AIBU to refuse travel sport training during our custody time?

[MonkeyMaze101]

Posting here for traffic. It will be long but don't want to dripfeed / leave out anything that might be relevant.

For background context: DH & I work FT. He has one teenager from a previous relationship and we have 2 preschool aged children together. Stepson is 50/50 between here and his mothers home.

Now the AIBU: Last year SS mum signed him up to a travel sport without discussing with us. Essentially he would have 2 training sessions a week (one on her day, one on ours) and a game / tournament most weeks. These games are minimum 2 hours drive away from our home. Whilst obviously we are happy that he is playing a sport, we couldn't physically get him to the training during our access because of our work schedules and needing to collect other kids from childcare and having to feed everyone etc. For a few weeks his mum collected him from our house and dropped him back but she was always making nasty remarks about how we were lazy and unsupportive. We took him to pretty much every game / tournament which often meant lugging the young kids along or my DH missing out on a full day with them if it was too far. After a few weeks his mum just stopped collecting him during our days. He also missed probably 50% of the training on her days.

There have been half-term and summer camps that stepson has been signed up for and that we have either paid fully for or contributed toward. Out of a total of 9 days, he attended 2 days of the camps (on our time).

This year his mum has signed him up again and the revised training means it is 75% during our access. We live a 30 minute drive from the training grounds. We physically cannot get him to one day of the training (50%) again because we won't be finished work, collected from school and daycare and home to feed everyone before the session starts. My DH told his ex that we cannot take him this day and to facilitate it (because she's being quite nasty again saying we aren't supporting and we are full of obstacles) we could swap days so that the access arrangements all change by 1 day. That would mean that she took him every week on Wednesday (the day we can't do) and we would take him each week Friday. She has denied this and said its unreasonable because she wants Friday evenings with stepson too. That's fair and makes sense but the training sessions go on until 9pm so there's not really much Friday left unless of course she wasn't taking him?

We suggested that we just have that arrangement during the sport season, meaning it's only half the year. That was a no go. We suggested we trial it for a few weeks and see how it works, that was a no go. She has suggested that she will collect stepson and bring him back on the Wednesday. Are we being unreasonable to say that no, that doesn't suit us? Midweek one or both of us are often working late at night and we don't want to have to go to the meeting point at 9.30pm to pick up Stepson.

YABU: Just suck it up and struggle so he can do the sport, even though it's less than ideal for the rest of the family.

YANBU: You have offered solutions and the other parent needs to compromise too.

Does your DSS absolutely want to do the other sport as well as this one?

Can it not be put on hold or changed to another day to facilitate working late that night which gives more flexibility for the new one?

Of course it's 'we'!

The boy's father can't operate in a vacuum, just facilitating his eldest's every wish. He has a job as well as 2 other children and a wife. He has commitments that can't flex any more on a Wednesday.

And he and his wife work as a team, to look after all the kids, and facilitate DSS's participation in his first sport, and most of this second one. The boy missed lots of sessions because his bio mum didn't/wouldn't take him, or maybe he didn't really want to go.

Sometimes not everything can be fitted in, that's just life.

Is carpooling an option with other families?
Schoolwork is done in the car while eating.
Small meal can also go in school bag so it's one less thing to prepare.
what about sport/team closer to OP's?

Some parents do exactly this. We have similar - kid is not fussed either way but the other parent insists on them doing these weekly activities because it disrupts our family time.

There really needs to be agreement from both parents rather than one parent signing the kid up, then telling the kid their other parent 'doesn't care' about them and 'isn't supportive' if they find it difficult to meet the commitments. Its really not for the ex to dictate. Or shouldn't be.

I think people have completely misunderstood where I have suggested weekends are spent at games or where DH is gone day. That's absolutely not an issue. Weekends aren't an issue. We take him to all his games. We divide and conquer of its too far to bring the littles, if it's not too far we generally all go and support him. I'm sure when the littles are older then we will definitely need to divide and conquer and be at different places. Nit an issue.

Our only issue is one evening at week where we are struggling to juggle work. I can't take him as I need to get the younger children. My DH can't take him as he needs to log back into work.

I think some people haven't picked up on the fact your SS has not fully committed to his new sport and think he missed so much because you were unable to transport him. YANBU and I would actually stop cooperating. You weren't consulted by SS mother, she's showing a lack of flexibility and SS is not committing to the sport. Your husband can not just not fulfil his work obligations and I think your schedule sounds full enough. You are fully supporting the original sport and, therefore, in this context, your SS.

It sounds like SS's mum doesn't actually want it to work so she can tell SS that its his dad and stepmum's fault he can't do it. She signed him up to a travel team for a sport he didn't play prior to the divorce; she did this without any discussion about doing it or the logistics of doing it; refuses to sort out the travel herself; refuses to swap 2 days around so it does work.

OP's husband needs to take SS round to his mum's and have a conversation with the three of them about how to make it work ... namely the proposed new schedule so she can't just shut it down without including SS in the conversation.

Would it work better if DSS spent the night at yours the night before practice and the night of?

DH asked him about dropping the other sport and he definitely doesn't want to drop it. They are both team sports so training times aren't really up for discussion as we would have no influence.

Is there another parent that is on this team that could take the SS on that particular day?

I can guarantee that if I only had biological kids, a new activity or sport that was a genuine struggle to attend just wouldn't be on the cards in the first place

I agree op. My kids have wanted to do activities over the years that I've had to say no to because the logistics just don't work.

I think you're being reasonable.

I didn't realise you already spend a lot of time facilitating his old sport till quite far down the thread - dunno if that's why so many ppl have voted you are BU. Sounds like your SS is not that fussed about new sport if he can't explain his missed sessions. Maybe his mum IS just being awkward. Perhaps one sport is enough?

In our case, we do believe SS wants to do the sport. He's quite good, and certainly enjoys playing it recreationally with his mates.

I referred to his mum signing him up moreso meaning she filled in the paperwork, she paid for it, she never discussed it with my DH. Obviously all well and good if it just fell on her access time, but it doesn't. And she knows that because the other sport all falls within our access time bar maybe one game and month we have to juggle.

Are the summer/half term camps optional? Surely if he's showing up for 50% or less of all training/games, he's likely to get kicked off the team?

I don't think playing sports essentially 7 days a week (3/4 of the old sport, 3 of the new?) is a reasonable request when you have 2 other children to consider and he can't just take himself to the local training ground.

If you can’t take him, you can’t take him. That’s become clearer as the thread has gone on.
but I would just caution you that when your kids get a bit older, especially if dss still hasn’t passed his test, the hours you both work, and the crazy amount of hours that you spend driving for pick ups, simply aren’t going to fit. If there is anything you can do now to prepare for this, I would be on it.

Quite apart from all the other issues, you have not commented on the money being wasted by SS lack of commitment. In our family, extracurricular activities just get stopped in these circumstances as we can not afford to throw money away. The whole thing would be a non-issue for us when you take into account the lack of consultation and flexibility of SS mother and the impracticality around your DH's job.

No?
I'm struggling to understand the logic of this one, sorry. Can you explain why you think this might work?

Sorry, the OP was already super long 😂

Judge told my exh to stop making plans for our dc in my time.
End of.
Event when ex produced loads of trophies etc ...
Wasn't interested.
Coach knew dc attended in his dfs time. He still trained and played and was damm good.
Oddly exh never once took him to training or watched a game. He sent ds with other dps and banned me from attending.
Always attended presentations though..

All the camps were optional. He always said he wanted to go. But for reasons unknown to us he didn't attend the vast majority.

He didn't play most matches last year, but we still brought him to all but 1 as we were on a staycation with grandparents. We don't know why he didn't attend most of the training sessions. My DH did mention this to his mum and she just denied it (even though the attendance records are on the club app).

Yes, it is actually written in their court order something along the lines that neither party can make plans for the others time. But we are trying to look at it from the POV that SS wants to do this so the best way for us to make it work is a day swap, but clear not everyone agrees.

He's at least 12 if he's been playing the other sport for 8 years, right? He's old enough to learn that if he doesn't go, you won't pay for it.

He could learn the value by paying for it himself. Is he old enough to get a job? If not maybe he could earn through chores?

Can he get to either of the sports with a team mate's family to give you more flexibility. We've often taken a team mate to DCs sports when it clashes with their parents shift work or a siblings sports and vice versa when we can't manage to get our DC there.

We aren't paying for it. His mother has paid.
He is almost 15. We pay for his other sport and he attends pretty much every session unless due to sickness or injury or something unforseen.

(Edited for typo)

We have doen this on a few occasions with the other sport where really necessary. For this new one we don't particularly know many people yet, I don't think any of them live near us to go to training as far as I am aware. Games / tournaments aren't an issue as one of us can always get him there at weekends. The next nearest club is 2 hours away, so people generally come from up to an hour or so away and I thinks there's less than 15 people who regularly attend (from what I can recall).