My ex has the kids and he has ended up making me feel angry and shite

[changingnicknameforxmas]

Kids with their Dad this morning so he got to do the Santa pressies. Don't like it when they're with him in the morning for Christmas but I have to deal with it - that's not the issue. We discussed what the budget would be, that he would do the Santa stuff (I do alternate years we stick to a similar budget so there's not a bit difference in the amount of Santa stuff) and then we each get them presents from ourselves iyswim?

(will gloss over DD2 getting them all up at 3.30am and having to be persuaded big style to go back to sleep - am glad I missed that one )

Anyway, they phoned me to tell me all they got. Which is plenty - they were happy.

Now, DD1 had asked for a camera (£70 nikon coolpix in purple so not extortionate). HE said no, she had a camera on her phone and on her ipod so she couldn't have one, he wasn't getting it as a Santa present.

She'd had an camera one of mine and really loved it, but it broke about 2 months ago.

I asked him face to face TWICE and sent 1 text and 2 emails basically saying are you getting her the camera because it is all she has asked for.

he said no - she had a camera on her phone and ipod and didn't need one.

So, on 22nd December I ordered it from Amazon, it's here, under my tree for her.

And when I was on the phone he says "I need to have a word with you. We agreed I would do Santa and I went out yesterday to get DD1 a Nikon Coolpix and she told me you'd already got it for her"

I said yes - because it was all she asked for and you said you weren't getting her it.

AND HE THEN SAID

"We need to have a checkpoint in future so that we are aware what we are doing to avoid this happening again"

WTF????

I did a fucking bastard "checkpoint" with him I fucking asked and asked him and had loads of conversations with DD1 where she was nearly in tears because it was all she wanted and he wouldn't get it for her and he said repeatedly he wasn't getting it for her - the last text from him is dated 21st December.

I ASKED.

And I told him in future if he wanted a "Checkpoint" that was fine but I had asked him a number of times and if he had told the truth and said he was going to get it for her I wouldn't have bought it.

I am inordinately angry. Fuming. Spitting bullets.

He's tried to make it "we" - "we need a checkpoint" - WE FUCKING DON'T I ASKED YOU YOU DICKWAD

And breathe.

I should add, it's not the buying the present (or almost buying it) that's the issue, it's the fact that he's making it "we" need to do xyz, everything has to be my responsibility, he takes no blame or responsibility for anything - nothing is ever his fault.

What more could I have done? AIBU to be cross that he is blaming me for her not having enough under the tree? BTW she's 13 so she "knows" and she knows I have it and is happy enough but he said "she won't have it for my family today" - well she can use the fucking camera on her fucking phone that you said was good enough less than a fucking week ago.

Can I have yet?

Omg what a knob he is !!!
I too would be fuming,

Did he buy her one then or not? I'm a bit confused

Merry fucking Christmas indeed!

I love the "we need to have a checkpoint" - which the answer is "Yes. We did have one. You confirmed you were not buying the camera, so I did. Do we have to minute the checkpoint so you don't forget what's been agreed?"

And extra points to him for the passive-aggressive doublethink where first she doesn't need the camera and now - because of you - she doesn't have it to take photos on 'his' Christmas day.

Next year when your checkpoint is conducted in front of a team of independent observers I would note during the Any Other Business section of the meeting that MNers think he is a tosspot.

I would accept that he is as he is and said - Therefore your's is a back up ;)

that would make HIM doing the checking, not you.

Kids are growing, they change taste and needs. Unless he suffers - he won't learn.

You did the right thing, he has to grow up.

No, he didn't buy her one because DD1 knew I'd ordered it for her.

And trib, that's what's annoyed me - it's so passive aggressive, and my name will be mud at his family's today because she doesn't have the camera and he will bleat and bleat about it.

I'm almost in tears which is daft, but he's made me look like I'm unreasonable and have done something wrong, when I didn't.

oh x-posts.

Why is it my fault though? I don't see what I could have done other than ask and it's hardly my fault if he didn't tell me the truth/changed his mind.

sorry - maybe I misunderstood - is he blaming you for not buying anything for his daughter?

he could have accessorised that camera with a bit of effort ,extra memopry card, card reader, pouch.... some cash for when she wants to print them

he's blaming me for buying the camera when he said to me he wasn't buying it and therefore she didn't have it to open this morning at his house and won't have it at his family dinner later today.

Basically, it's my fault he changed his mind.

But he decided yesterday to buy the thing he said he wasn't going to buy, i.e. after the checkpoint. If you had decided yesterday to buy something which DD had said 'oh no, don't buy that cos Dad already has', would you be justified in being annoyed? No. You'd just say 'okay, thanks for the heads up' and go and buy something else.

A convenient re-writing of history in front of his family will make it such that you deliberately undermined him by going out and buying what he said all along he was going to get as DD's Santa gift, thus depriving her of unforgettable Christmas memories because she will have to record them at a slightly lower pixel resolution. It's virtually Dickensian.

The important thing is that DD knew she was getting the thing she really wanted for Christmas, and she knew she wouldn't be getting it til after the actual day, so no harm done. If his family join in his lament for your inhuman cruelty in depriving him of this opportunity due to his own lack of foresight they are as daft as he is.

Yip Trib - he decided yesterday, since she hadn't asked for anything else, that he would go out and buy it, asked her what colour she wanted and she said I'd already got it for her.

And if it had been the other way around, I would indeed have got her something else - and I honestly do not think that I'd have left getting her the one thing she wanted until the day before.

But then I am controlling and anal and so organised and can't "go with the flow" like he does

Oh, and they will all agree with him that I am terribly cruel not to let him buy her the thing she wanted when it's "his" Christmas. They are as daft, if not worse, than him.

If his family say anything won't your DD correct them?

I'd ignore, it really does not matter what his family think, if you run into them & they ask you correct them too, politely, so he looks a crazy person not you.

Are you spending the day with friends or family today? Or break open the Vino & watch the Christmas tv forget him.

Hope you have a lovely day.

She would if they said anything in front of her, but there is much more likely to be muttering and bitching behind the kids backs when the adults are in the living room or whatever.

If I run into his family they wouldn't speak to me.

Have BF on his way and turkey in the oven - thanks for the good wishes and same to everyone else

Idiot. Well unless someone said it already up thread a good friend said to me recently "they buy love, we give it". After my ExH did something similar.

Next time do not tell him what she most wants, keep that for you? Can you return it, do you have the receipt? It still is horrid when you wanted to give her something special though

She only has one camera, because he didn't end up buying it for her, but it just sucks that I'm getting the blame for him changing his mind.

Oh sorry my head hurts this morning. No YANBU at all.

Never too early for some today.

Thanks folks. Have had a nice day with my boyfriend and some but am still quietly seething.

But I should be glad I'm not married to the ex anymore, right?

I think he would only have found something else to kick off about if it hadn't have been this.

I think you need to grow up tbh. You've got her what she wanted so what's the problem?

My ex has had a go at me earlier for getting a balance bike (she has a bike here with me already) and its all cus she has brought her a bike. She's moaning because I am "stealing her thunder"... My daughter is thrilled at both presents + when I said she would be having a Xmas dinner she at first threatened to stop me having her because she had already had one... This is the same person who refused a trip to the seaside, London and overseas because she wants to take her first

The problem, Riakin is that he's blaming me for him changing his mind and said I had "no right" to get the camera for her.

He dropped them off earlier and had a real go at me

But you know you had a perfect right to get her the camera, unless he felt that him saying no should have covered your buying decision as well (sod that for a lark).

I wonder if maybe he planned all along to say no, no, no, so that at the last minute he could swoop in and be Wonder Dad and get her the one thing she really wanted but really wasn't expecting. Which is stupid on a number of fronts, not least whether he actually would have found said camera on Xmas Eve anyway.

'Smile and wave, boys, smile and wave' as the Madagascar penguins say. I don't see why you should have to consult in any more detail on next year's Christmas presents, DD is old enough to ask for different things from both of you? Don't let him get to you - and certainly don't let him have a go at you, what a twonk.

Oh yeah, trib I know that, I was just explaining for Riakin

If he'd not said specifically and emphatically and on a number of occasions verbally, by text and email that he was not getting her the camera, I would have left him to it, but it was all she asked for, he wasn't getting her it, so I did.

And I really don't see why I have to "grow up" and what I have done to warrant that comment? I didn't have a go at him for not getting the camera, I didn't insist that he paid for the camera I'd bought, I went out, bought her what she wanted, wrapped it and put it under my tree.

And next year, I will tell him sweet FA about what I'm getting

Ah your last sentence just said what I was getting to ie do your own thing and maybe keep your receipt in case perchance he gets the same thing

I learnt to not be hurt or concern myself with xhs justified or otherwise nasty views of me a while ago , it took me a while but has been very liberating.

Riakin stop it!!! It's not about you.

Changing so sorry. The frequent rewriting of history comes with the nature, your DCs will work it out for themselves...just make sure you don't get your head messed with in the meantime. You did the checking, you did the right thing but you can't change the man...you already worked that out because he's not with you any more! enjoy your DCs and the rest of the hols without a thought about the storm he's trying to brew in his own particular tea cup. You are not the person he says you are.....