Is our arrangement reasonable?

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I'd appreciate some advice / input as I'm getting a bit fed up with my family chipping in all the time about how 'entitled' I'm behaving. Sorry if this long.

I split up with my STBXH in Sept last year. We'd been together a very long time and it just got to the point that I couldn't handle it anymore. He wasn't violent or a drinker or anything horrific. More that he never took any responsibility for anything- it was as if I had a third child. He did no housework and contributed very little financially. He wouldn't even have a bath unless I told him too! He would've stayed this way forever I think but, despite repeated conversations about the need for change and support, I couldn't keep up and we agreed to split.

My family disagreed with my decision and have offered very little support and constantly "Poor him" and say I cannot ask him for anything as this was my choice.

Our current arrangement stands as this:

• Our two children live with me in our rented house. No mortgage and I took over the tenancy (rent is £800 a month)
• he is currently living with my nan. He pays her no rent for this
• He gives me £30 a week as maintenance. He earns around £1000 a month
• In terms of support with childcare, he takes the children to school everyday due to my working hours. This takes up an hourish of his day.
• He has the youngest one day in the week but I return by 6pm after work. This is at the family house as he has nowhere to take them
• One weekend a fortnight, he has the children from approx 8pm Saturday until 5pm Sunday. I have to leave the family home and generally go to my mum's.
• I earn around £1800 a month but my outgoings (including nursery, after school and breakfast clubs, bills, food, taking on family debt) are around £1500 a month.

I am tired. I never get a real break and he maintains he will not help anymore as this was all my choice and I 'can't have my cake and eat it'. My family agree with him really.
I am quite willing to be told I am being unreasonable. I would just like some opinions really.

That's disgusting. Surely he should be happy to have the children as much as possible. He's being a controlling douchebag.

For starters give him a time frame to get his own place. .

Douchebag is unfair.

What would you like from him op?

Have you tried to sit down and talk it all through?

Apply to the CSA and tax credits

I'd calculate cms maintenance and if he doesn't at least match it then go through them

Thanks so far. Mainly, I want him not to punish the children for wanting to punish me.
The money thing isn't the end of the world. I just about cope and, looking at CSA, he'd only be obliged to give me around £50 a week.

Moreover, I want him to pull himself together and get his shit sorted. He's taking the mickey out of my nan- he was supposed to move out by January originally. She won't kick him out as he has nowhere to go. No family or friends who'd take him nearby. I'd love him to have somewhere to take the kids. He has them here, cooks my food for himself and then doesn't wash up or clean up. I have to come home and do that.

I don't know what I'm posting for really. Just wanted some outsider views.

He's gong is for him to continue to live off your nan so they finally appreciate what an entitled arse he is.

I'd go to CSA too.

I think he'll play games with the £30 for maintenance, at least through cms they would chase him in the event of non payment

*CSA

He sounds awful.
He should be giving you a lot more, and he should be paying your nan.

Child Maintenance Options used to have a calculator so you could work out fair maintenance yourself, maybe still do. Can't remember what the sums are now but check it. You can't make him pay for childcare but of course a decent parent would pay their share. Tax Credits childcare element should cover some of it.

Him coming to your house for contact is not sustainable in the long term IMO. You need your space. What if you need to sleep, relax, do DIY and spring cleaning (charity shopping all their old toys!) or erm, have sex with a new partner? What if you are really really ill? Especially as you need to distance yourself a bit more from your family if they are not supportive. He has to take responsibility for getting them tooth brushes, food and cleaning up after them.

If he can't take them to his nan's that is his problem to solve (repeat to yourself: you are not his mum). In the short term fine it is to your credit you are helping him out but set a deadline e.g. after one month he will not being coming to your house except for pickups. He can take them out to soft play, swimming, cinema etc.

He is not helping you. They are his children. His children have a right to be parented by both parents. Decent parents want to look after their children. If he doesn't start being more reasonable you need to distance yourself from him taking them to school in the morning. Yes it is a pain and would be better for them to have time with Dad but the more he feels like he is doing you a favour, the more he can use that as an argument. It is better if you can be flexible and work together but that does not mean one of you bending over backwards for the other, while their attitude is that you should be grateful for anything they manage to do.

You chucked him because he couldn't take responsibility for himself, don't go back on that now. Your children need two adequate parents because (hopefully not!) what if something happened to you and he had to do sole care? And he hadn't learnt how to do the basics to look after them?

If your parents feel so sorry for him, they should put him up. Is this possible? Then they can see what he's really like to live with!

ekorre you have it pretty spot on there.
It's almost as if he is doing me a f about to have them. He will occasional have them at other times in the week but I have to 'trade' other days he may have them to do this.
I recently went away for work- a commitment I could not get out of and it was no way a holiday- and he decided I 'owed him' nights off babysitting for this in exchange. Yes, that's right. He does call it babysitting his own kids! Not to mention the fact that I took them away for a whole week straight after so he had no commitments the following week. I still owe him.

It is also really annoying that I have to leave the house for him to have them. There is so much to do here I just cannot do. My job is very demanding and stressful. I work over 50 hours a week and at home once the children are in bed. I have to go out, potter around and then come home to mess and washing up.
It's totally draining. There is also no way for me to sort out the early mornings. I need him to help me with this and that's my downfall. He totally knows this. Both children have to be in two separate places after 8am. I have to be at work before then and cannot drive and it's a 45 bus ride to work. Hopefully I may be able to get a job closer to home to start in September but no jobs at my level and pay near me have come up.

Oh, cocoloco, my parents said he could stay with them! They see no wrong!