fridays school pick-up, can't your partner help ? You are BU.

Erm, given that he doesn't see the kids much surely he would make an effort?? Doesn't he have anyone on his side that can pick them up? Same old nonsense, my ex will break his neck to get to the match and close his business, but if i ask for anything child related I'm not taking his work seriously!!
Ps I don't believe it's an affair unless there is something intimate or sexual, spoken or physical.

I think everyone is in agreement that it would be good if he wanted to make the effort and wanted to have the children for more time. But he doesn't. And since this is OPs agreed time, she can't expect to unilaterally change the mutually agreed arrangement to her benefit and his detriment without getting his agreement. His agreement is not forthcoming, so it's up to OP to sort out childcare or make herself available for the time she has previously committed to look after her child.

Just because he seems to be a poor parent, it doesn't give the OP the right to chop and change agreed childcare arrangements and expect him to change to suit her. They are no longer married. She doesn't get to dictate what he does with his time. They have an agreement and that needs to be stuck to unless they mutually agree to change it.

Everything else is irrelevant in this situation apart from the fact that OP had committed to cover this time and therefore she needs his agreement to change that arrangement or she needs to continue to cover it.

That is not how parenting works. He committed to being a parent, therefore he has just as much responsibility to his DC 100% of the time as OP does. OP doesn't need his permission to drop down dead or become too ill to look after the children. He needs to be prepared to look after them properly. OP needs to work and likely needs the promotion because life is expensive and he is neglecting his children financially. It is not morally wrong to expect that of him. There is no CAO in place so nothing is tying either of them to hours previously committed. I appreciate OP will be the one picking up the pieces, but not because she has a moral or more legal duty to than her ex, but because our country as evidenced by many posters on this thread, turn a blind eye to child neglect by men and don't give the same allowances for women.