partners ex....We don't do enough for her

[cake83]

my partner and I have been together over 2 years.

We're a blended family, 2 kids each (2 sets of twins)

We have my teenagers full.time and his 4 year olds every weekend plus holidays.

The little ones have their own room and everything they need with us.

Our agreement with partners ex has always been pick up kids Saturday morning 10am drop them home 630 Sunday and extra over holidays.

This has never been enough for partners ex, she now works sporadic Sundays til 8 and wants us to get the kids out of bed and drive them to hers when she finishes. We have done this a couple of times to help her out but said(and she agreed) that she would collect them as she was breaking their routine.

partner calls the little ones through the week also.

Ex has now decided we don't do enough. we offered to keep kids til Monday morning so she could get an early night after work and collect kids before we go to work. She point blank refuses.

Last weekend she refused to collect kids said we would have to drop them off then turned up at 2150 to get them out of bed. Is now saying unless we do as she says as she's the main care giver my partner can't have them at all.

We change the access to suit her, taking them extra nights fri-sun to save her money on childcare if she's working Saturday.

Nothing is enough for her. She now won't let partner speak to them on the phone and says we can't have them unless we do what she wants. its a constant battle with her to get things her way.

She is unstable, social services were involved when the kids were babies as she wasn't caring for them and now they're 4 they come to us unclean and in clothes too small and shoes too big.

We're at our whits end and don't know what we can do.

We don't want all this affecting the kids but they are clearly unsettled when we collect them but happy in their routine when we have them....

Any advice at this stage would be appreciated.

Thanks

We contacted a mediator service, we're advised that ex would have to make contact also. When we presented her with the contact details we were told this is not a route she wished to follow.

As a result we have come to an "amicable" solution that suits her (ie we have compromised)

If she works a Sunday but not a Monday we will keep them sat-Mon morning and take them to hers before work, if she's working sun-Mon we will take them on a Friday night.

It should be added that she only became amicable when she realised she had shot herself in the foot. My partners holidays from work don't re-start til may, I agreed to take this week off to look after the kids as she was having minor surgery. Clearly realising that by stopping access she would have had to arrange alternative care she suddenly became very nice....as such got her way again.