WWYD - weekend activities

[Louboutin37]

so.... DP has his children every other weekend, we all get on great, no issues there.

DSS has wanted to get into regular sports training for years, it would be every Sunday for about an hour, Exw has until now insisted he goes to church every Sunday so has never allowed him.

This week she has finally relented, telling him he can go but his dad has to take him. DSS and the activity are a 40 min drive away, making this about a 3 hour round trip every Sunday morning. For her it's a 5 min drive but she wants to still be able to do her church visit on Sundays and leave the taxi service to us.

If we say no we look like the bad guys in DSS's eyes, so I've said we'll just have to go with it but am I right in thinking that the Exw is being more than a tad manipulative? She has a track record for this sort of behaviour.

It's annoying but we had the same, minus the church issue with dss, ex wouldn't agree unless dp took him. Including the weekends he was at hers, where she would inevitably tell us that morning that he was't going for some spurious made-up reason, meaning our weekend was stuffed.

There's nothing you can do, if you want him to do it, go with it. Can you not find him something near you he could go to on your weekends and then it's up to her to do what works for her on her weekends?

Or, if it's a five min drive for her can't he cycle there? How old is he? If she agrees to take him, how would that work on your weekends, it's still just as far? Were you assuming you would just take him back to her so then you would never have him on a Sunday?

its a bit of a point blank refusal for her to contribute at all on her weekends to the activity, and he's too young to cycle there and back. As its a team sport its not really something he can do on odd weekends, he'd miss out too much unfortunately.

Its annoying because we're going to have to grin and bear it for his sake, and we're going to need to ask the grandparents to chip in a bit to help out on odd weekends as well, just so that she can carry on doing what she wants on sunday mornings.

we've thought about trying to find something mid distance between hers and ours but as he schools near the exw it's only fair that he joins a team with other schoolfriends.

Could you start out taking him, but try and befriend some of the other parents there in the hope you might be able to share lifts in the future?

Would his mum be able to do either the drop off or pick up so you're not having to do the waiting around on her weeks? I don't think she's really being manipulative to be fair. I would guess the church is important to her so fair enough she doesn't want to miss it.

If you let DSS go I would make sure it's on the understanding that there will be the odd week when you can't take him and he'll just have to miss it. It's not fair on you to never get a free weekend with your DP.

Hopefully after a few weeks you might be able to do a kid swap. You pick up and take another child on your week and the other child's parents pick up and take dss on the other week.

Yes, I was going to add that church might be a very important part of her value system and her support system, so it's not really fair to just dismiss it, though of course it is up to her to manage her time around it and ensure her kids have what they need. If she thinks church is more important than sport, so be it.

thanks ladies, I think the befriending and lift sharing suggestion is a fab one, alternatively I might see if I can find a saturday club, that would be an interesting scenario. I haven't been told that it's a no because of the Church thing, but that happens on every Saturday AND Sunday so I might test the water to see how deep that comittment runs if I can find a Saturday activity