Are we being unreasonable?

[GreerGarrisonWinbury]

DP has DC EOW and half the school holidays.
4 years ago DP’s ex moved 40 miles away to be near her family and the DC go to school there.
DP’s ex has just given birth and she wants us to take the DC so she can recover.
It isn’t our fault she decided to have another baby.
Earliest drop off at school is 8am and latest pick up is 5pm.
If I do the drop off it is 120 mile round trip for me from home to school and then to work.
Is it unreasonable for us to say no, this does not work for us during term time, with our working hours and leave has already been booked for half the school holidays.
We have said are happy to collect the DCs every Friday for the weekend and return them to school on the Monday morning but during the week just doesn’t work.
DP is stressed because he wants to see DC as much as he can but logistically it doesn’t work and ex keeps calling.

@Thursdaygirl , I totally understand., my partner used to be an electrician. Jobs have to be done in a particular order .

But the ex will still expect her maintenance payments!!!
They are not her maintenance payments, they are payments to support children.
Children don't stop eating or growing when one of their parents stops working.

You know exactly what I mean.

No one is suggesting the children will stop eating or growing, but it seems rather pointless to inhibit the father's ability to earn money, by suggesting totally impractical arrangements, ie a daily round trip of 120 miles

She has very right to ‘grumble’. Why should she be a martyr here?

• Her step-daughter lives 40 miles away
• The mother wants her to live with her father and stepmother for the week
• This means that it’s been left on the step-mother to drop her step-child to school 40 miles away for 8am then drive 20 miles to work
• Then drive 20 miles to pick up step-child and then 40 miles back to her home

She had every right to grumble because she’s being used as an unpaid taxi service by her own feckless husband.

If the mother was so desperate to rely on the stepmother’s taxi services, she shouldn’t have moved 40 miles away.

I absolutely agree the child should spend time with the father.

But it’s unkind and unnecessary to call
out this put-upon woman for her husband’s shortcomings.

Stop giving reasons why he can’t do this.

Leave the gruesome twosome to find a solution.

You should not be inconvenienced for their lack of planning.

So, the ex has the kids 313 days per year, your hubby has the kids 52 days per year, and now this one year he'd have them 59 days per year?

And that's a massive unfairness to you?

I get that it's extremely inconvenient. But that's parenting. What if the ex were in the hospital for a month and didn't have the new partner? You'd be in the same bog then too.

I understand the school run is difficult. But it can be done. Yes having to take time off work sucks. But it can be done.

I'm baffled by all the voices here chiming in it's unreasonable to expect a father to put in that much effort into his own children, ONCE.

And the we wonder why men don't step up and pull their weight.

I get that it's extremely inconvenient. But that's parenting. What if the ex were in the hospital for a month and didn't have the new partner? You'd be in the same bog then too.

If this were the case I imagine she would call on her local support network - the one she moved to be closer to?

Sounds like it got complicated fast. But I don’t think it was an unreasonable original ask/offer. Yeah. She moved, but your DP can figure it out for a week.

this is still the mother of his children, there should be some support offered. Pull in family as needed.

she is asking for help for one week only, not forever. They are your husbands children, not random children. She has a premature baby in NICU, goodness knows what kind of stress she is under worrying about the health of her new baby, give her a break with the older children. You are their village. help the poor woman out for gods sake.

None of the above negates the distances involved - and that's the sticking point

@Spicastar yout calculations are a bit off. We have DC around 160 nights a year. Every weekend is 3 nights and we often do extra weekends. Ex takes them to school on Friday morning and then doesn’t see them until Monday evening on our weekends. We do additional weekends when asked. Christmas, ex only wants them on Christmas Eve and they are with us until school goes back after New Year. Out of the 6 weeks school holidays we had over 3 full weeks and then the weekend before they went back to school.
Before she was pregnant she would call us to take DC if they were sick, even though she didn’t work 🤷🏼‍♀️

No need to explain yourself OP, most of us completely understand your dilemma!

Blimey I hope you didn't take them when they were sick. Who does that?

She chose to move the children further away from their Dad to be with her family, she's chosen to have a baby.

The only person you having the step kids for a week benefits is their mum, not the stepkids. It isn't in their best interests to do all that travelling each day of the week.

Most I'd offer mum is to take the kids on the weekend she usually has them, pick up from school Friday and drop off at school Monday but I wouldn't put yourselves and kids through all that because of her life choices. If you lived much closer and could easily manage pick up, drop offs and work then I'd be saying to do it but it really is too far and not beneficial for the kids.

She sent them with Covid 3 years ago, found out later she knew they were positive, she thought it was funny. I didn’t have contact with DC then but DP had to quarantine.

She sent them with Covid 3 years ago, found out later she knew they were positive, she thought it was funny. I didn’t have contact with DC then but DP had to quarantine.

DH’s ex had form for that sort of thing. When Mum and Dad are apart you have a natural “quarantine” if people are ill, and there’s no point in spreading illness between households when you haven’t got to.

No it's to far for the child to travel to and from school. If their mum and her new partner needed your support they should have stayed living near you.

For one week while her baby is in NICU?

well yeah you are being utterly and completely unreasonable. Or your husband is, rather.

Absolutely not, it’s not other peoples job to fill on the gaps for the father. Yes, she moved away (that can happen when marriages breakdown), but he’s still the kids dad.

It's a gap entirely of the mothers own making. If she wants it filling in she can move back to within practical distance for the dad to be able to step in in emergency situations.
Your logic is a bit like when my toddler wanted a bath then went in a massive huff because the water was wet!

Exactly what the above poster said. He is not a slave to the mother because they share children.

Baby is home for a week now. Now we have to have the DC every weekend for the foreseeable future. All concerts now cancelled when we had free weekends.

Poor kids are definitely going to feel pushed out. I mean it's great you're offering them the stability they clearly need and stepping up but it can't be doing the relationship with their new sibling any good.

You need to knock that on the head as soon as you can OP