AIBU to think my DS dad should see him on his birthday? DS is turning 8!
In a nutshell the arrangement is for Dad to take our son overnight Saturday 9am to Sunday 1- 3pm. He's cancelled the last 4 weeks out of 6 and has cancelled taking my son on his bday weekend. More details in my below rant.
In reality out of the 52 weeks in a year Dad cancels at random a minimum of 50%, normally the evening before. Half the time he "doesnt feel well" the other half he wants to go to a gig/wedding/birthday that he just found out about with 1 days notice. I asked him to stop cancelling as DS is high needs, disabled, relies heavily on routine, is very combatant when he consistently doesn't go and has extremely limited understanding (he is completely non verbal) and to swap to the friday instead. He angrily agreed but nothing changed. I also need some respite. Being a parent 24/7 is a lot of work. I'd happily be a 24/7 parent on my own terms and have him sign away his parental rights and leave us both alone. He doesn't pay child support. I tried - it wasn't worth the battle for £179 a month.
Over the summer holidays he had our son for 1 week, he cancelled the 2 weekend before, collected him the Monday and arranged to drop him off the following Friday- because it was "only fair to get a weekend to myself" according to him. He cancelled the next weekend as well.
He took him this past weekend (my first day of rest in 4 weeks as its the summer holidays) and when he dropped him home he said he's not taking him this coming Saturday- as there's an "all day gig" that he "doesn't really want to go to apart from this one band" its also my DS birthday on that date. I said no no you are taking him on Friday instead - remember I said I'm not your childcare, he said "no its an all day thing - I'm going to leave it." ("It" meaning collecting my son) Then left.
I've just seethed since then.
I would like to stop seething. Is it unreasonable to expect him to take our child the one day a week he wanted? Is it unreasonable to see your own child on your childs birthday? He's said before what difference does it make as our son "doesn't know what's going on around him" which pisses me off even more. Ableist bullshit. FYI my son knows what's going on around him and when people visit him/when its time to go somewhere hes supposed to go.