Hi All,
After some opinions. My child (11yo) has recently just started seeing her dad again after 18months if not seeing him due to a deterioration in his mental health. He’s been phone/vid contact with her most of the time but this has been inconsistent. There’s not really been any effort or consistency for those 18 months. He’s been seeing her for 4/5 hours one day a week during last few weeks of summer holidays. I’ve been dropping her off and picking her up (45 mins journey each trip, so 4 times as I get public transport) as he says his anxiety is too high to come out of his local area.
Now my daughter has gone to high school and I don’t know how I’m going to manage it. As every other weekend we have my OH daughter and we like to do things as a family and on the other weekend my mum has my daughter one night to give us some alone time (which I REALLY REALLY value for myself and my relationship, and my mum has been my ONLY support network).
My daughter is very ambivalent about seeing her Dad so she’s not asking to see him etc. I’ve explained all this to my daughters dad and suggested maybe playing it by ear, that it can’t be every week (due to cost to travel, family time, having some alone time, the amount of time in mine and my daughters day to get there and back etc). He’s being really unreasonable about it. Am I in the wrong? Any suggestions?
(I’ve really simplified this but this the general gist 😆)
Thanks in advance!