Should I just go and get them?

[Avocadodo]

My DH is due to pick up his children this weekend and then mum due to pick them up. DH can't drive this weekend due to injury. Their mum asked DH if I could come and get them. I've never spoken to her in my life and I'm not that involved in the parenting side of things and also I hate the motorway. So I've said no, and DH can't find anyone else (family live many miles away).

So no fuss from DH, not my kids so not my problem. But Ex is now insisting I go and get them and she's got plans for the weekend she doesn't want to cancel. She said I need to step up for them. Is that just tough or shall I
go the long way and get them? DH would have to pay for my petrol. I mean I see her point of view but if I didn't exist they'd have to sort it out between them.

Just curious @Sweettea1 do you demand things of your exes wife and refuse to even acknowledge her any other time?

The fact she insisted you step up would have made me say no.
You aren't a taxi service. Or a maid... Regardless of dh's role /injury /state of his eyebrows (whole other thread sorry!)
Bowing to her demands? Fuck that.

@crapatthis1

I understand your situation OP and crap that you are doing it. The only thing I'll say is there could be a very good reason why she cannot / doesn't want to cancel. Do you know what her plans are? I think if it was an emergency then she'd cancel but probably thinks that your DH needs to fix this. Sucks for you though, I get it.

Thank you, no we don't know what it is but like you say maybe it is important. I assume it is.

She better not cancel pickup or i'll scream.

Why is it that people think demanding and insisting things they get their way. My ex is like this, will insist and 'tell me' to do things. I'd be much rather inclined to help him out and do him favours if he actually said please and thank you. As it happens I now never put myself out for him, if anything I'm bloody minded.

I don't blame you for not wanting to help her,

Your married your husband knowing he had kids so they are part of your family - you do have kids - step children. Very strange thing to say not my kids not my problem - they are human being supposedly loved and cherished by the man you love and cherish - surely that puts them up higher in your priorities?

Thank god my ds has a fantastic stepmum and wasn't landed with some stepmum of here.

You know nothing about what kind of a stepmum I am other than I've said I don't really do the parenting usually. Just because I let their parents parent doesn't make me a bad stepmum.

Sorry I still can't get over that a PP tried to suggest that if she got a message like

"Hi Sue, I know we only met once at Karen's wedding and you don't really know me but I've twisted my ankle and was supposed to pick up my kids tonight. My ex is going out so won't drop them off, would you and your toddler travel 3 hours and go and get them for me?"

As if they'd reply "yes of course and don't even think about giving me petrol money!"

A common courtesy for someone you "barely know" is liking their business page on Facebook, asking how their family is if you bump into them in the street. It's not a common courtesy to travel 3 hours with your small child to pick up the children of someone you "barely know" because their Mum has got plans that night.

Don't pretend it is, you sound ridiculous.

Thank god my ds has a fantastic stepmum and wasn't landed with some stepmum of here.

Well I’m going to assume you’re one of the nice ex wives then who doesn’t go demanding stuff from her. Maybe that’s why she finds it easier to go out of her way for your children?

Just have “plans” yourself

She has no right to demand anything from you but I think for your husbands sake you are doing the right thing.
I will say though it doesn't matter if her plans are important or not, it sounds like your DH has the children EOW she doesn't have a lot of free time. So I can't understand why she wouldn't want to cancel them when it's up to your DH to sort this.

@ittakes2

Your married your husband knowing he had kids so they are part of your family - you do have kids - step children. Very strange thing to say not my kids not my problem - they are human being supposedly loved and cherished by the man you love and cherish - surely that puts them up higher in your priorities?

Oh dear God 🙄

Good lord, go and get them. You're being stubborn.

Also, how are you married to a man with children but you've never met the mother of his kids/aren't really anything to do with the parenting? This sounds mad!

but you've never met the mother of his kids

Do keep up, it's the Mum who won't meet OP / even say hello to her.

She refuses to meet me

I wouldn’t be doing her any favours if she can’t even be bothered to be civil to me.

I don't understand why he doesn't have contingency plans? The simple fact of the matter is that his ex should be able to rely on her children's dad to have their children when he says he will. She should be able to plan her life around that - whether that be work, chilling time, going out, or cleaning the house. She should also be able to plan ahead - book tickets to a concert or a hotel overnight, for example.

What you have here is a man who is either going to get his partner to sort out the issue, or have his ex wife step up and deal with it. He is basically using the women in his life as his back up childcare.

I have been a RP for some 12 years and I have lost count of the emergencies I have had to deal with, the times I've needed to be my own back up, not to mention my being unwell, unable to drive through injury or other 'stuff' that seems to happen. Not once has my ex stepped in. I have dealt with it all - often at great cost (taxis, for example) and somehow managed to keep my job and keep my children alive and well. So if I can do it, why can't he? Why is recognising that sometimes, things are outside of your control and that you're going to have to think outside the bloody box a bit to deal with it so hard for so many?

What will actually happen is the ex will miss out on whatever it was she had planned. Probably at some cost to herself - financially of course, but also possibly emotionally/mentally as well.

It's not a common courtesy to travel 3 hours with your small child to pick up the children of someone you "barely know" because their Mum has got plans that night

The OP is sleeping with the children's father? She knows him. The children are not just their mother's. They have a father who should be arranging to collect them - somehow - on his contact time. Any favour being done here is a favour to the OP's partner and children, not the ex.

OP, all the negative posts on here are ridiculous. You have no obligation to pick up these kids. Some people can't seem to get their heads around the idea that different step-families work in different ways. Don't let the posters here bully you into this journey.

Also never knew there was a requirement to meet "the mother of his kids" (does there need to be a shiny aura around that title to show just how important they are?).

I do happen to have met my DHs ex. Fortunately she's not like lots of the exes you hear about on here. But if she weren't, I wouldn't have any interest in meeting a hostile woman because she happened to have had kids with my husband. I don't care who she is.

The OP is sleeping with the children's father? She knows him. The children are not just their mother's

I know. The PP I was replying to said she'd do this for someone she didn't know very well because it's just common courtesy as if it were no deal at all and something you'd even do for a stranger. I was saying it's not just common courtesy to do this for someone you don't really know.

Can I just check then, if mum falls ill on her contact time and can't look after the kids by herself she should ask her DP rather than ask their dad if he can help? And then if dad says he can't as he's got a footie match to go to or something then dad is OK to insist her DP does it?

Yes, it’s part of being a family, which is what you create when two people get married and pre existing children are included in that. There were plenty of occasions when my children were younger that my DH, their step dad looked after them either because I was ill or I had to work, or he’d look after one of them because I had to be with the other one for something. This is despite them having an active and usually available father.

Especially at 10 and 13, it would have been no big deal for him to drive them somewhere or sort out easy food for them, especially if I was there and just had temporary limited mobility. My children’s father would never have needed to insist that his children’s step father did something for them, because their step father would have willingly offered when it was obvious that that would be the simple solution to a problem we had.

I think your dislike of driving is turning this non issue into a much bigger deal than it is.

@Howshouldibehave

She refuses to meet me

I wouldn’t be doing her any favours if she can’t even be bothered to be civil to me.

It isn’t doing her (the ex) a favour. It’s doing her own husband a favour.

If I had a pound for every time someone chirps up with 'you knew he had kids when you met him' I'd have enough money to buy all the very put upon stepmothers on here a large gin and tonic.
For the hard of understanding I'll just say this - yes, we knew, no we didn't sign up for all of the drudgery and bugger all of the recognition or gratitude and no, in the main, I don't love my stepkids as if they were my own. I do however go above and beyond in caring for them, shelling out money hand over fist and making considerable sacrifices. I do not however have mug printed on my forehead or doormat on my back. I even rather like them and enjoy their company, they also have 2 parents already who have the primary responsibility for them. Not me.

I don't think it makes it wrong to ask the child's other parent though @NailsNeedDoing

Families work differently. I know in ours, if my husband's ex was poorly the first person who would be asked about helping with the children would be my husband, their Dad, not her partner. And same vice versa. I think all of us would actually find it a bit odd if the other parent wasn't the first one asked in a scenario where one of them was unable to care for / do something the kids needed. Myself and her partner would then be asked if the other parent couldn't. It doesn't mean it's wrong, to many people I imagine that would be quite normal, to expect the help from your child's other parent before anyone else.

When I was in this position (as ex-wife), it didn't cross my mind to ask step mother, I just did the drop off.

Suggest she does both drop off and pick.u pp to his time an RF your DH.does both next time. I would not be ordered about by m to dh ex partner.

Amen @Beamur