It will all be ok in the end. If it's not ok, it's not the end...the crap continues and I need hand holding again please

[chocoreturns]

So, I guess I'm at a WWYD moment. I have thrashed it out in my own head every which way I can and come up with nada, no solution. Zip. So I am turning to the collective wisdom of MN to help me out. I figure a quick straw poll of you lot will tell me pretty swiftly what my next step should be.

It all boils down to contact with my twunt STBXH for my boys, now aged 2 and a half, and nearly 6 months. This is the current set up: I drive them half an hour away to my MIL, EOW on both a Saturday and a Sunday morning. I sit in a hotel cafe for an hour and a half on both days to wait for our baby to be brought back. Usually DS2 is returned within the hour. I then drive home. Total time spent doing this, 3 hours on both days. I get zero child free time as a result, bar the forty five minutes or so in the cafe waiting with a cup of tea. DS1 is then played with by STBXH until around 4.30, MIL makes all their meals and then MIL ferries DS1 home to me.

STBXH does not pay for his Mum's travel costs, or contribute anything to the cost of putting him up with his girlfriend (who was the OW) every other weekend. He does travel about 3 hours by car to stay there. MIL did not want his gf to stay with them, because she was utterly devastated by their affair but twunt told his mum that unless she put up his gf as well as him, he would simply stop coming to see the boys. MIL has decided to do what he has told her to because she can't bear the thought of him giving up on the children altogether. I think she's mad, but I say nothing - their relationship is none of my business. I don't like being lied to (they have all maintained that OW didn't meet DS's until last weekend but she's been coming since DS2 was born) but realise I can't do anything about that.

Anyway that info is purely to avoid drip feeding, it may or may not be relevant. The place I'm at now is that (bar the drive to stay at MIL's) twunt STBXH does nothing to take responsibility for his time with the DS's. He does not arrange activities, pay for anything they do, cook or contribute to the cost or effort of bringing the boys to see him. Most of that is done by MIL or I. I can see what a strain it's putting MIL under. We have a good relationship and she is often in tears at my house. Her own DH is undergoing treatment for cancer while they play host to STBXH and his girlfriend and our kids EOW. I don't feel I can keep letting things carry on like this indefinitely because it's so unfair on them. They are in their late sixties, dealing with a possibly terminal illness, and all this cost/effort too. I know they do it because if they didn't, he would probably not bother to see our kids.

I'm reaching a point where I personally think that's not a bad thing. Contact was suspended for 5 weeks recently due to him bullying and intimidating me through contact, the kids didn't even notice he was gone. Everyone else did though - the opportunity to relax was amazing and I saw the benefit not just on me, but on MIL and her DH.

I am considering saying to him in the NY that the current arrangements do not work for me, so I will no longer be ferrying the kids to him or waiting around all morning. If he wishes to see them I'll facilitate a reasonable amount but I won't be taking them to MIL any more. If he wants to see them there he has to come get them at the very least. I suspect if I ask him to tell me exactly what contact he wants, he won't bother. So, after that epic post. WWYD? Carry on as we are so the boys have some pathetic relationship with him? Or stop it as I can see the arrangements are taking advantage of his mum and wearing people down, but risk him not seeing them at all?

Poor mil, but sounds like she's her own worst enemy. And you can reassure her of her ongoing place in her grandson's lives.

With respect to ds2 spending more time, that's a tough one. He must be pretty useless if unable to deal with a crying baby! Again, if you can handle it maybe leave the decision to him, e.g. "you can also have ds2 for X hours: if you wish to have him for a shorter period but have ds1 for longer it should usually be fine for me to have ds2 back at an earlier time, by prior agreement". But if you really think the boys could come to harm then that's v tricky.

For a start, I would put a stop to him seeing the DC over 2 days every other weekend. One long day is more than enough at their age.

It also, conveniently, puts a stop to the requirement for your ex and OW to spend the night at your MIL's, or in fact, any need for the OW to be there at all. You have rightly and maturely pointed out that their arrangements are none of your concern, but this charade of theirs doesn't help matters.

I really would like to say 1 day EOW but I suspect that may be more about me not wanting to deal with him than what's best for the DC. To tell the truth, I've no idea what's actually best for the DC now - it's bloody hard work to plough through the generic recommendations for contact, try to apply them to your own non-generic situation and come up with something that works. The distance involved is tricky too, it's a good 3 - 3.5 hour drive to get here. It's not exactly a day trip. In an ideal world contact would be shorter and more frequent.

More frequent is a phrase that actually makes me a little sick though, knowing what a circus he makes it for everyone else.

" I can't say anything - but how can his mum let him behave like that?"

It's a good rule of thumb to judge a man by the way he treats his mother. He's obviously got nothing but contempt for anything female. Not her fault exactly, but indulging him like this isn't going to break the cycle...

"I've no idea what's actually best for the DC now"

At home, safe, warm and dry, secure in their normal routine, enjoying Christmas with their lovely mother rather than charging around on dangerous winter roads in the rain and sleet being delivered up to a spoilt twat of a man that doesn't care very much about them anyway but likes everyone saying 'how high master?' when he says 'jump' ... would be my assessment.

there isn't a snowflakes chance in hell of overnights any time soon. a) he doesn't want them, and b) the kids would be upset and stressed by it. A full weekend is out of the question. Even DS1 has only spent max 7 hours with him on any one day in the past year. Usually only around 15 hours a weekend, tops. DS2 spent 45 minutes IN TOTAL with him last month, as he cried because he was poorly and teething so was sent back. When I see that in black and white I wonder what the bloody point is with it all.

:) @Cogito

Who decided that he should move away a 3 1/2 hour drive from the DC?

There is no point. Ask yourself what you can remember from when you were 2.5 and I'm guessing it's very little, if anything. So you're flogging yourself to death driving hours at a time, making something happen that neither of them will actually recall and making them upset and stressed in the process. No point at all.

I moved back to here where both sets of GP lived when I was pregnant for support. I had PGP badly, so needed the help with DS1 as well as family support in the aftermath of discovering the affair when 15weeks pg. It was our plan as a couple before then to relocate back to this area as a family and bring up our children, so I didn't do anything he hadn't planned to do with me anyway. However, ultimately I did move. So I guess I feel like I should make more effort because of that.

On the other hand - When I did come home, he moved in with OW immediately, and I was effectively made homeless by the sale of our flat which I did not own (owned by his family). I can't imagine any way I could have remained there with no home, no family and only him and OW (living in a bedsit together) to call on for support... this was pretty much the only option. I've been living with my DM and DF for almost a year while I try to find somewhere for me and the boys to live.

I agree skye, I envisage a couple of years before contact goes overnight :( they just don't have that kind of relationship with him.

"So I guess I feel like I should make more effort because of that. "

When it comes to guilt, an affair utterly trumps the decision to move because you've been dumped and you need help with your children. In terms of effort, therefore, you owe him the square root of fuck all.

Jeez, you have been through the mill. I can totally understand you moving back to be with family. I was just curious, as I was wondering if it had been his decision to move away.

What do you want long term? Do you want the DC to have a relationship with their father, or are you only facilitating this because you feel that it is what you are supposed to be doing, rather than what you actually want?

I don't want anything to do with him. I would like the DC to know their father, but I'm not too bothered about a great or intimate relationship with him, largely because his own DF is a twunt of EPIC proportions and I've seen how much that has influenced him.

In an ideal world the boys will know he is their DF but not really spend much time with him. I'd like them to grow up without the experience of being manipulated, lied to, dumped on, paraded around like toys or taught that they are worthless if they don't agree with him.

I suspect I do still very much feel I 'should' be doing this.

choco...you know those things you don't want your boys to experience ?

you are doing it

sorry

alter your mind set

you moved where you did because you needed support...if you had stuck around the only person to rely on would have been this pathetic fuckwit and his paramour

and you think you owe him something because you chose something else as a direct consequence of his actions ??

please, come on

wow AF that is hard to hear. But I suppose the truth hurts. I AM teaching them that we are worth less than him if I keep up this ridiculous pandering to his demands. I am letting them be used as playthings. That's so awful :(

this is why I need mnetters. No-one in RL would tell it so straight but I need to see through all the muddle I've got into. It's been a shit year and I've tried so hard. But I know deep down I'm getting it wrong. Thank you for telling it like it is.

choco my dear. This is the man who was shacked up with his OW in your house before you had even moved out. 'Reasonable' is not on the cards.

Your poor MIL has gone way beyond the call of duty but frankly her needs are more important than his right now. She should be able to enjoy her time with her grandchildren, not be run ragged supporting this loser to have minimal contact with his dc.

AF is right. He's playing you all and you've let guilt confuse you. Fuck alone knows why you feel guilty - let me remind you again that he was fucking the OW in your house and the neighbours all knew about it. He has no shame. He has no morals. He has no business causing you stress.

x-posted with you. You are NOT getting it wrong. In the face of overwhelming odds you are trying to do the absolute best you can for your dc. But you have been trapped by his games, just like his poor mother has been.

The blue / inhaler thing would have been enough for me, btw. There is insufficient reason to put your ds1 through this.

hey tribpot :)

Fucks knows why I do, I have no idea. It seems to be the one feeling he inspires in everyone he meets, guilt and a vague sense of needing to do more. I have begun to recognise what a master manipulator he is. I'm not quite extricated from the whole dynamic yet sadly but I'm working on it!

You owe him NOTHING. Nothing at all.

Onwards and upwards, choco. You were subjected to his conditioning for a long time, it's bound to take time to free yourself of the mindset.

And btw don't forget your needs in all this. You need some childfree time, if for no other reason than to have some headspace to realise what the arch-manipulator is doing to you.

You are trying too hard love

let it go

the harder you try, the less (worthwhile) you achieve, except to run yourself ragged and confuse your darling boys

you can't do this for the twunt

you just can't

withdraw your goodwill

time will sort out the inevitable

while you enable...you delay the inevitable

I think we all have a good idea of what a crystal ball will show here, don't we ?

when you stop making so much effort...he will melt away

he will have a new family very soon (to fuck up), and your boys need you to be their all

he isn't up to the job

he never was

OW and he are discussing having a baby, he is saying he wants to now. She is trying to put the brakes on according to SIL. I give it til June, then they will have a new family indeed :(