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?

But she didn’t have an affair - she’s made that really clear. They were separated, sleeping in different beds, she told him they weren’t together anymore and begged him to move out for months so that they could each start again (while she remained at home caring full-time for SN kid). He refused to leave until she finally met someone new. And now controls her by refusing to look after his own kids so she has any free time at all.

In what way has she been immature in all this? It sounds like she spoke up, made her feelings clear when it was obviously over and tried to give him every chance to engage like an adult…and he’s still being petty.

Or am I missing something here?

OP I am sorry that people don’t understand your situation.

I have been cheated on but what you did wasn’t an affair or cheating.

I don’t have children with SEN but I would find it difficult parenting alone all the time. So adding SEN into this must be exceptionally hard.

It is very unfair that you don’t get a break. I suppose the flip side is that he may feel it is unfair that he can’t live in the family home anymore as you decided to break up the relationship but unfortunately that is life, relationships do end.

You both chose to have children so you should both accept the responsibility that comes with that. He seems to be trying to shirk this either as he feels he can’t cope or to control your time or both.

I hope he sees sense & starts having both children at least once a week so you can have a break (to do whatever you want with).

I’m not saying how he is behaving is correct and the only ones suffering are the kids however you ask about fair. Was it fair you lied and cheated and removed him from his home?

slightly hypocritical to question fairness and correct ways to behave.

your Op says you had an affair then you say you didn’t cheat. I don’t see how both can be true.

Hope you manage to put aside your differences and find a way forward for the kids.

This sounds pretty much how I ended my marriage. We didn’t share a bed and I certainly didn’t love him anymore. We agreed we were separated and that we could continue to cohabit until he found a place to stay- a lot of reasons behind why I refused to move out. Ofcourse the minute I met someone and was courteous in telling him, suddenly he told everyone I was cheating on him, I was the worlds worst and he had to move out. He refused to take the kids as well but would drag me to court every year demanding to see them 🤯

Our kids are much older and do not speak to or of him now.

In regard’s to nights out, I can’t rely on my family but I do have a close few friends I can rely on for childcare, is this an option for you?

How do you suggest they put aside ‘their differences’? She’s asking him to have his two children both at once for a few hours a week. He refuses. You want them to put aside their differences ‘for the children’- what more do you think this woman could do for her children? Who are basically solely looked after by the op. She is thinking of them. He isn’t. It’s just that as well as the kids there is this human woman who is one of their parents but is parenting 100% of the minutes in the day since one can’t go to school and could do with some respite given their special needs and the occasional social life. Won’t someone think of her?

Not nice. A parent. She wants him to behave like the parent he is.

soooo many apologists on this thread who think dads should be delivered a medal to the pub when a baby is born and consider turning up again when the child turns 18 and taking them to the footy. For another medal, obviously.

Then I'm afraid there's nothing you can do.

You can't force him.

Sorry...
Remind me again - which part of telling someone a relationship is over, saying that you want to split and asking them for months to move out is 'lying and cheating'?

When any relationship ends, where two people live together, one of them has to leave, or do you think once people shack up together, thats it, they are chained together permanently no matter what?

Do try reading the OP's posts and reading what she's actually said, not what you want to have a rant about!

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?

No, certainly not. But instead of being trapped with him and meeting other people, you could have commenced a divorce. He can’t stop you doing that! You can even have been living in the same house and done that, no issue. You have him served with divorce papers, go through the process, mediation, a judge if necessary who will take your child and SN into account as far as they believe is appropriate. Then you meet and date other people. This would probably have alleviated the current situation.

Long of the short, you can’t force him to have the kids. If you are the resident parent, he can only have accessed enforced if he wants it. If he doesn’t take it up and that’s problematic, you could then go back and see if that access could be rescinded (although a court would likely be loathe to agree as they are then effectively formerly cutting off the relationship).

@HoppingPavlova Tough to divorce someone if you're not actually married to them in the first place though...

OP gives no indication she is/was married to her ex.

It's really up to him. He's been forced out of his family, so YABU to expect him to do some co-parenting on your terms so you can get your leg over.

I mean, should he want to do some parenting? Probably, but you can't make him.

Best response I’ve seen on mumsnet!

Bravo! 🤣❤️

I dont care if you shagged his dad FFS.

They're his kids and he ought to be looking after them for at least a fraction of the time. Having them both for one night a week is hardly a big ask.

If you ruined his whole life by cheating - surely time with his children would be the one light in his life left?

Plus if you're such a terrible person, wouldn't be relish the opportunity to get his kids away from your influence?

Let's put it this way - if I worked with my ex who cheated on me, and he wanted me to cover his shift so he could have a night out, would I facilitate it? Absolutely not, there would be nothing in it for me and I wouldn't want to make his life easier. But that's because I don't wish to nurture my relationship with my job - it would be a chore. Seeing my child would not be a chore. It is not comparable.

If the shoe was on the other foot the DH would be getting roasted on here !

We weren't married.
My options were very limited. I couldn't even go to the housing team easily as I would have had to take both children with me, who would not sit there quietly with an iPad like other children. We wouldn't have got emergency accommodation as we were classed as housed and the situation wasn't violent.
I wouldn't move out and not take the children so we were stuck there.
I'd love someone to tell me what I was supposed to have done differently.
Just feels like MN expects women to be just mothers after having children and be celibate for the rest of their lives. The amount of times I hear 'well I would never date again if I split up with my partner/ husband' but you can't say that, if you're not there. It's highly likely you would feel lonely or want someone to text when breakfast has just been thrown on the floor for the second time and it's still only 4.30am. My world is very small. There's very little that's in my control, which some posters with NT children won't understand.

Landlords aren't allowed to discriminate on the grounds of benefits or disability.

Only read the first few pages but cannot believe the tone of a lot of these responses. People on MN are so incredibly purist about “affairs” that this seems to cloud everything.

Putting aside the fact that this wasn’t even really an “affair”, the OP has the right to end her relationship at any time and for any reason. This is consent, and how it should be in a civilised society. The other party can of course be hurt (I’ve been there myself), but relationship breakdowns almost always cause hurt, and often to one party more than the other. It’s not an excuse to behave however you want, it’s part of life and we all ultimately have a responsibility to ourselves to be resilient and overcome this and rebuild.

This man is a father, a relationship with his children separate to that of the mother. Women don’t get to abandon their children or decide they’ll only look after one at a time or only during the daytime. Why the hell do we accept that of men? Why aren’t we angry that the courts facilitate this? You’d think this place was a MRA forum sometimes, not a female-centred website for mothers.

@Hoardasurass but they do... You call the agent, they say they'll call you back but then nothing. And why would they? 25 people wanting to view each property. I ring for each one as soon as they're uploaded and I haven't even been offered a viewing.

Hahahahahaha

Someone really needs to tell private landlords that…

So "the OP has the right to end her relationship at any time and for any reason", but the father can't? I mean, we can make all kinds of moral judgements of either party for breaking the family up or being an absent father, but they have made their choices and they will ultimately bear the responsibility.

@Margot2020 Only read the first few pages but cannot believe the tone of a lot of these responses. People on MN are so incredibly purist about “affairs” that this seems to cloud everything.

I take it you've never had a cheating partner then ?🙄

If you had, you'd understand how wounding it is.

Confused by your response. Of course he could have ended his relationship with her on the same terms. That’s my point - adults can end relationships with other as they choose.

But this is about his relationship to his children as a father - he shouldn’t get to shirk his responsibilities to his children regardless. Are you suggesting since the OP no longer wants to be in a romantic/sexual relationship with this man any more she should “bear the responsibility” of him being a subpar father?

FFS I despair

But that's the point. The majority of men who 'break up a family' do not take the children or do not remain the consistent figure in their children's lives. I have.
Take my friend's ex who left when their baby was 8 months because it was 'too much'. He didn't see their child for six months. He absolutely had the right to end the relationship, but not to let the end of the relationship impact on his child. I'm not doing that.

My 11 year long relationship and marriage ended because my husband had an affair. He left me and got another woman pregnant after my own fertility struggles. But yes, I rebuilt myself and my life and moved on.

And now years later, as a mother, there is no way in hell I would have taken any of that pain out on my children and used them as pawns to hurt my ex. No matter how wronged I was. There is no excuse for it - they are children, the father is an adult and the parent and needs to step up.