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?

What were you hoping for with this conversation? That he would have the children 50/50?

Tax payers don’t hold benefit recipients hostage either. They are allowed a life. I don’t think she’s asking for much to be allowed out once in a while?

Does it mean he should babysit so you can see your bf more often?

@WeCanOnlyDoOurBest calm the fuck down, Margaret. If I went to work your previous taxes would need to go to special needs school, a whole full time TA plus a taxi there and back each morning. Plus all the school supplies my son would break. I'm asking for one night a week to go to the cinema, not an overnight stay at the ritz with half of Newcastle United lining up to pork me. Take your Daily Mail outrage elsewhere

She says he doesn’t want to look after the kids. Or are you just trying to stick the boot in?

I reported her comment but your response is a work of art.

@LlamaDharma it's not and has have never been a boyfriend

I think you are getting a lot of stick because you said affair in your title.
Perhaps if you'd just said you and ex who were separated but still living together until recently when you entered a new relationship then the replies may have been different.

To answer the question no you can't force him to see the children but I'd give it time, he's obviously jealous you've moved on, give him time and let him heal and hopefully you'll be able to co-parent for the children.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 might have to see if ‘CalmTheFuckDownMargaret’ is available as a username.

not an overnight stay at the ritz with half of Newcastle United lining up to pork me.

🤣🤣🤣 the other half can feed you dinner and run a bath.

My ex does this which then means the kids end up involved in new relationship when they shouldn't. Babysitters can come to the house

Yes, I'm sure the £81 a week carers allowance for 24/7 caring is absolutely worth it.

Op deserves a break ffs.

Or should taxpayers vote on what carers do with any spare time they have, maybe they could adopt one each like sponsoring a child and the carer then has to provide regular updates just so that taxpayer can make sure they don't buy a bottle of wine or, heaven forbid, get a haircut or something.

This is a bloody beautiful response to that utter numpty. Well done, OP.

In regards to your situation, sorry your ex sounds like a bellend that seems to want to hurt you and cause difficulties rather than parent his children equally with you.

Hoping in future you are able to co-parent effectively. Every parent deserves time to themselves or to do the occasional thing for yourself. Please don’t listen to the majority of folk on this thread - they’ve read the title and gone wild with the fact they think you’ve had an affair.

Gentle reminder WeCanOnlyDoOurBest

Even if you receive carer benefits for you children, you deserve respite. Receiving taxpayer benefits doesn't mean women suddenly become slaves in a welfare state.

Sounds fair enough that he wants some quality 121 time with his children.

They all do this. It's to punish you and the children are collateral damage. They often calm down and grow up if you don't react. You are a full time parent, you get to spend all your time with them how lucky you are. Reframe it as that instead. He's the one missing out. Any time he spends with them is a bonus. Make sure you get the child maintenance you are entitled to from him. You'll find he is suddenly more interested when he can pay less for having them more. Your children need to go to him together though as they are siblings. Make this clear to him.

Great! He’ll be happy to look after them then if he’s not trying to punish their mother.

So she gets a babysitter like most people have to.

Love it when people refer to dads as babysitters. Or wait, you mean an actual babysitter because she shouldn’t dare to hope their father might step up in a way that isn’t about preventing her having a separate life?

You are a full time parent, you get to spend all your time with them how lucky you are. Reframe it as that instead.

Have you ever looked after a child with complex needs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

Play silly games win silly prizes OP. I highly doubt nothing happened before you told your XH. I would side with him and wouldn't be facilitating your night at the cinema when you have just made his whole world implode.

OP iam sorry for your situation but have no advice. However your response to @wecanonlydoourbest or Margaret as I think of her now was epic.
Off course you need time off🌻

Another way of looking at it: Why would you want someone who clearly has little interest in his kids looking after them?

OP I cannot believe some of the comments on this thread, I am so so sorry 😔 it is incredibly hard parenting a SEN child when there are two of you, let alone just one. And yes, you are absolutely entitled to want and need a little bit of respite and life to yourself. The only thing I can suggest is that you ask your ex for a formal custody arrangement so that you are at least sharing the parenting. But if he refuses to do this, even taking him to court to ask for a formal child arrangement order won’t force him to spend time with his own children if he doesn’t want to. And yet again a mum steps up and bears all the responsibility. I feel for you. Please ignore the comments from people who have the empathy of a rock, and most probably are not single parents to a high needs SEN child. Their opinions are genuinely not worth listening to. 💐

You might want to delete this and post again but not mention the word affair if you had already separated.

Also might be more helpful to post on the SN children topic as I’m not sure people get that you can’t just dump the dc with a babysitter and that it’s very different parenting a child with SN.

I don’t have any advice but can see that you are having a hard time in real life and on here.