Punished for 'affair'?

[HeyDrake]

My ex moved out a while ago after I told him that I had been seeing someone else. The relationship had been dead for ages, and I was upfront that he should move out and had been saying so since last May.
Since then he has been refusing to have our children on the night time/ evening so I can go out. He has one child in the day but not both. Do you think this is fair? The relationship is over, now all he is doing now is punishing our children. And me.
Can I make him realise that I have the right to a private life and time to myself? Can I go to court and could they enforce this?

Why on earth would op do this?

If it were a man posting this he'd have his arse handed to him. You had an affair, but he had to leave. Now you're annoyed at the time he's spending with the dc because it impacts on your social life....
He's not coming off well here, but neither are you.

Can I make him realise that I have the right to a private life and time to myself? Can I go to court and could they enforce this?

No. It's not up to your ex to facilitate your social life. Contact is to promote the relationship with the non resident parent, not to give the resident parent a life. You don't have a 'right' to a private life in the sense that he or anyone has to facilitate it. I had no life for at least 5 years when my DC were small, still limited now they're teens, that's what it's like.

How did you have an affair if your DC don't go to school or a babysitter?

just because someone has an affair doesn’t mean they should be the one to leave the home. The primary carer for the DC should stay in the home, plus OP might have owned it long before her marriage for all anyone knows. It sounds like the marriage was dead in the water long before the affair.

Not much you can do about him not having his DC. Does leave you in a difficult situation though. Is the home schooling permanent or until you get the right provision? Makes it very difficult for you to work with DC not in school.

Re frame it, because otherwise you sound a little self centered. He is not a babysitter. He should have the children a proportion of the time because he is a parent, and the children need him and contact with him. Not so you can go out. What you do when the children aren't with you is your business. Try to talk to him in a none judgmental manner. Whether the marriage was over or not, it's never easy to be the one who is left behind. Explain that the children love him and want to see him, and need some stability. You could even apologise for causing hurt, but that you both need to do what's best for the children. Maybe you could think about mediation or counselling to get the best for the kids. Separate it out and think about the children rather than you at this point, it's only for a short time. If he still doesn't play ball at least you have tried and you can get a baby sitter.

I mean, try to see things from his point of view for a hot minute.

You cheated on him, then told him he had to be the one to move out of your shared home when you were the one who wanted to end the relationship, and now you want him to have the kids overnight so you can go out with the person you cheated on him with.

How would you feel in his position? Are you sure you wouldn't take some satisfaction in scuppering his sex life with the other woman if you had the opportunity?

Is he still paying towards the house he's no longer allowed to live in?

Honestly if you told him it was over then it can't even be classed as cheating he is just delusional

@MissScarletInTheBallroom I told him it was over. The situation was such that neither of us could move out. Our child has very complex needs which require one person full time supervising him at all times.
Does that mean I should live the rest of my life in misery, being shouted at?

You sound very self obsessed, OP. You weren't happy and you wanted the marriage to end. OK but you can't expect DH to act out the role that you want, just because you want to have fun now. It's not all about you. He's not a babysitter. I see you've ignored all the advice from pp's to just get a babysitter - maybe because of the autistic DC? This isn't going to be easy, but hopefully things will calm down with time... Good luck.

Affair or not. You can’t make someone man or women watch children they don’t want to.

Is he doing it to punish you or as they both have such Sen that you cannot work can he just not cope? Or is it both.

Either way honestly would you want someone looking after them who doesn’t want to just to go to the pub or whatever.

@Dillydollydingdong anyone has the right to end a relationship at any time. You shouldn't be forced to be in a relationship just because you live under one roof. After all, I could not easily move out, because I couldn't move my child with me.

It's a really common tactic to take one child and leave the other like you say, to stop you going out.

Tell him it's both or none. He'll probably say none though. Any family around?

I’m confused. You say he moved out in your OP, but later posts make it sound like you are still living together. Can you clarify?

No, you can’t make a parent look after their own children. They can refuse. I’m of the opinion that someone that disinterested in their children probably shouldn’t be spending time with them anyway.

If you want a social life you will need to pay or find someone who is able to care for DC.

@HeyDrake

You're 100% right, any relationship for any reason or no reason at all. But along with that must come the knowledge that the other party may not like you ending it. And if they decide to 'take it out on you' in some way there is usually very little you can do. Abuse and violence excepted, of course, and should be reported to the police. But a simple refusal to have the children of an evening? Nope, that's not a violation of the law, or even of a parenting agreement.

So bottom line is, there's not a damn thing you can do about him refusing to have his children. It doesn't matter whether you want to go out on the lash or go to church, legally he can't be forced to have them if he doesn't want to. It's shitty for you and it's shitty for them, but that's the way it is.

If your child has exceptional SEN, is there some sort of respite programme that might work for you? A regular sitter may not, but perhaps a programme with trained staff might.

@AcrossthePond55 he will not go to respite as he has only been with me or his dad and will be extremely dysregulated. They can't even ensure it's the same person each time.

Who owns / pays for the house? It sounds like to need mediation and a solicitor to get an agreement in place

As others have said you can’t make him parent the children and the family court can’t and won’t try to make him either.

All you can do is make sure you are claiming the right amount of child maintenance from him (hey, maybe point out that if he has them overnight he gets to pay less as it’s based on nights he has them and not days) and don’t rely on him for childcare or anything else other than child support payments.

He may want to punish you rightly or wrongly, but it’s never an excuse to treat the children badly by weaponising them.

So you had an affair while he was at home with your disabled child? Yeah if I was him I wouldn't be going out of my way to facilitate you having a life either. I'd like to think I wouldn't be a dick about it, and that I'd put my child before anything, but would I take the DC so my ex who cheated on me could have a private life? No, that'd a pretty hard sell for anyone I'd think.

Just go out. If he’s there and you go out what’s he’s going to do?

You didn't have an affair if you were separated and living in the same home. But realistically, he was probably hurt that you moved on with someone else so quickly and that is driving his unreasonable behaviour. Unfortunately, you can't force him to have the children 😕 I understand the difficulty with having a child with SEN as I'm in the same position myself. Could you introduce a caregiver/babysitter slowly and gradually with them spending time in the home with you there to start of with then leaving them for very short periods of time? It may take many months but might be worth trying it so you can have at least one reliable person you can leave the child with. I think life will be very difficult if you are the sole carer and you are at risk of complete burnout. I know because I've been there. I think it's worth persevering with trying to introduce some other carers over time if you can.

You can get babysitters that specialise in sen, they build up a relationship first for a while, might be worth looking into.
Typical male tactics though, you're allowed a social life he just doesn't want you to have one.

Then unfortunately, you're stuck. You can't make your exH have them.

So I guess the answer to your question "Does that mean I should live the rest of my life in misery, being shouted at?" is probably 'yes' as long as you keep arguing/asking your exH to have them. And if that's the case, you're going to have to find some way to make peace with yourself over it. Because in the end, you're only upsetting yourself, you aren't upsetting your exH one tiny bit. And if he's doing it to punish you, you're actually making him happy by reacting. Sucks, but there it is.

I don't know the actual 'dynamics' of your conversations but I assume it's you ask, he says no, and an argument ensues. So why do you continue to butt your head against that stone wall? I mean, he's not going to change because you demand he does nor even if you ask nicely, is he? What do you think would happen if you simply stopped asking and bided your time. Would he eventually step up out of love for his children?

But also consider whether or not was a caring and involved father to begin with. Did he do 50/50 with you on caring for all of the children before you separated? Did he take them all out or care for them all at home on his own, even if you were there? Did he happily send you off for an evening with friends without frequently calling/texting about some 'disaster' or other? Because if not, it's not likely that he'll ever step up, and it would be more to do with his inability to parent rather than you going out.

Sometimes we do what we think we should do (or want to do) and we don't get the result we think we should get. This may be one of those times.

Based on your updates, are you saying you ended the relationship last May but he refused to move out and you weren't able to so you both continued to live under the same roof. Then latterly you met someone else, told him so, which prompted him to move out but now he refuses to take both children at the same time.

If that's the case, I think you should have posted without referring to an affair- it skews the responses where posters aren't absorbing your updates.

One other thing, if one of your children has needs so complex that it needs one full time adult supervising could this be a factor in why he's taking them one at a time?

This, if there is no court order in place. He doesn't get one child without the other.

You need to start by having a babysitter come to the house while you are home. That way your child will get to know them while also feeling safe because you're there. After a few visits you can pop out for 5 minutes and build up from there. It's a ball ache and it will take time but everyone needs down time occasionally. You can get baby sitters that have experience working with kids with SEN.