The ex allowed stayover without telling me

[ece123]

DD (7) was supposed to stay at her father tonight. Her father took DD and her friend out and when he was dropping off her friend, the famiky invited DD for a stayover. And the ex couldn’t say “no”.

I am sensetive about sleep overs and ex partner is aware of this. When same girl had a stayover party I did not allow DD to stay and collected DD at 10pm. When she was invited again by the same family we discussed with my ex and I only agreed if DD had a sim card and was able to reach us whenever she wanted. So we bought her a smart watch at that time and agreed for that stayover.

Tonight was not discussed in advance and it is out of blue and DD does not have her smart watch with her either so she is unable to reach if she want to.

Sleepovers were very rarely allowed in my family and only when we were at an older age. My sister is psychologist and she is also againts sleepovers due to personal and occupational reasons. I am not comfortable about it especially with families we don’t really know.

I am really upset that the ex allowed this without asking me. He was not even going to inform me if I did’t want to call and talk to DD.

I insisted to agree on having an agreement on any future stay overs and he is not even properly agreeing on this (sent a thumbs up emoji). I told him this is very very important to me and I need a clear statement feom him not an emoji. I am thinking about getting a legal advice on this but I wanted to hear what other mums are thinking. He is saying that when DD is “staying” with him I do not have a say on what they can do and they cannot do.

We do not know the family well. They came to DD’s school last year and the girls are good friends but that is about it. Ex husband told me to go and get her if I want to. I am not going to do that as it will be very awkard but certainly I am uncomfortable.

Separated parents should agree on if kids are staying with other people. No? I would have never allowed DD without asking him even with my friends who I know for ages.

If it was on his time you really have no say in what happens unless it's putting her in any danger.

One of the downsides of co-parenting is that you lose some of the control over how your child is parented. You just have to trust the person you chose to have a child with to do the right thing.

Wow
this looks very much like you’re exerting control. You’d be fuming if your ex did this I presume…

It’s not a boundary, it’s not something she can control. It’s not up to her.

he’s an equal parent and she can’t control what he does, however hard she tries or people on here encourage her to do so

^this. You have boundaries with someone you are voluntarily in a relationship of some sort with (romantic, friendship, workplace). When you lay out a boundary, the tacit (unspoken) part is "...or I will end our relationship". You already did that. The only thing left is voluntary agreement between the two of you, because the law, such as it is, is that he is as much her parent as you are and consequently during his parenting time he makes 100% of the decisions.

You need to chill out. Your paranoia is stopping your DD from having normal childhood experiences. There is an element of risk in most things in life but wrapping your child up in cotton wool is not good for them.

And it's also not your decision on his days.

This all sounds a bit paranoid and controlling. i know there are a lot of feckless fathers out there but surely those that aren't 'own' as much of their children as the mothers and have a right to make a decision re sleepovers.

Op, I think you're making more out of the situation than needs to be. Do you consult your ex on everything you do with DD? Why don't you try to get to know her friends parents in the hope of building up a friendship with them? Also when you say about DD being somewhere with people you don't know, do you personally know all the staff at her school? Just because they will have a CRB doesn't fully mean they're safe. We send our kids and assume a cleared DBS means they're safe but there's been plenty in the news in the not so far back past that would give any parent the right not to be so sure.... and I'm not saying this to make us all wary of the schools our kids go to, just stating the fact, you never know who is lerking anywhere our kids are without us, don't be so quick to assume DDs friends parents could be sinister.