There We Are Then - part 3

[mummy917]

And another 🤣

I find it so, SO shocking that he thinks it is acceptable to deposit his 4 young children early on their seriously exhausted and sleep-deprived mother. He should be ashamed of himself. A disgrace of a man 😡

You must not discuss your shift times.
You have agreed to his chosen drop off at 10 o/c. Whatever shift you do.
He has not once adhered.
He has something happening on Fridays he wants to do….
I would send a msg. Saying: in the sector you work, he should be aware by now that shifts are not written in stone. There are emergencies, People die, Staff are ill. Which he does not, sitting behind a desk 3 days a week.
returning the DC early as per every Friday so far, when advised you didnt get to bed till 3.45 is not in the children’s best interest. Only His, obviously.
Twat

I don't know why you bother to answer the door when he drops them off early?

Exactly this.

Don't open the door.

“You asked for ten am so why do you keep bringing them at 8? Just so you know, in future I won’t answer the door” text send, stick to it.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to open the door when you know your kids are outside, come on.

Just tell them “daddy knows not to bring you before ten because I might not be in”. Easy. The. They just think their dad is being a twat and it’s his fault. Which it is.

Frankly unless you are actually busy I’d just accept that he will drop them off early on a Friday , it’s really not worth getting into it with him as it will not make a blind bit of difference because he is a knob and thinks he knows it all . Obviously if you are out then he will come unstuck but that is his problem not yours . I know lots will disagree with me about this but really it’s like banging your head on a wall and he isn’t going to change . I’d be keeping a record of how many actual hours he has the kids for alongside the record of all the money he owes as eventually you will be able to claim maintenance.

Why should OP accept this? She could have had a few more hours sleep this morning if he'd stuck tothe 10am drop off that HE wanted.

"My shift times are irrelevant. Our mutually agreed drop off and pick up times are not, yet once again you arrived at my house to drop off my children X hours before the agreed drop off time which isn't fair to our children or me. Please stop breaking our agreements to suit yourself."

I agree with you but my point was he is not going to change so unless she is going to just ignore the doorbell is it really the hill to die on . I wouldn’t leave my kids standing at the door with a twat who is obviously desperate to get shot of them as soon as possible and I don’t think that @mummy917 will do that either . I certainly wouldn’t be saying to the kids that their dad has dropped them too early etc like a pp suggested as that’s a sure fire way to make your children feel like an inconvenience, even though you may have made it clear that it is dads fault . Unfortunately it’s become very clear that co parenting with this knob is not going to be simple and amenable .

This is spot on

Perfect.

god knows why he is such an arse about Friday mornings!

Just don't ever flex times or dates for him.

Exactly this.

Control.

I don’t agree with putting yourself out to be away from home / not answering the door etc. it’s not fair on the kids.

what I would do is send a message saying so far since you stated 10am you have done x y and z. Clearly the arrangement isn’t working for you, so if you wish to amend the time it would be useful if we could discuss it as I need to know where I stand, not keep having you up hours earlier unexpectedly and confusing the children.

When they're with their dad, who's deliberately bringing them back early to get at you? Give over. He can take them for breakfast or to play somewhere, it's a couple of hours not a couple of months.

This!

I couldn’t just not answer the door when he brings them home; I can hear them at the front door which is just below my bedroom window. I also couldn’t make out like they’re an inconvenience to him, even though they clearly are. Doing either of those things goes against everything in me.

He knew the reason I was held up at work and how shaken up I was, he even commented on it this morning. He didn’t even have a half decent excuse this morning; he was going to the gym 🙄

@mummy917 he’s just an arse , must have been very hard for him acting like a decent human in the years you were together . You are well rid .

Make it clear he set the 10am drop off and he needs to respect that. Don’t let him walk all over you.

So he’s prioritized his wish to go to the gym over your need to have enough sleep to safely look after your children??? Just please make sure it’s recorded like that in your notes.

Maybe message him and say you are the one who set the 10am time and all you've done since is piss me about. Make your mind up and stop dicking me around.

I very rarely comment on your thread, @mummy917 but have followed it from the beginning. I just wanted to say that your ex's behaviour this morning shows so clearly why you and your children will be better off without him. This is a man who is barely beyond the self-absorbed sulky teenager stage as he approaches middle-age. To drag you out of bed early after your nightmare shift and horribly late arrival home, just to go to the gym, argues a level of selfishness, indeed callousness, which is unlikely to change in the future. Sending hugs.

Has he forgotten the agreement, or just thinks it applies to during term time, maybe? To be honest, I’d just assume he’s going to drop them around 8 in the holidays, 9 when he’s doing the school run (or however long it will take him to get from school to yours with the twins). In his head, this is ‘fair’ as you drop them earlier than that on Wednesdays. I totally understand why that is the case, but it was only a matter of time before he bridled at keeping them longer on a Friday. To me, it’s not worth the fight and there might be times when you just want to get on with your day with the twins, rather than hanging about waiting for him until ten. He is a complete and utter arsehole, and now you’re no longer enabling him to opt out of adulting, he’s clearly gone completely stone cold and is not going to do you any favours/be remotely flexible. Personally, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being able to refuse you/feel like he’s getting one over on you, I’d just message him and say that you assume he’s no longer interested in keeping them until 10 on Fridays, so you’ll expect them back around 8 in the holidays and 9 on school days (assuming he still wants to take the older two to school). Then id just say, you expect him, going forward, to be able to stick to this agreement no matter what.

i hope you’ve recovered from whatever happened on you shift xx