DD and DS (12 and 10) have spent one week at their dads for the Easter holidays. It’s the same every year - a week at Easter, a week in the summer (and every other weekend). We separated almost a decade ago and coparenting has been up and down - currently it’s down.
Today was home coming day! We agreed over 2 weeks ago on the return home time: “usual 7pm as it falls on your standard weekend” was the message. I’d planned out our Easter celebrations for tomorrow in anticipation. This morning I received a text to say “will bring them
home at 4, they’ve had a good week”. I checked my messages making sure I hadn’t missed anything but the last I see was the confirmation of 7pm. I screenshot this and sent it back saying it would need to be 7. For information, we have been decorating upstairs all week and their bedrooms were being used as a place to store some furniture and belongings. Plan had always been to make sure all was clear by the time they were home and we were on track.
I advised that if he’d have let me know in advance that 7pm was an issue, I’d have rearranged or worked to that target. It’s also Easter Sunday and I didn’t want them sitting bored whilst we moved things about.
What followed was him swearing at me over messages “who the do you think you are?” And demanding that he bring them back 3 hours earlier. He had made plans with his girlfriend (mother of his youngest 2) and their family and because DS is “so fing scared of dogs” DD and DS couldn’t go. His other two children wanted to see their family today.
After trying to ask him why he’s made plans that would deliberately exclude DD and DD, and later finding out he sent people (unpleasant people I should say), to scout out my house to see if cars were there and we were home, I asked for them home at midday. I felt guilt ridden that they were in a hostile environment feeling unwanted (this wasn’t the case as it turns out, the kids were none the wiser of what was going on but there is history here of them feeling left out and excluded whilst there) and that I was home and capable of having them there - albeit bored whilst we rushed to try and clear their bedrooms.
Am I being unreasonable here? Should I have jumped at the opportunity for them to come home early? If I was doing nothing it would have been different. This has happened over again and it is now at a point where I can’t plan over a weekend for fear of needing to be there last minute. I feel I’ve not done anything wrong, but he’s adamant that I just didn’t want to see them at Easter!