Constant contact from ex

[Duskypinks]

Myself and my ex separated 6 months ago, it was my decision and one that surprised him so he took it quite badly.

Since he moved out, he rings the children every morning and evening, has them every other weekend and is now saying he wants them for tea one night during the week. I have no problem with him seeing the children during the week as long as he brings them home at a decent time, they're 7 & 4 and he keeps bringing them back way past their bedtime, tonight it has caused an argument as I now have 2 over tired children.

I also feel like he uses the twice daily phone calls as a way of checking up on where I am? I find myself clock watching waiting for the phone calls in the morning it's normally in the chaos of getting myself ready for work and them ready for school. I don't feel like I can freely do what I need too or want too as he rings. He even rang them at my parents twice a day when the children stayed over during the school holidays as I was working

He comes into my house (it is solely mine in my name ) walks around like he still lives here and seems to think he can dictate to me and ask me hundreds of questions. Am I being unreasonable in wanting some of the constant contact to ease up? The children don't have much to say to him in the morning as they've literally been to sleep and got up when he rings again! I know if I say to him about not ringing he'll get arcey about it. But he went on holiday abroad for a week and didn't even tell me

Does anyone have any advice?

First time I've laughed in days, thank you

I will tell him over the weekend and if he decides to be awkward then the solicitors it will be, before I lose what's left of my marbles

I work full time, I have too to pay the bills. My parents help me no end with school pick ups etc. He doesn't sacrifice anything, he's currently living the life of Riley at his mothers

Prepare to doubt yourself, to question if he is right, keep sensible people around you, get a shit hot solicitor. (Mine is a demon! ) and if youre not sure there is always MN to run things past some uninvolved strangers. I found it really useful not to respond straight away to requests made by my ex. Even if they seemed innocent enough, experience told me there was usually an agenda at play. Maybe your ex is different and won’t try and play games. Just keep your wits about you. No-one will die if you don’t answer his text straight away. Take some time to think things through before your respond.

It would just be nice to be able to sit down of an evening and the damn phone not to ring. My parents love having the children to stay over and they feel like they can't as he has to ring them, I think it's unfair on my parents to then have to bow down to his whims and change their routines for him

put your Big Foot DOWN lady.. he's running rings round all of you

And also, when you are so accustomed to trying to be amenable and saying “yes” to everything in the name of being flexible then it becomes automatic so taking that time after a request comes gives you time to think through what you actually want to happen rather than just saying yes out of habit.

When I started setting boundaries and not responding straight away he would say things like “i had hoped we could be civil to each other” or “it’s not fair on the kids if we can’t be friends” he really didn’t understand or didn’t like the fact that I didn’t need or want him to be friends. I was happy to be civil but not friends. He felt me taking some time to think over a response was me not being civil.

TBH you need to pick your battles and much of the rest will follow in time.

WRT the house, I'm guessing that it was the family home before he moved in, so for him it holds a familiarity of the time when he was living there. Were you married? Because if so then he may in fact have legal rights to enter the house regardless of whether you bought and paid for it, assuming that is that you didn't buy him out. But if not then I would have the children ready at collection time and just usher them out iyswim. You could even put a chain on the door and say you did it at this time of year because of trick or treaters or such like so as not to appear confrontational. And before I am shot down, there is more than one way to take back control, and given the OP and her ex are going to have to co parent these children for the next fourteen years it's best they can do things amicably, even if that does mean the OP appears to be doing things by stealth so as not to upset the apple cart.

WRT the phone calls, I would state that school mornings are difficult for phone calls as everyone is running around doing things but perhaps maintain them in the evenings. He's not unreasonable to want to speak to his children every day. It never ceases to amaze me how many parents think their ex's should be content with eOW contact when they themselves would never think that was ok for themselves.

Equally with mid-week overnights, I would state that if he's having them for a night during the week then he needs to have them all night that way nobody is held to a timetable. Do you work? If so then I would get him to sort childcare for the days he's going to have them e.g. After school club or similar, if not then I wouldn't split hairs about what time he collects them. What kind of work does he do that might rule him out of overnights during the week?

Bear in mind that things will and do change as time goes on. When me and XH split we had 50/50, whoever didn't have him would ring him in the evening, and as time went on he would do the calling himself if he was that inclined. During the week he came to me after school because I wasn't working for various reasons so it seemed a bit churlish to make ex put him in childcare when he had never previously been and I was at home anyway. In the beginning ex arranged flexibility with work and would pick him up on his way home. As time went on he got older and was allowed to make his own way there.

Things became more complicated after ex met his new partner, and now DS spends very little time there but for other reasons. But I do know that in the beginning ex was terrified that I would move away with DS, something which I had promised I never would.

I've never had reason to tell ex that he can't have DS for any reason, and now that he's older it's far more flexible anyway and he will just tell me that he's going to his dad's or going out with him or whatever, but when he was younger I was mostly flexible because to be absolutely honest it worked for him to not be held to a rigid timetable if that didn't need to be the case.

Just wondering since you say the house is in your sole name after separating has he registered his interest with the land registry? Since you have been together a significant amount of time I am assuming he thinks he has a claim on it and that is may be why he is still treating it as his own?

New ring tone for “scarecrow” dc won’t want to answer the phone as it’ll spoil the song 😜

The house is mine and always has been, I bought it before we were together, we weren't married. I don't think it's because he thinks he has a claim to it, I think it's more habit, one that I need to break.

With regards to his work, he's self employed and chooses his own hours, there's no work reasons as to why he couldn't have the children overnight etc apart from he would have to run around to get them to school etc

My DD’s dad does the same, rings first thing in the morning, after school and then before she goes to sleep.

He has her every weekend. Although he does not come into the house when he collects/drops off DD (which if he did, would annoy me too)

MyDP gets annoyed at the constant phone calls but now my DD is 6 I just let her answer the phone because otherwise he would (from past experience) sometimes try and have a conversation with me which is not needed.
She also has her own iPad now which allows DD’s to FaceTime/text DD rather than through me. This works well for us and makes me feel a lot less stressed at the constant contact!
However, I am glad that DD’s dad is well involved and how we can communicate well but other stuff is not needed!

Running around to get the dc to school... dear me you mean being an actual parent rather than a Disney parent on the phone

Tell him in the morning when he phones to get his Arsenal round here and take dc to school as your violently sick

Don’t mention violently sick of him phoning

But if you makes demands of him.....