Do you ever feel like no matter how reasonable, acomodating, forgiving and understanding you are, in order to facilitate contact between children an ex, the ex is NEVER satisfied?

[Biobytes]

Bit of a moan, the prima donna I was married to, wants everything, absolutely everything, done in his terms. HTe matter is made worse by his perfectionism, so I have to thread very carefully not to get into trouble.

Yesterday I finally said "no" to a stupid request and I can not believe the reaction. Bloody hell, is it like that for all of us? or is it that the ex is just a cretin?

Nope mines the same - he doesnt grasp the fact that he should be thankful that I am so helpful at facilitating contact, instaed he feels he is doing me a favour by "looking after" his children, and wants it all on his terms at his convenience!!
He is a complete fuckwit!! And my DD1 age 8 is starting to realise, which makes me both and

Mine is the same. I pay all the costs of the journeys to and from his house - that's 100 euros a journey, and I give up a whole day for each journey, to take the children, and later again to pick them up. This year, I have spent 700 euros on these journeys (did not take the children in every holidays).
Does he appreciate this? er...no. I am a manipulating bitch who hardly ever lets him see his children, according to him.

Be fair but firm! you have to draw the line somewhere. Id be on that motorway every blasted weekend if ex had his way, at my expense of course.

mines not....i won't let him!

mine's the same.

yet i have now stopped being that lovely kind person and i have started to be 'not helpful' or rather, totally blank. He calls me shit behind my back so why not.

5 yrs of this and i have had enough. dd is 7 and has had it with himtoo, which as you say is but also, she needs to protect herself.

Could I direct you to my suggestion here where all the crappy arsehole ex's would have to deal with each other and all the reasonable people could deal with other likeminded souls.

biobytes sadly and frustratingly for us this is v.normal behaviour
am glad that you said no for once

Yup totally normal. Mine accused me the other week of stealing the children from her despite her now having more contact than she ever used to but still less than I originally offered.

As long as things are not done to THEIR satisfaction, its always our fault. The way I see it is that if I am always going to be the baddie then I might as well be the baddie getting stuff done my way.

Ex arrived 15 mins late this morning to get them (this after refusing to have them as arranged overnight last night because I wouldnt drop them off - he had been drinking)!
May not have been much to him, but I had 2 little girls anxiously waiting for him, wondering whether he was even going to come!!
Then he gets angry when I am pissed off - I couldnt even talk to him, and got asked "WTF was worng with me"!! (what other than having to cancel my plans and deal with 2 disappointed children because him having a drink after work was more important than them)

oooh sorry rant

My XP hasn't even turned up this morning.

I was expecting him yesterday, but as usual, no phone call or text/email to say he's not coming, he just doesn't show. When I try to call him, his phone is switched off, and when I ring his house, his nan claims she has no idea where he is.

He eventually phones and says he will be over this morning at usual time (10am) and surprise surprise, doesn't show and isn't available on the phone again.

What annoys me even more (if that's possible) is when well meaning people say 'There's no point in getting angry, what will that achieve? It wont change him and he'll get the satisfaction of knowing he has wound you up.'

I don't fucking care what he thinks or feels FGS!!!!!!

Thank you all. It's s*cks, really!

I'm not going to say what mine did because I know he reads Mumsnet, but for god sake, I can not be more accommodating even when the fuckwitt... okay, I'm not saying for my own safety as the bloody bastard is turning very agressive but I think that that phares Niceguy "The way I see it is that if I am always going to be the baddie then I might as well be the baddie getting stuff done my way."
Is my new motto, but just because I have the welfare of my child first than he ever had or will.

The scumbag!

Someone said to me yesterday that the best way forward was to plan our life as if the ex wasn't there, because it doesn't matter how hard you try to acommodate their demands, as soon as they see you can manage happily they change the requests just to give you hell.

I'm starting to believe that is true...

all the very best wishes to you and hang on in there
you're doing a great job on your own and i think those words say it all really

I'm so glad there are others who have the same issues with ex's.

Tomorrow i'm going to be looking into supervised visit's as i just seem to go from one problem to the next with my ex, and sunday just gone he blatently lied to me over where he took my dd.

Part of me is actually amused at my ex's definition of of "reasonable":

"Why can't you just compromise and do everything I say?".

He has literally used these words to me.

Mine accuses me of "despicable" behaviour if I put my foot one inch to the side of where he wants it to land (and no, I was nowhere near his legs!)

it would seem that all ex's are the same.
ex has ahd chance after chance after chance. i wanted mediation (even after abusive realtionship) to sort out childcare issues and how dd was going to be raised etc, he didn't as it woudl cost him too much. after more abuse, i enlisted a solicitor, then he got his own and he ended up paying more. now he's taking me to court because i have apparently been inconcsistent with contact - he missed the contact centre twice, and apparently the last tiem it was my fault because i hadn't told him! yet my solicitor had message from contact centre saying that he wouldn't be attending!!!! ffs. he just doesn't realise that dd comes first on her terms not his

I would like to say a big thank you to niceguy, you have managed to convey exactly what I was thinking,

" if I am always going to be the baddie then I might as well be the baddie getting stuff done my way."

Today is the first day of the rest of my single parent life

Hang on a minute, were you all in a relationship with my XP? He expects everything his way as well.

No matter what I do it is a) wrong b) not good enough.

Well put Niceguy!

lol tho i do have to say he has paid dd's ballet fees on time and

IN FULL

this time! wa sbit suprised when i found out this morning!!

Funnily enough I wanted to post something positive about my ex but hesitated as afraid to jinx it!

He did step up to the plate on Wednesday and collect DD from nursery when I had to work slightly late. It's the second time he's done this. He's generally on time. He makes DD feel loved. He's been fairly civil to me.

It's now exactly six months since I left him. Perhaps we can make a go of this co-parenting thing after all?