Hi,
Name changed for this just in case but been around a long time.
I have two kids aged under 5. Split from their father earlier this year, by split I mean moved out of family home however we'd been living separate lives for a long time and raising the kids.
I've met a new man who I've been seeing for a couple of months now. Everything is going well and we're both happy and enjoy spending time together. He has teenagers.
We are obviously nowhere near the stage of introducing to children and neither of us want this at the moment.
Our issue is that we are on opposite childcare schedules so we are struggling to get any time together when we don't have our kids.
My kids split their time 50/50 and he has his EOW and 1 weeknight but the majority of school holidays.
I can't swap my weekends to match his as I work shifts and have a flexible working arrangement to facilitate 50 / 50 with the ex who is also a shift worker. It was incredibly complex to set up and get approved for both of us and it's just not changeable.
He has asked ex to swap weekends so we can align and she has said no. Basically because she wants it the current way round so her and her partner ( they live together) have a child free weekend EOW as he also shares kids with his ex.
As much as I like him we are struggling to progress things as we basically get zero quality time with each other.
I'm not sure what to suggest any more as it feels hypocritical to expect his ex to change for the same reasons we want to change and she expects me to but with none of the other people involved being shift workers I just don't think they understand it's just not possible.
What do we do? How to people deal with this?