There We Are Then - part 3

[mummy917]

And another 🤣

May I just say - you ROCK.
Go girl.

I would 100% take my kids back when my ex drops them off early. They are children who need love and a safe space and they don’t get that from a narcissistic parent. It’s not being a mug or letting him have his own way it’s that I don’t think it’s good for kids to be spending time with a parent who is begrudgingly looking after them.

standing up to him isn’t making him do 50:50. It’s turning round saying 50:50 isn’t working and giving him a schedule that works for you and bollocks to him if he doesn’t like it. You only need a single word to stand up to him and that word is no.

Your message to him

I have been very flexible about Friday drop-off times because it has been the summer holidays. However, as from Tuesday 1 September, the children must be into a routine because they are returning to school. This means that from Friday 4 September you will take the children to school and nursery at {insert details about school and nursery drop-off times} and then drop the twins off with me at 10am and no earlier.

If you do not stick to this agreement, that you specifically requested, I will have to completely reassess their living arrangements, because you have demonstrated that you cannot be relied on, as far as they are concerned. Whatever issues you and I have, they must not be allowed to interfere with the children's welfare.

Hi @mummy917
I just wrote a blistering text suggestion for you to send him. He blooming well deserves it. But I know it wouldn't be wise. So all I will say is that you are dealing with this admirably, with your children at the front of your priorities.

He on the other hand is getting shittier and shittier. I don't really believe in Karma, but I do think that inflicting horrible behaviour on others and supreme selfishness is ultimately not conducive to a happy life.

I hope you have a lovely Bank Holiday weekend with your little ones, where you can all just please yourselves.

Ha Ha @MyrtleLion - we cross posted.
Yours is better than the one I deleted!

Dear Mattress Man / Twat / knob

Since you took the decision to split up and moved out, there have been X Fridays when you were due to hand over our children at 10am. This was the handover time that you requested.

So far, of these X days, you only kept to the agree time on Y occasions. It is apparent that you are not interested in adhering to the handover time which you requested.

It is paramount that if you are serious in your wish to have joint 50-50 custody of the children you must adhere to the 10am handover from now on. If you do not, I will have no alternative other than to assume you are no longer willing to provide your 50 per cent share of the care, and to proceed accordingly.

I am FURIOUS on your behalf!

Those are a great examples! The 10am drop off clearly isn’t what he wants. I’ll be very surprised if he actually does the school drop off for our eldest two.

I wish he could be mature enough to sort himself out enough that I’d feel comfortable having him here on Wednesday morning so we can both be there to get our daughter ready for her first day of school, but I just know it wouldn’t work. It’s something he can’t ever do for the first time again with her, but I doubt he’s even given it a thought.

Has he even remembered it’s her first day of school and asked to be there to take her in with you? Will you be able to pick up on Wednesday too?

I’m assuming he’s remembered it’s her first day of school but he hasn’t mentioned it for a while. I have taken the day as annual leave so I’ll be there to do pick up too 😊

Just text him the facts: “When we worked out a 50:50 schedule you asked specifically for a 10am handover on Fridays. However, you have not stuck once to 10am unless I have physically been out of my house until then [dates, requests, early drop offs]. Furthermore you refused flexibility to accommodate my night shift and therefore I don’t expect to have to accommodate your desire to go to the gym at 9am.

Unless you respond to this message explicitly stating otherwise, I will assume that you confirm that in future, you will stick to10am handover.

If this time no longer works for you, we should consider an alternative arrangement in order that the children have stability.”

Oh that’s good, I’m really pleased you’ll get to be there for her and experience it with your daughter. I can’t imagine he’s taken any time off work to do the drop off or pick up, he’d just rely on his Mum.

I’m pleased you are taking the day off for your DD starting school. From your posts she seems the most affected by the split and having you there at both ends of her first day will be so important.

I don’t want to sound like I’m supporting TWAT. He’s clearly a callous, selfish arsehole. However, I think there are two separate issues here, and conflating them could back fire.

The early drop-offs on Friday aren’t evidence that he’s not doing 50/50: he still has them for an equal amount of time (slightly more, if you factor in that he gets them sn hour or so earlier on a Wednesday). Threatening maintenance claims (I know that’s not the plan OP) if he won’t keep them till ten isn’t reasonable and could trigger him to suggest the same regarding his extra hour or so on a Wednesday (or worse, he could just refuse to honour the 7 am drop off, or insist on the same for Fridays).

The issue is the lack of sticking to the agreement, and the sensible thing to do, is just to say that it’s clearly not working so let’s stick to X time. I suspect that when he made the arrangement, he was busy convincing himself that he is a caring, involved father, rather than a shit who’s abandoning his family because he doesn’t like being a grown up, and he’s now decided that doing the school run every other Friday is enough, and that he’s currently agreed to do slightly more hours than OP (yes, we all know it’s his mum doing the bulk of it, but to him, that’s the same thing) so is backtracking. He doesn’t have the balls or maturity to discuss it with OP, so he’s pulling stupid stunts like turning up early unannounced. It is not being a mug, to recognise this and put a stop to it by saying, let’s change the time to 8. If the kids are up early anyway, it’s not unkind to hand over earlier.

The issue of true 50/50 parenting is still there , of course, but to be honest, I’d leave that for now. It’s in OP’s financial interest to be the main parent to ensure she’s the one who can receive the child benefit and any UC, so whilst I absolutely would be recording all examples of him not actively co-parenting and all expenditure, I wouldn’t be raising it with him for now (other than telling him what you’ve spent to give him the chance to do the decent thing and give you half).

Ah well, lesson learned for next time.
You thought if you told him you were up to 3.30 he would do you a favour and let you sleep? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

So next time, tell him nothing, ask for nothing, and power-on-through by yourself.

You don't need to stand up to him at the moment.
This is not a boxing match.

Just keep silent, keep gathering evidence, and wait for the court date.

After the court, when there is a new agreement in place, that is the time to stand up to him. But you don't need to worry about that yet.

I am leaning more towards just saying let’s make drop off on a Friday, 8am. And although they go to his early on a Wednesday if I am at work, there have been Wednesdays I haven’t been at work when I’ve kept the kids with me until midday so they were able to have a slower morning and it gave his mum a bit of respite too. If he doesn’t feel he can manage the 50/50 or if he simply doesn’t want to, then I’d rather he just said so.

@mummy917 that would be less hassle but is enabling him to not do what he committed to. 50:50 or go the maintenance route. You need firm boundaries now and when it has settled down you may or may not choose to relax them. This way he ends up with what he wants because you are still flexing to fit round him. Don’t do things ‘because not fair on his Mum that she has to do X’ that’s her battle. She can deal with him. Otherwise every single thing will result in him worming out of it.

For term time I think I would suggest he drops the older two at school then brings the twins to you straight after school drop off. I wonder if suggesting he brings them all to you for 8am might upset your daughter. Just she seems to be the one that’s struggling the most and if she is dropped home for 20 minutes or so before being bundled off to school she might find that quite hard and unsettling. Even him just dropping the twins off first with her in the car might be upsetting to her as they get to be with Mummy but she has to go to school.

Can you say to him that 50:50 isn’t working as anticipated so why not try some form of time that suits you better? If he agrees, at that point you can raise the question of maintenance.

My daughter is the one that is struggling the most with all of this and I doubt he would take the twins to do the school run; he will want to drop them off with me first. Everything I think of, comes with an obstacle for someone and my head is spinning trying to think of what to do that suits everyone involved.

I like this idea, if you suggest doing x,y,z then you’re fixing his problem for him without him acknowledging he can’t fulfil his responsibilities. If you just say it’s not working because you keep bringing them back early then so let’s rethink it, let me know what you’re able to do etc then it’s all coming from him.

What if you said to him clearly 10am isnt working for you so I want you to start bringing them earlier.
Is he stupid enough to then stick to ten because you told him to change it?

Slightly off topic question but does he actually take the children out at all whilst he has them? He seems to struggle with all 4 so does he literally keep them at home all weekend? Somehow I can’t see him coping at the park or at the zoo etc.

Also have you come to an arrangement about birthday parties etc, I imagine with reception starting your daughter is going to be invited to a lot of parties over the next year. Is he going to facilitate this on his weekend?

Actually as @Error404FucksNotFound suggested, just tell him 10am isn’t working for you, you want them home earlier as 10am messes up your day, he’s obnoxious enough to stick to 10am religiously after that 😂

I’m not sure, I know he’s taken them to the park a few times but not sure if he’s done anything beyond that. I know the feeling of taking them all out somewhere and it turns into Groundhog Day so I only tend to take them out somewhere once over my weekends with them and then it’s usually the park or the nature reserve for a walk/picnic near us on the other days. Then sometimes it’s just a day in the garden.

She has been invited to parties whilst at nursery and he didn’t take her to the last one as it was on his weekend. I reminded him about it and sent a photo of the invitation but she didn’t end up going 😩