Why he has to hide the truth
First time writing on this forum. I have been with my partner for just over a year. He has a 19 month old with BM and they split right before we got together. Aside from all the usual issues (post for another day) my current dilema involves changing of allocated times with SD.
BM will call and demand that times be changed when it suits her but he is for some reason unable to stand up to her and tell her no. We are planning a trip away for the weekend which just happens to fall on his weekend having SD. He said he would check if she can swap weekends with him which was fine. What really gets to me is that I know he wont tell her that he needs to change weekends because he is going away with me. He will make something up about work because she cant handle him being with me. This is so extreme that she demanded their friends not invite me to their wedding and if I was there she wouldnt go!
Im not sure how to handle this. Why cant he just be honest with her or stand up to her?
does he need to tell her that
does he need to tell her that he needs to swap weekends to go away with you? IMO, this falls into the category of none of her business-he doesnt need to tell her anything other than I have a prior committment, something came up, etc. Our bm also used to change times constantly as in eow. She'd show up two hours later than scheduled time which meant usually I was sitting at home on Friday night with ss waiting for her to show up-as my dh worked late on Fridays at that time. dh eventually sent her a letter stating that she would have a 30 minute leeway and after that we would assume she wanted to cancel her visit and we wouldnt wait. Actually had to do this once-I gave her 45 minutes-she didn't show and we left-went to the next town, got a pizza, and came back. She showed up after we got home almost 2 hours late. I refused to even answer the door-dh was on his way home. She ended up calling the police, but they told her they couldnt do anything about it and if she wanted to visit with her son they suggested she be on time!
I feel your pain. My
I feel your pain. My situation is similar. My Husband and his XGF have a D10 and S8 and she is ALWAYS flipping wknds on us. We have our wkends set up so we get the SKIDS when our other single parent friends do. Somehow over the summer we had the kids every time I turned around so the wkends got screwed up. Two wks ago, it was to be our wkend but SHE had plans and took the kids, he didn't step up and tell her it was our wkend. So last wkend we had them (and where not to) and this wken he is saying he is NOT getting them when it is our wkend too. We have a little girl together so I always am planning little things to do, some with the SKIDS and some without. Because he can't stand up to her on which wkend is ours and is not I have had to replan sooooo many fall events. He just need to grow a back bone. My H I think is scared because she always pulls the trump card and threating him not to see them. And worse of all, when him and her get into it..I GET DRAGED INTO IT. Somehow it is always my fault!!! You're not alone.
He doesn't stand up to her
He doesn't stand up to her for a few reasons:
He is scared of her using his child as a pawn and restricting his visitation if he doesn't play her game.
He is trying to avoid confrontation at all costs. So rather then stand up to BM, it's easier for him to just do as she asks instead of getting into an all out battle with her.
He is trying to not give BM ammunition to make him look like a "bad father" i.e. BM says "You're father is a piece of crap, he's too busy to take you for an extra day, or switch weekends" This also falls under the "guilty parenting" category.
My hubby lives this nonsense every day and it drives me insane that by doing all of these things he is in reality giving BM all the control, but this is how he handles things so I just let him do his thing and count down the years we have left to deal with this crap. Unfortunately you have a LONG road ahead of you!