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Step-parenting

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What access do you allow your ex's to have over xmas.

48 replies

clairejo · 17/12/2007 11:27

I am a step-mum to be with two children of my own. I would like your thoughts and experiences of what access dads are allowed with their children over christmas or are you all selfish and keep dc to yourselves. Only asking as my df seems to have to plead for anytime at all.

OP posts:
mumblechum · 17/12/2007 12:21

www.courtservice.gov.uk

sorry

flossie64 · 17/12/2007 12:29

When I first split from my ex I lived near him so we alternated xmas and new year . I now live 500 miles away thank god. My ds decided then that he prefers xmas with me ,his stepdad and little (half)sister.
My ex tried to stop himcoming by refusing to opay his flights but my dh said don't argue and we just pay now.

Surfermum · 17/12/2007 20:55

Dh has a court order for Boxing Day 10 am for a week. However a couple of years ago "his" weekend with dsd fell over Christmas and her mum agreed to her coming. It was the first time in 8 years that he had seen his daughter on Christmas Day.

We had never bothered asking for dsd for Christmas Day, as things were just so acrimonious and negotiating any change to the court order was a nightmare. His x used to think that anything over and above it (2 nights out of 21) was unfair, and when it came to negotiating Easter, what she thought was fair was for dh to have dsd from 2pm on Easter Monday!

Dsd is now 12 and is really clear that what she wants to do, is spend one year with her mum and family there, and one year with us and dd. She doesn't understand why she wasn't allowed to do that before. So we now have her one year from just before Christmas for a week and the next year from Boxing Day for a week.

clairejo · 17/12/2007 22:31

ClaireJo's DP Posting

I don't think Clairejo intended to upset anyone, and she said she should have put a smiley after the selfish comment. I know one or two of you took it to heart but as previously stated, I WANT to be fully involved in my eldest sons life in every decision making process. I didn't ask for a divorce, and I didn't refuse my ex a divorce even though she made stories up to get the divorce. The thing about my son is he was born premature and very small, with the cord around his neck. He turned blue and the midwives took him away before we could see him, I honestly thought he was dead. Since we were blessed with him pulling through the trauma of birth, he has had to have a severe hernia correction and several operations on and around his face and legs to try and help the problem of a facial paralysis (bells palsy) by grafting a nerve from his leg into his face. I have been with him every step of the way, I have put my mistrust and anger for his mother behind me to show a united front of love and care for my son so he has a wall of support from all of us. I have held him and cried tears of pain and dispair over his situation, I have even comforted his mother when we found out one of the operations was a failure. Sometimes when he stays I like to check on him in the night and see how loving and peaceful he looks in his sleep. Speaking of tears we all watched the 'Polar Express' recently and having my 3 boys curled up together on my knee in a big comfy chair made me cry bucket fulls. I am in no way a perfect father, I snap at kids when I am tired just like anyone else, but I do think I am a good dad, I try my best with all my children, and I love them all equally. I don't want to take my eldest son away from my ex wife, but I do think I deserve more regular access, and more consistent and fairer access, and I don't enjoy being told lies about why he can't come and stop. OK, now this may upset some people but if those of you out there in a similar situation repeatedly deny access to their fathers for no good reason then yes I think you are selfish. Those of you who take the childs wish into account and make fair and good decisions for christmas then I applaud you, in fact I doff my cap, and remain upstanding throughout the applause, even if I am green with envy.
For those who's fathers have no interest then I also applaud you for refusing Christmas day visiting unless that person decided to take an active role in the responsibility of raising the Children, but as previously stated by another poster Claire started this thread for advice from people in a similar situation, not to accuse people of 'being selfish'.
One final point, how can a person explain how it feels to be threatened with not being allowed to see their child ever again as a way of being controlled? I really want to explain how hearing them words made me feel, I heard them at least once a month every time I complained about access. Admittadly I haven't been threatened with it in a long time, but how hard would it be for her to stop my access even on a short term basis by telling lies. How hard would it be to turn a seven year old boy against his father so he wouldn't want to visit? I have already had him call me a liar out of the blue, something he has obviously heard somewhere else. I don't think it would be too hard, and to be honest I wouldn't put it past my ex wife if she could extrapolate some personal gain from it. Of course the majority of mothers are fair, our friend is happy for her kids to see her ex husband regularly as she wants them to have a proper relationship with the father, one doesn't like going for certain reasons and if I was in the situation of the father I would recognise this and find a way to put the situation right, I wouldn't force him to come or exclude him. Some times my boy decides he doesn't want to come to visit, he may be too tired and he will come on the phone and tell me, it would be wrong of me to insist he came to my house because it was my weekend if he was in bed and ill. However if it was a bunch of bullsh*t and he had not been given the option to come then that would be a different story

Apparantly this is an essay so I will cut it short for now.

OP posts:
pantoinghousewife · 17/12/2007 22:36

Fair enough! Sorry if I was rather abrupt but I am rather sensitive on the subject, as my ex quite never bothers to get off his backside to see his ds and then tells people that I won't let him see him. When I have always stated he is more than welcome to see him anytime.
I do realise that most divorced/seperated dads are actively involved in their childrens lives post separation. So I'm sorry for any offence.

clairejo · 17/12/2007 22:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

bonkerzaboutxmas · 17/12/2007 22:47

my DSD comes to us every weekend and we have her every other christmas,this year we have her from next friday until 29th Dec and she will be with her mum new year.
My DH plays a very active role in DSD life despite living over an hurs drive away. he regularly travels to pick her up from school on a Friday and last week spent 2 and a half hours travelling too and from her christmas play! DH and DSD mum split nearly 5 years ago when DSD was 1 and although it was difficult in the beginning he now has a civil relationship with his ex and his DD is a HUGE part of our lives.

pantoinghousewife · 17/12/2007 22:51

Yes I accept that, clairejo + cj'soh and I despise women who use their dcs as bait in a game of one up manship. Not nice and very not fair on the dcs.
I worked with a man whose wife did this to him and he was broken by it, although I always secretly wished that ds's dad would take the same care of his sons feelings.
I am sorry, both to Claire jo and yourself.

Pinkchampagne · 17/12/2007 23:07

My situation is a bit different because of the relationship my ex has with my family.
I will have boys here with me Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, then when I go round my parents on Christmas Day, Ex H will be there, so they will see both of us. I will have them with me that evening, then they are seeing their dad Boxing day.

MyChemicalToilet · 17/12/2007 23:07

clairejo DP - there seems to be a lot more than Xmas that is not right. But, I wonder about the circumstances and your behaviours over your break up - could you tell us more please? Your ex-w must be feeling very bitter for some reason, even after all you went through with your baby. Not that this justifies her telling your son you are a liar, in any circumstance.

soapbox · 17/12/2007 23:47

'your ex is obviously a fecking mong'

What a disgusting term to use - really beyond disgusting

PersephoneSnowballSnape · 18/12/2007 00:05

^^ agree soapbox, it really is.

my children spend xmas eve with me and wake up at my house on xmas day. i drive them to their dads house early afternoon on xmas day and they generally go to granny and granpas for a few days, then i get them back, partied out

my ex left me after an affair and then went on to have another child. he's now left that family. i have sat in my house alone on xmas day and cried buckets because my children were spending time with their father. at least clairejo and mr clairejo have each other - and although the circumstances are wildly different, if it were my exes new partner involving herself in the christmas arrangments involving my children i might not be quite so accommodating.

clairejo · 18/12/2007 00:10

I get the impression that because her boyfriend has been crapped all over by his ex she feels she needs to try it with me. This poor bloke has had his kids surname changed to his ex's new married name and calls this other bloke 'dad'. So I know I am not alone in having a rough time of it, but you would think that my ex wife would see how much it hurts him and give me an easier time but she takes the opposite route, even trying to change my sons surname.
I don't think my marriage was meant to work from the start, I didn't realise that when I said 'I do' that I would be marrying her whole family too. I know she is bitter because when people stepped out of line I felt I had to be honest and speak up instead of grinning and bearing it. To be fair I did on several occasions suggest her mother stops interfering but I was never rude. The problem with my ex wife is (and she is the first to admit this) she is very child like (notice I am not saying childish. yet ).

I don't claim I was a perfect husband to her by any stretch, but I always tried to work at the marriage. After we got married I left the army (a well paid job)and walked into an even better paid job with very little out goings. The only money we owed was the mortagage and a little bit to her dad as she wanted to invite 18 million people to our small wedding. So there was plenty of money for her to drive into the next town with her friend and buy pretty much what she wanted. When I had a nasty accident and broke my knee, she didn't want to know, I had to give up work for 6 months, and I spent most of this time sat alone in the house all day and night with no visitors. The thing is she has always been bitter, always held a grudge and always brings irrelevent badly remembered things up from the past. She told one of my friends I used to hit her, this person won't speak to me now and I never got an invite to his wedding, she did though. If I had been such an arse as to hit her I would admit it, more to the point, when the police were involved the questioned me for about 10 minutes then suggested I persue an assault case against her, as she had CLEARLY assaulted me not long before the police arrived but I didn't feel it would solve anything. One thing I do admit to was one christmas eve she threw an open bottle of wine all over me because I dared to suggest that tt was a little late in the day to cancel Christmas dinner with my mother and go to hers instead, I retaliated by calmy spitting my mouthful of blossom hill in her face before walking out. I regret this and have to live with it. Not exactly an assault but still not a nice thing to do. The following year things got worse, as there were just no jobs anywhere near our town for my skills, so we agreed to look into moving away, possibly even abroad. But every job offer that came up would lead to an excuse not to go. Perhaps I should have seen the writing on the wall and just picked a nice job in the sun but I was married with a child and I believed I should stay and make it work. She became impossible to live with, she complained about everything, she became awkward, secretive and sometimes quite nasty. One job offer that came up meant a long weekend a month, she suggested I take it and come home once a month, but I thought we should go as a family and in the end turned it down, the agency stopped calling after that. Eventually the settee became my bed, and then one day I came home to find my key didn't work. I went to her work and kicked up a fuss til she let me have access to get some clothes. Going into the house i found a computer game system hooked up to the tv and a load of mens clothes that weren't mine, her brother forced his way in and claimed that the size ten shoes in the hall were for his tiny feet, and I couldn't stop laughing as I packed my stuff at the comedy of the situation, right then and there everything clicked into place, she had found someone else, and instead of being honest she tried tomake me end it by becoming impossible with me, and when that didn't work she changed the locks. I think she forgot to stop being a bitch when she got what she wanted. To be honest I sometimes wonder if she just went mental, the first time she let my son stay at my flat when we seperated she turned up at midnight and was screaming that I had taken him from her, as I hurried about gathering his things to keep her quiet and not get me evicted from my flat in the first week I didn't realise she stole my entire dvd collection, when I say collection, it was 2 dvd's. When we divorced my solicitor demanded they were returned or she would not let me continue with the divorce, I got them back with what looked like 'bastard' scratched into them. I would understand it if I had had an affair, or done the things she did. Hearing a friend talk about his divorce recently, he said his ex recently admitted after 18 years that she had to find a way to hate him to get on with her life, maybe my ex wife is the same. Some times we chuckle at the completely obvious lies she tells, you know the sort of tall stories your friend at school told that were clearly a product of an over active imagination. I have quite enjoyed writing this, its one of those not funny at the time but side splittingly funny now, like getting the old boy trapped in the zipper. I am not sure clairejo will enjoy reading it, it may be a little od for her, but for me it gives me a chuckle to think of what life was like back then, I don't feel angry with my ex wife about what happened, I don't feel sad that we split up either, I can't say I am overjoyed with it either, I don't really feel anything about it, which is an odd thing to say really, my friend moved to america when I was a kid, I was a bid sad about it for a while but there you go, it never really had a profound effect on me. I was married to my ex wife once, it didn't really work out, it happened, but it's in the past, I was probably a bit upset about it at the time, but I think I kind of knew it was dying and as such when it did it never really affected me, certainly not to the point where I feel any bitternes about it. A person cannot change their history, the only thing I would like to be different is the needless lies, they only made the situation worse. Of course more amicability where christmas and other holidays would be nice too.

Having just re read this, it seems to suggest that my ex is an axe wielding fruitloop hell bent on death and destruction, in order to attept to balance it slightly I must add that it can't have been easy for her, I joined the army straight from school, and as such when I left I was fairly regimented, and perhaps having a moan about shoes left in the middle of the floor was something I should have reigned in. I am sure that clairejo will attest shoes left in the middle of floor don't get me angry in the slightest any more, half cups of coffee are another story for her to tell. (I am half expecting my bags packed waiting for me when I get home from work tomorrow for that one)
Serioualy though, I don't see the need to be forever bitter about something, lifes too short.

OP posts:
clairejo · 18/12/2007 00:33

Soapbox, I don't know what you are trying to attribute my words to to make it disgusting, obviously you have found offence in it somewhere, possibly the use of the term 'mong' which some people use as a derogatory term for mentally handicapped people, whereas to me, and to just about everyone I know it is a term for a person who either deliberately, or accidentally misses the point of something or behaves idiotically. I can see where you are coming from as I have heard my son called a spastic by another kid, something I don't really agree with, but something I often hear used for similar reasons. Not something I partake in or agree on by any stretch. Perhaps this is a case of culture? I was once shocked to be labeled a 'twat' by a friend, it was only when she saw the shocked look she explained that to her a twat was a cross between a twit and a prat.
Please don't try and turn this into something it isn't, and by that I mean a slur on mentally handicapped people, you can take it as a slur on dads who don't care about their children as that is exactly what it is. If you don't like the term then fair enough, I am confident you knew exactly what my sentiments were. Incidentally, I have never understood where using the term 'mong' as a direct insult to a mentally handicapped person would work, as by my understanding mong is short for mongoloid, ie of east asia and as such makes the person making the slur look like a bit of an idiot.
Actually it has just been pointed out to me that the term 'mongolism' was a medical classification of downs syndrome, and I would have to agree that if I was making the use of the term to offend a mentally handicapped person then yes it would be a disgusting term. However I was actually trying to offend morons (can I say that?) who have no interest in the upbringing of their children. If you found offence in what I said then I can only say sorry, but I am sure you knew exactly what I was getting at.
I hope that clears that up, and to be honest, I don't think I will be joining this board afterall.

OP posts:
PersephoneSnowballSnape · 18/12/2007 12:07

'mong' is offensive. it does initially attribute from a mongloid appearence, facial characteristics that were very broadly mirrored by downs children. it's a playground insult at the best, but labels a group of children into a derogatory stereotype and takes no account of the personality or attributes of individual children. If a 'twat' is a 'cross between a twit and a prat' and a colloquial term for female genitalia, then what does that tell you about people who use the term when they are talking about something or someone they don't like?

that aside, you do seem incredibly bitter, it's not just about xmas and if anyone ever spat a mouthful of wine in my face i can guarentee that i would never talk to them again let alone let my children anywhere near them. but then i'm not the sort to throw a bottle of wine at someone.

fact being - we have you and claireJos version of events. we don't know you - we don't know your ex wife, I'm pretty certain though, that her side of the story is completely different to yours.

really xmas is a time for getting well over all of this, enjoying the time that you do spend with your children. letting the past stay there instead of dragging it all over the internet. I'm not sure what access arrangements you have with your ex, but in my book if someone spends the majority of their time bringing up children, wakingup in the night, getting occasional respite on alternate weekends or whatever then they deserve xmas morning.

mum2jakeyroo · 18/12/2007 18:21

Christmas is a time fo

mum2jakeyroo · 18/12/2007 18:28

oops

Christmas is a time for forgiveness and of family.

All this seemed to be about seeing your children at christmas. I wonder how the above poster would feel if the OP and her DH were more than happy to have the kid over all the tme and get up in the night with him. Just because they don't it doesn't mean they wouldn't be happy doing it. I wish more dads were as committed. I need to check as I am not sure, but didn't the OP say that the ex had an affair and ended it? If thats the case why should he be punished for something out of his control?

yerblurt · 18/12/2007 20:14

To Clairejo's partner:

... jesus, sounds like you've been through the mill mate, I'm sorry to hear of that, but you know, psycho ex's are out there - my ex-missus, she puts her own selfish needs before DD's needs!

.. it's only after going through the hell that is the family court system (and to the family solicitor who posted on here - it is a biased rotten system that favours mum, and I'm lucky in that I went LIP with a McKenzie friend as my solicitor at first directions hearing was useless, I sacked her. You lot are worse than leeches, you are the scum of the earth who promote antagonism between parents, and my sol was a member of Resolution! you go for the "default" position of res parent mum and non-res parent dad. I have a shared res order and wiped the floor with cafcass and ex's sol, using current sociological research and case law, which the DJ complimented me on).

anyway, claire's DP - keep strong, and I suggest you join Families Need Fathers, a national charity who promote shared parenting and non-confrontational parental agreements. There is probably a local branch nearby to you - check them out on tinternet and go along.

good luck fella

mummynumber2 · 18/12/2007 20:32

We don't really put any emphasis on christmas or Birthdays for that matter. If we don't see DSC on these days we just do it on another day. I think it would be unfair to ask them where they'd like to be at christmas, as I'm sure they have a nice time here and at their DM's. Last year we did christmas on New Years Day and even sent a letter to Father Christmas explaining the situation. My DSC think it's great having 2 christmas and birthdays and it really takes the pressure off.

nzshar · 18/12/2007 21:52

We have alternate years with dss. Last year we had him christmas eve and through till about 10am christmas morning then drove him back to his mums, stayed there for about an hour. This year we go and collect him around 10am and stay then he is with us till Thursday. I suppose though we are very lucky that we all get along. Between the 2 homes there are 5 children and dss is the oldest. And though the two households have totally different parenting and lifestyle ways we join together and exchange presents every year. DP has a lot of input in dss' life and his mum is fine, though he does have to tip toe around her occassionally and the thought of deneied access has crossed his mind when dss was younger (dss now almost 14 and able to make own mind up)
All I can do is sympathise because when one side holds the other hostage and uses access as a weapon it is not fair.

Alishanty · 03/01/2008 13:09

My dp has a dd and what they do is alternate years so he has her for xmas and new year one year and the ex has her for xmas and new year the next year. Although if she stays with he mum she usually stays form xmas to new year (she did this year) but if she is at ours she goes back in between, mainly because dp has to work. I think this is fair as I have heard of some families having the kids for xmas and then sending them to the ex for new year. This isn't fair as they get the kids for xmas but then get to go out new yr.

jammi · 04/01/2008 19:45

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Message withdrawn

Lulah · 17/01/2008 20:51

I am glad we dont have that problem my step chldrens mother doesnt want them christmas at all neither does her man.
She gives presents a few days before and this year she picked them up at 7.30 and they were back by 1opm having opened their presents and had a meal somewhere, she has not seen them since. Sad cow.
She can have or see them whenever she wants , she doesnt want!

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