I have refused to let DSS here every weekend

[ImthedriverSo]

AIBU - looking for thoughts.

DH has 2 ds ages 8 and 10

For years he’s had the system with ex we have them every other weekend fri aft school and drop them to school on the Monday (well I pick up and drop off as dh doesn’t drive it’s an hour each way!)

This is mutual agreement not a court order.

His ex now wants to change that we have them separately - one each weekend and for me to pick up early sat and drop back Sunday morning.

I’ve said no I won’t facilitate. so dh has said no and she is saying no contact then! It has been left in a sour way as he told her no negotiations just that we will get a court order to stick to what we’ve always done.

We like to have more time with them . They like to do the same things - together.
Plus we love our childfree time too. But now dh very down as this weekend we were meant to have them .

AIBU to have said I won’t facilitate this ? It seems a big step back. Less time for them with dh too of its weekly how she wants ???

I can’t ‘award’ a Thanks and an Agree but please take both.

A lot of sense here.

Exactly. The projection is very strong here.

You say it isn't her decision but what's the options? Turn up to the door and demand. She refuses to open. DH shouts through the door encouraging the kids to escape. He runs them to the car. Next time he comes to pick up, she just isn't home. He camps out in the car and when they return at 10pm he causes a huge drama and tries to force the kids to choose him. Sounds healthy. Not

Op goes to school as usual but turns up early with a pretend appointment to get the kids out early and leave with them. Mom turns up and a whole drama ensues. Next pickup for OP she's refused the kdis so she waits until actual pick up time and then tries to wrestle them from their Mom. Sounds healthy. Not

DH takes them and refuses to ever return them. Sounds healthy. Not

His only recourse is legal. He needs the weight of law on his side.

What those poor kids will realise is they have gone from spending 3 nights with their dad as a family to being spit up and only getting 24hrs every other weekend. I have read the thread and what I see is

Mum leaves dad
Moves not once but 3 times!
Now trying to change the arrangement so the kids are split up every weekend
The new arrangement means he actually sees less of his kids
She limits how much time he spends with them during the holidays and makes booking time away difficult
Refuses to do any of the driving to facilitate her new demands

Sorry but the mum has a lot to answer for and her kids will see that one day. I have no idea why so many people are trying to turn OP and her dh into the villains here. It's not like he can have the kids during the week as she moved an hrs drive away which would be even longer on public transport. No one with an ounce of common sense thinks people can constantly uproot themselves and leave behind homes and jobs to chase what is starting to sound like a bitter ex around the country.

You really hate step parents don’t you ? What a pathetic, projecting post. Nothing in any of OP’s posts suggests anything like this is going on.

DH gets a significant health diagnosis. Ex promptly starts a relationship with a work colleague and ends the marriage. Moves, not once but three times further and further away from the non resident partner, despite knowing he’s significantly ill and can’t drive. What kind of parent does that ?

She then limits the time spent with them in the holidays, making booking holidays difficult and now she wants to split up the children so he only has contact with them one at a time, and every weekend, for much less time than the current arrangement. And you think he’s the unreasonable one ? Batshit. I’m astounded by the lengths some posters will go to label a father ‘dead beat’ when it’s clear that the situation is difficult, involves significant illness and an ex who seems determined to make things as difficult as possible with no thought for the children involved

And if the mother won’t let him have the DC more? As far as I can see, he’s entitled to half the holidays, but she allows a week. She only wants him to have each child EOW , which was together but now separately. He hasn’t refused to spend more time with them…and since she’s the one who keeps moving away, weeknights must be difficult if it’s an hour each way after work ..depending on their ages/ homework / after school activities.

You realise he’s significantly ill and can’t drive ? You realise it’s his ex that has been calling the shots regarding contact and is getting progressively more and more unreasonable in her demands. If this man has a progressive and significant illness and is working during the week to support his kids, then it’s very possible that EOW gives him one weekend in every two to recuperate before he has to do it all again, and allows him the respite so that he can engage with his kids when he does see them, as OP has indicated he does. Try taking the ‘bad dad’ blinkers off and looking at the actual facts. So much projection on this thread, and outright hatred of step parents, even when they’re engaged with the DSS and trying to facilitate good relations. It’s sickening, but unfortunately not surprising

What do the boys think?

Yes it seems like a move to be disruptive but they are his children. If not separated from his ex he’d have them every weekend no? That’s what he signed up for when having children.

he also needs to work out a better way to pick up his children, maybe meet half way?

but you are also entitled to feel like you don’t want to have a child every weekend.

I have no reason to project. I guess I look at my own parents who were amazing with me and my siblings but I’m never quite sure they were the best parent and step parent to my half sisters.

I always think that as a step parent you need to imagine if the parent who picks up the slack all week died or just decided they were done. What would happen then?

No need to be so rude. Just because I don’t see or hear what you do. You need to calm down a bit if you want to make a fair point.

What about the women that have no choice but to do the vast majority of parenting even though they have severe chronic illness?

the double standard is wild.

I feel the same.
Every other weekend and a two week summer holiday is not enough.
Saying you can't have them every weekend ''because you have a work/life balance and have other stuff to do on the weekend'' is really selfish.

This awful finger wagging about driving is really awful. Lots of people don't drive for very good reasons which no one's business. The only relevant thing in this context is that he doesn't.

What is selfish is the ex wanting to split up the DC when they like to come together , giving less time to their DF and also moving 3 times further away and refusing to do any driving, that's bu.

I cant believe how much rotten advice there is on this thread. Some nasty posters as well as those who comment without reading the thread.
Going to court will not help! In our case we spent £22,000 (yes that's right) going through mediation which she would not attend, Caffcass interviews and several court hearings which she insisted were in a court local to her. We had to re mortgage and despite the Caffcass report being in dads favour and the judge ruling in his favour nothing improved. She feigned the child's illness when visits were due along with a whole raft of other reasons to get things her own way. So back to court and more costs where she was reprimanded and told she 'must' allow access but it made no difference. She even put the spin 'Im sorry but your dad is dragging you through the courts again' on it and that was used to alienate son.
Going to court is not a magic bullet, its stressful, costly and often achieves very little.

I'm sorry your experience was negative and costly but please don't think your experience is the norm.

How do you know she didn't move because of financial constraints?
She's raising her sons on her own 85% of the year.
That's the key piece of information.

The father in this scenario is very hands-off to say the least.

Clearly my remarks preceded the rest of OP’s disclosures, especially that there is illness preventing his driving.
(It’s all very well for angry commenters in the thread to yell about this being nobody’s business, but we've recently had threads where the lack of a necessary husbandly driving licence in a similar circs was due merely to inertia and his unwillingness to get off his arse for his children)

OP herself has some right to latitude I think, so if these lengthy pickup and delivery trips continue as is, I can’t see why either DH in an Uber, or better the ex herself doing either the drop off or the pickup can’t be considered at all.

The ex’s tinkerings with the status quo all along have been a matter between her and her ex-husband, but her actions have entirely depended on OP adapting, not her ex-husband. In practical terms, anyway.

Naturally partners should support each other as you say, and in a case where one partner has always been the essential component in facilitating arrangements which strictly concern the other partner and their ex-spouse, the ex-couple as a unit owe this partner a considerable amount of consideration. She’s had none at all, by the sound of it.

I’d hope any court ordered arrangement would chuck that debt back onto the ex’s to do list, as she’s been the cause of the increasing travel obligation, and mandate that she either deliver or pick up her boys every other weekend, given her ex-husband’s illness and her ever-increasing distance. (One lad every other week is lunacy; cruel, and mean-spirited)
To be cold about it, it’s in her own interest to do this driving, if only she’d stop and think about what she’s at.

But the point is that it's actually less time they would be having the boys with more driving. In what universe does that make sense?

@ImthedriverSo

The mum sounds rather controlling and manipulative.

I really hope something can get sorted for soon and you get a more organised, and fairer, arrangement.

(I’m really surprised at some of the responses here - partly people not reading the updates, which we’ve all been guilty of obviously, and I guess it’s a really emotive topic too!)

That sounds horrendous obviously! But also a rarer example of a case?

What do you suggest instead?

It’s really is…..all you have to do is read the first few messages and you get the gist. If you can’t be bothered reading her message, do not comment! The Op and her husband are doing their very best and actually want the kids more which gives their mother a break. And if one more person comments on why her husband can’t drive I’ll scream. HE CANNOT FOR MEDICAL REASONS!!

I would get a CAO in place in your situation. Go for two weeks at summer etc rather than trying to negotiate. And formalise the EOW etc

It needs much better communication between the ex and your husband.
Its ok digging in your heels and saying 'no I wont put up with this' but the losers in all this will be the kids.

We had years of being messed about by his ex and had to put ourselves in a position of doing a 480 mile round trip every Saturday for 6 hours with his child.
Bloody awful but better than the ex being able to tell the child that daddy couldn't be bothered.
Is it fair? of course not but he had a child and I accepted that when we got together. The memory of the child having to open his Christmas presents from dad in the back of the car for 5 or 6 years is horrible but the kids come first and fair or not you do what is right by them.

They wont always be small, its a temporary stage but you dont want to look back in future years and know you didnt really put them first. Worse still, you dont want them to look by and see you didnt try.

Wow, such a lecturing post. There is a lot OP and DH can do. They don’t have to let the ex win. They can go to court (ex refused mediation from what I remember from the start of the thread). Everything should be for the benefit of the children, but it absolutely should not be to the detriment of the absent parent. It wasn’t his choice to be ill. It wasn’t his choice for his ex to start a relationship with someone else when he was diagnosed, or to end the marriage.

Who says they’re not trying ? It wasn’t them who moved a two hour round trip from the absent parent, despite knowing he was medically prevented from driving. Progressive illness is hard to deal with and it seems to me that ex is making it worse. They absolutely shouldn’t facilitate this. It’s time for court and to sort it out properly - also to get a court order to stop ex from moving her children even further away.

She didn’t. Read the thread. OP says it was a want not a need. The key piece of information here is that it was ex’s decision to move their children a two hour round trip away, despite knowing DH was ill and couldn’t drive. What responsible parent does that ? She’s hasn’t considered the childrens’ needs one bit throughout and the proposal to only allow contact one child at a time is batshit. If you can’t be arsed to properly understand what’s actually happening, why are you posting ?