What's reasonable in terms of H and contact with the dc's? Can anyone help?

[carlywurly]

H and OW (yes, we're still married but that's another story ..) are expecting a baby soon. It will be the 4th child between them. We have 2 together.

H has requested that we get the childcare arrangements on a more regular footing (fine by me) and that he have the dc's every other weekend from now on, from Friday to Sunday evening. Due to him having moved 70 miles away, he doesn't have them on Sun nights or during the week ever, and he doesn't share the school holidays, inset days etc. He regularly tries to arrange to bring them back earlier on Sundays, or asks me to drive to meet him (often a round trip of 80 miles for me)

As I now work full time and am a single parent, (I have a lovely DP but we don't live together) this is getting tough and I'm feeling stressed out. It means that I'm responsible for the dc's permanently, other than for 4 nights per month. I have no family help where I live, and school holidays can be a nightmare to cover if school childcare isn't available. He's just returned from a lavish, long holiday with OW which covered the entire Xmas holiday and I had to ask friends to step in and help over that time.

My question is, what is reasonable? Should he be sharing the holidays with me? Should I be grateful he's doing his paltry 4 nights per month? He contributes very well financially, but not at all in terms of the effort of having children, ie the day to day childcare - no involvement in school life, didn't even come to their nativity this year, for example.

Tbh I can't understand why they're having another child when he doesn't parent the ones he's got, but am trying not to let this influence me on what's actually reasonable!! Thanks so much for reading.

Xh gets every other weekend and half of all school holidays and he does all dropping off and picking up.

When I split with my ex he saw them sometimes for an hour on Sundays, most weekends not at all, I arranged all child care whilst I was working and never relied on him for anything, he paid nothing either.

Personally you have to arrange for care when they are with you its that simple, tell him every other weekend is good but he collects and returns them and thats it.

You cant force him to do more.

Fabby, that sucks.

I do arrange the care, I would never rely on him at all. Thank goodness he pays, or I'd be totally stuck on my salary.

I think I need to speak to him about hols though.

I realise I can't force him. I just think it's horribly sad that he wouldn't want to see them more.

I don't think you can't make him have the kids; all you can do is tell yourself that you're the one with the bond with them, you're the one who gets all the good bits and all the fun (we'll gloss over the bad stuff here :o). Ultimately, you'll have a strong relationship with your children and he won't. And they'll remember the missed nativities, etc. and know that you were there for them.

But if he won't have them over holidays, have you mentioned contributions to the cost of holiday childcare?

Why do you have to drive to pick them up? You're already doing most of the work of childcare.
If he won't have them during holidays, can you get him to cover the cost of alternative care for them then?

My exp has ds everyother weekend and that's it!!!! Oh and boxing day!! He picks up and drops back home but he does only live 2 mins down the road....and I get £25 a week maintenance!!!!

Thanks all. Hassled, he does pay well so I can use that to cover holiday childcare costs. I also get help with tax credits on that score. The finances aren't so much the issue as the crippling exhaustion.

I have now made it clear I don't want to be involved in driving to collect them from now on unless it's an emergency. It was costing me a fortune in fuel, never mind the time taken.

And despite all this, should I be sharing all Xmases with him equally? I have done so far, and it would be his turn again this year. It doesn't seem fair that he cherry picks the best bits of having dc's. If we pro-rata'd it, he'd actually end up with about 1 in 9..

I always have ds Xmas day and he always has him boxing day... It's been that way for past 8 years!! Everyone is happy with that