Who does pickup/dropoffs?

[Mclibby]

My partner currently does all drop pickups and dropoffs for the SC, he has them nearly every weekend Fri to Sun and it's about 4 hours total driving each weekend. We have a young baby together too. He works long hours during the week so misses Bath and bedtime during the week. Our only time really as a family is at the weekend. My question is shouldn't their mum be doing some driving too? She doesn't work and has a car so I can't see why not. DP has always just done both trips. He had to move an hour away as she lives in a very expensive area, way out of our price range. If they could share the driving he'd get more quality time with all the kids and be home to put our baby to bed and bath one more night. She won't voluntarily do it so is this how it will always be?

As the mum does the majority of the parenting and your dh moved away I think its perfectly reasonable for him to do the travelling.

My ex was ordered to by the court so I'd be careful of going down that route.

Some nrp's HAVE to move for work & if my ex had to move I would assist for the sake of my kids.

In my exdp's case his work base is miles from where his kids live because years ago his then wife insisted on moving there to be close to her family so he moved his business base. She then decided she didn't like her family being around all the time so they moved back to where they had been living - at her request. Dp couldn't afford to move the business base again & told her this. She said fine - he could commute. Post divorce he kept a house in the countryside 15 miles from the town where she and the kids live (& on his work side) & despite him having to often drive up to 3 hours on a Friday night to collect the kids she point blank refused to ever pick them up or drop them off at his out of sheer badness because in her words "he couldn't be arsed to see his kids during the week".
This is a woman who refuses to work outside the home, whose kids are all in secondary school & who is completely dependent on his salary for everything - & she couldn't even assist him in this one thing. He was self employed when she met him, he was self employed throughout their marriage & as he's in transportation & haulage he drives huge hours every week. She knew all this.
So yeah - technically he's not around for his kids as much as she or some of you on here would advocate, - but he's not around for them so they can eat & be educated! I found her attitude to him disgusting, & on here there's a huge amount of non resident dads who are keeping the whole or majority show on the road financially & then get lambasted for working away or moving for work when most of the time they have little or no option.
When I was with him he worked 12 - 14 hour days & then had his kids all of or part of every weekend.
And sure having the lions share of child related donkey work to do during the week can be boring & a slog - so is working to keep a business afloat so your kids are well maintained.
Again - awful double standards on here & a dangerous assumption that all non resident dads (& their partners if any) are lazy, uncaring shits.

@Mclibby My DH's ex was difficult when he moved 25 minutes away compared to the 10 minutes it used to be. They have DSS 50/50. After mediation she agreed to a half way point. He had to find a location that was the same distance from each house. They meet there every pick up/drop off. Now and again she will ask for DH to do the full drive which he does. But she has pretty much stuck to the half way point for the last few years.

PO/ DO’s can be court ordered. If raised as part of contact proceedings. My exDP had it when his DC were much younger a good few years ago.

Since his children started school however, and pick up / drop offs are from/ to school, it naturally falls to him.

I’m with the others on here. This is not for a court to determine and I cannot imagine that this contact is court ordered. As I’ve never heard of court ordered contact being every weekend

My partner’s judgement specifies the pick ups and drop offs. It’s a 50/50 arrangement (hard fought for) and the pickup/drop offs are fairly split between each parent. That said - a key point for achieving 50/50 was that the parents live close together so it’s not a big deal timewise. but it’s one less aspect of life where she cannot force her control on DP/us (yay!)

My DP does all the pickups and dropoffs. The ex has a car and drives every weekend to her boyfriend's house 18 min away from us, but would never move her a** to ever bring or pick up SD. She pretends to be my DP's friend, sends him sweet messages and all, but when it comes to something concrete, nothing.

There were times when my DP would arrive and they wouldn't be home, because they were shopping, but nobody would bother telling him in advance. There were times when he would bring SD and the ex wasn't home.

And SD is used to it, it doesn't even occur to her to ask her mother to bring her to her dad, when she wants something, she asks DP to get her or bring her.

It was our toddler's bday recently, she wrote a sweet message to congratulate my DP, then a message saying how SD was dissapointed that she couldn't see him.

Yesterday was SD's bday. SD asked DP to bring her to see her mother, but she never asked her mother to come visit her. When her mother called, she told her to tell DP to bring her back early today (didn't ask about our plans) and when DP did it, she wasn't even f* there!

My DP also works a lot and we have a toddler whom the ex congratulates every year as if she cared about him, he's often sleepy while he drives and he also brings SD to her piano classes half time, picks up her uniforms, goes to her concerts and pays for ex's adult son from previous relationship.

He took this responsibility when they separated and I guess there's no way to change it now when everyone is used to it even when the kids are older. It pisses me off, but it's like that. When people can take advantage, they do it.

How come your DP gets the kids every weekend? Doesn't their mum feel she misses out on down time with them? He does sound like he's getting a poor deal to me with the driving.

Buttery the mother is unemployed, so has nothing but down time with them. The father chose to move away. The resident parent just needs to make them available for contact, it’s the other parents choice on how to collect the kids he moved away from.
OP, I hope he’s using contraception now, he’s not coping with his choice to have multiple kids.

Living up to your name there Gormless...

Jesus Christ! Is there no way to prevent bitter ex wives from posting stupidities here?

How so, ‘funonthebeach’? I just re-wrote facts the op has posted, and the fact that the man is clearly not coping with the current amount of kids he has, best not to have even more. You disagree? Weird.

There’s nothing to suggest he isn’t coping, that’s a complete exaggeration. No coping is failing to meet the needs of your children. Feeling the wear of a long working week and long drive is not a symptom of not coping. Don’t be so dramatic.

I’m not being dramatic, simply reading OPs posts, hope that helps. 😄

Children would all be only children if every tired parent didn’t have anymore.

My child included!

What do you mean by pay her bills? Do you mean the child maintenance that covers the cost of housing the dc and all associated costs?l

Why are they with dad every weekend? That's not right. Mum should get fun time too.

OP, I hope he’s using contraception now, he’s not coping with his choice to have multiple kids.

I’m assuming you feel he should have used contraception before he produced his “first” children too?

Why are they with dad every weekend? That's not right. Mum should get fun time too.

Maybe she can’t be bothered.

Unfortunately my partner and I are going through the same. We have just filed a court order for arrangements to be solidified as there is a huge back story. However my partner spends almost an hour, when he has his daughter, travelling from work to pick his daughter up from the ex partners house then from ours back to the house. The ex partner point blank refuses to do any pick up and drop offs. Extremely frustrating, also refuses to drop off/pick up half way. We do not request this all the time, we just feel sometimes it would help to spend more time with the child!