We have an 8 year old DS but are not yet divorced so there are no formal custody arrangements. It is acknowledged on court papers that I have our ds living with me and he visits his father. This has been in place for nearly 4 years. My ds stays with his father for a weekend once a fortnight, a week over the Christmas period and a week over the summer holidays. These arrangements were requested by my ex and I have never refused him extra time. He does not pay maintenance - the CSA are busy chasing him as he has missed all his payments so far, he doesn't ring our ds or have any other contact outside of the set visits... not even at Christmas, his birthday, when he is ill or when he started his new school recently. However he recently contacted me to say he wants to go away for a long weekend in May and take our ds... so nice he can afford it!... but it would mean him missing school for a few days. I said no because there is no good reason for him to miss school. There are plenty holidays he could utilise instead. He came back to me saying he would just check with the school and if they said okay then he would do it anyway! I was outraged... don't I have say here? I contacted the school myself and explained the situation and they said that if he took Steven out of school they would send a letter home stating it was an unauthorised absence and this would be noted on his permanent record with the local authority and the national authority... and of course my address! So again I have gone back to him with this information and said no again but pointed out that there is a bank holiday coming up that he could use instead, I would swap this weekend as it is currently one of mine, and he would get the extra day with our ds but he could not miss school. I have pointed out the holidays in Easter and summer and said he could take him away then instead so I am not trying to be awkward and refusing just because he is a horrid example of a human. However, he shirks his parental responsibilities all the time, has left me with a ton of debt while he lives it up in his bought home with his fancy car and goes on his fancy holidays which his new partner pays for while I struggle every month to combat the financial mess and the fact that he belittles me to our ds frequently including getting him to call me names etc and basically goes out of his way to make everything a battle and as nasty as he can so I wonder... now that I have calmed down... is it such a big deal after all? Should I just give in like I do on everything else and hope that 'what goes around comes around' is actually true and one day he will be held accountable or should I stick to my guns? I am worried that he will just plan this weekend for a time when he has our son anyway and I will arrive on the Sunday evening to pick him up as normal but he will not be there and I don't know if there is anything I could do about it. Any advice?