Am I being selfish?

[TescoValueUserName]

I need some honest opinions here as I really don't know if I'm being selfish or not!

I split with my ex a few months ago and moved in to my mum's with my children, 6 and 3. He's had them for 1 weekend in that time (last weekend) and our eldest for 1 extra overnight. He has seen them loads at weekends or after school, just not many overnights. He has now sorted their bedroom out and wants them more. I asked originally if he could start having them on a specific day in the week as I had had to give up a hobby that meant a lot to me when we split and he agreed.

He has said he wants them 3 nights a week which I said was too much to start off with, I was happy with 2 to start and build up to 3.

I was thinking the midweek I wanted and 1 night at the weekend. He wants 2 nights together building up to 3 consecutive nights in the week. He says it's too disruptive for them to have them split, I think it would be better as they wouldn't have to wait as long to go again.

I just think it's too long. In their lives I've had 3 weekends away of 2 nights each (for courses) and 1 night away with friends. It just feels too much to jump to them being away from me for 3 nights, especially for my youngest who is very attached to me.

I'm worried I'm making it more about what is best for me and not them though. I can't bare the thought of being away from them for 3 nights every week, but is that just me being selfish?

There was EA to me and our eldest in the relationship which I've posted about before and I've lost sight of when I'm right and wrong anymore.

He has changed a lot since we split, he quit his job so is less stressed but I'm so worried about him having them for that long for that reason too. Is he only ok now because he has them for short periods or has he really changed now that he's not stressed? Social services got involved when we left but they were happy they weren't in danger and there was no further action.

My other thing is that I was hoping he would have them on a Saturday so i could go and visit friends and go out sometimes, but is that me being selfish that I'm thinking of my social life now?! In tje beginning if he has them 2 consecutive nights in the week I won't get any time to go out or visit friends at all.

My kids are obviously the most important people in all this, but I also need to find me again and get my confidence and self esteem back which is what my hobby will do, but am I being selfish for not wanting them to have 3 consecutive days now?

You're not being selfish, you're just trying to figure out what works for everyone. And there'll need to be some compromise with everybody.

Your ex needs something that works, your kids need to have a relationship with him and you, and you need to have your own time as well. If you can, it's probably worth sitting down and trying to discuss is amicably, and also understand it might change in the future, but also try and make everything work around what you agree.

Thanks. It's all being done by text at the moment as I can't talk to him about anything serious face to face. Too many years of being shouted!

A fairly standard option seems to be for the NRP to have one midweek night and every other weekend. Would that work? Holidays can be divvied up separately.

So both you and your X would get weekend time with/without the kids, and you could have your hobby night.

I think 3 consecutive nights, especially during the week, is a bit much, especially for the older one with school etc. That also means of course that you never get weekend time while your X gets every one to himself.

So you don't think it's selfish for me to want that? I'm struggling with wanting to do stuff for me and feel like I shouldn't. Also feeling guilty for wanting some child free time!

Personally I think it is selfish to say him having them for those extra nights is "too much" they are equally both your children and starting point should be 50/50 - being their mother doesn't mean that you are entitled to more time? You don't seem to know what you want? You've said you haven't been away for your kids for that amount of time before (but you also want some childfree time) but equally neither has their father? Social services have also cleared him?

He has been away from them a lot longer than I have, he's had 3 months with only 3 over nights where as I've had 7 nights total in their lives.

I would like some child free time, I just feel that 3 nights in a row is too long at the moment.

Social services have said that I made the right decision in leaving but there's no further action. He's a bully and controlling, but I'm not allowed to say no contact, and also don't think it's in the children's best interests either. I didn't encourage overnights to start off with as I didn't trust him but he does seem better now, I'm just worried as well if that may change when he starts work again and has them more so can't just be the fun dad all the time.

He sounds selfish to me. Only wanting them for the week nights not the weekend nights sounds like he doesn't want them interrupting his weekend evening social life. Yet he thinks it's ok for you never to have a weekend night to yourself. Hmm not likely mate... I don't think he should be expected to have them every Saturday night though.
I would definitely hold out for one or two nights in the week and every other weekend. Then you both get weekend evenings off. You have at least an equal say in this and considering he was emotionally abusive to your eldest (aswell as you) I would even say he has less of a say about it than you do. Stay strong.

One night midweek and then alternate weekends is what seems to work best for most people. What do the dc want? Especially the 6yo?

I do think also given his history, that you need to monitor very carefully how your children are/behave when they return back from visits to him and how they are/behave just before they go to visit him. Any signs that he is not being nice to them I would cut his access to them back significantly.

The reason it was 3 nights midweek was because I wanted the Wednesday. Originally he said he wanted every weekend which I said I no chance to. He doesn't really have a social life, he doesn't ever go out so he wouldn't have been coming from that angle at all.

We have actually agreed on the Wednesday plus every other weekend, with something extra on the non weekend week so that's good!

The eldest is really excited to see him and looks forward to the overnights. He was always the fun one despite everything else, now that that's stopped he's just the fun one so she really looks forward to going. I worry more that she won't want to come back. 3 year old is up and down with it but she generally doesn't like being away from me much anyway.

He's decided he may buy them 2 pets for when they're there, I'm dreading it as I think they won't ever want to come back once they've got the pets they've been wanting for years that he always said no to.

My ex wanted 50/50 but this only lasted a couple of months as our ds was missing me as used to seeing me every day. For the last year its been one overnight during the week, every Saturday and then every other Friday. Works well for us. Its a case of trial and error to start with to see how the kids cope with it. It did take us a few months to find what worked best for us all.

It's not selfish at all to want to enjoy some time not being mummy.

It reads as though you are scared the children with love dad more than mum, so you want to restrict his time with them to stop this.

Why not let him have them Wed (just before your hobby), Thur and fri nights, bringing them back sat tea time

They are his children too

If that's the way it reads then it's down to me not writing it very clearly! He was verbally and emotionally abusive to me for a lot of the relationship. It was getting worse towards the end to my eldest as well. It came to a head one night when he screamed and shouted at her for something small, grabbed her, pushed her upstairs and across the room and lost it with me when I tried to intervene. This was the end of a long line of stuff too. Controlling and bullying behaviour to me and her. He has major anger issues but now he's being the Disney dad and everything is great apparently. I'm not worried about them loving him more, but I am worried about them spending loads of time with him away from me just in case things get worse again.

Don't worry about the Disney dad thing. Even at quite a young age they can see what it is all about and what really matters. If anything ng that's more likely to be an issue in teenage years but cross that bridge when you come to it. One or two nights midweek and eow is a good balance. I'm actually quite impressed that he has changed his job to be able to have them more..a lot of nrps expect the kids to fit into their lives, not the other way around. Try and stay on good terms, be open to negotiation and see what happens. And no its not selfish to want 'time off'. Don't be guilted into that.

Ah well that changes things a whole lot

Given what he did to your eldest, I would not be happy with him having them so much. At all. I would not be building up to three nights. however I might tell him I would to stall things. There's a fine line between wanting to protect her from him and prohibiting a relationship which could make things worse if he went to court.

My ex was the same, emotionally abusive, and he wanted to work up to 50:50. We started at one night a week because at the time she had just turned two and was very attached to me. When DD was a bit older he did another over night and also a tea time. So far he hasn't as far as I know been emotionally abusive to DD but I will be monitoring it as she gets older.

After a couple of years he began to accept the status quo and hasn't asked for 50:50. In fairness to him, he seems to see that it's not worth the hassle and DD is very happy as she is.

What I will say is when children are very young and contact is only just being established, it is recommended that stays away from the primary carer are more frequent and shorter. There are quite a lot of articles on this if you research it online.

My DD is the perfect example of this. She much prefers that she does one night at a time then to have her nights at daddy's together. She is 7 now and still prefers it that way. I worried at one point that it was too much back and to for her and suggested we changed to have the nights together but she was adamant she wanted to keep it as it was.

I have a niece who is now 11 and she has started to prefer her time with dad to be one full weekend every other weekend. As kids get older they tend to prefer the visits to be further apart but longer as it is easier to arrange time with friends.

In your shoes, I would start by finding some info on how its best to split the contact time and show it to him. Stand your ground about starting with two nights and say this arrangement needs to be given a good amount of time for them to settle. 6-12 months.

If three nights away from you is too long, it's too long, end of. I agree you need to split weekends fairly too. How about one weekend night and one weekday night and build up? 3 is very young to be away from mum much longer imho.

My kids started seeing their dad two consecutive weeknights when not much older. I was working full time then and didn't see them from Tuesday morning to Thursday after school. It was heartbreaking.

Your ex sounds quite a lot like mine. It can be really hard standing up to people like that. Hope your mum and dad and friends are supportive about your dealings with your Ex as it can really make a difference having some back up.