I have two children daughter 13, son 11. My daughter has often refused to come and has caused many problems which have resulted in social services getting involved, unfortuantly this has now resulted in my son not wanting to come mid week but is fine to come at a weekend.
My ex has told the children that I live along way and they have to get up extra early to get to school, I actually live 5 miles away and can get to there schools in 20 minutes and if anything they get up later when with me.
They both seem fine to come to me when there are fun events happening at the weekend but anything going on which is normall they are not happy to come. The ex keeps saying stop forcing the children to come to see you when they don't want to and I have seen messageds from the ex to my daughter saying I miss you when you are with Dad.
It is very difficuly as it is clear there is no encouragement from the ex for them to see me and her claims around I am forcing the children to do something they don't want and makes her sad is making the whole sitution very difficult. It is clear (to me at least) that this is about child maintainance payments as she does not want me to have them overnight much but expects me to look after them during the day when they are ill and take them to appointments.
I am at a lost of what needs to be done for the sake of the children!
Hi There,
.
This isn't un common, it seems to happen, the ex wants more money so they either don't encourage contact or actually discourage it.
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My ex did exactly the same, and it makes life very difficult.
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I never managed to stop my ex from being the way she was being, so have no advice on how to deal with it.
.
Hopefully someone will have some ideas for you.
.
GTTS
Hi There,
.
This isn't un common, it seems to happen, the ex wants more money so they either don't encourage contact or actually discourage it.
.
My ex did exactly the same, and it makes life very difficult.
.
I never managed to stop my ex from being the way she was being, so have no advice on how to deal with it.
.
Hopefully someone will have some ideas for you.
.
GTTS
There isn't going to be a solution that is acceptable to all. I suspect your children are feeling the stress of being in the middle of a conflict, and by not coming to you midweek, they are minimising that stress, so the best solution may be to work with what you have for the moment. Perhaps you could arrange the occasional midweek event that might be fun for them, but don't make it too regular at this stage. Bear in mind also that you son is at an age where he's going to want to see his friends and time with you will get in the way of that - it's harsh, but a reality of having teenagers I'm afraid. However, when he's a bit older, he's going to start to find it fun to spend time with you - actually thinking about it, perhaps there is something you could do to encourage him to bring his friends to you - if they find you"cool", then he will be quite pleased about that.