Honest to goodness, what an absolute shit show can be.
If you can even call it that, I’m not sure the bare minimum in the bank every month and 6 hours ‘babysitting’ every other week counts as coparenting.
Joey has been living three hours away with his fiancee and her kid for the last three years. He’s been coming back every other weekend (or at least that’s our arrangement) and having V on a Saturday 9.30-4pm. There have been stints where he’s disappeared for weeks at a time with nothing more than the vaguest of messages about not being able to come back, leaving me to explain to V that he’s not coming home but without any actual information as to why or when he might next be back.
In all honesty, she’s not really bothered. She’s always reluctant to go when he is here, she says she’d much prefer to stay home with us. And I’ve never been more grateful that we have this casual arrangement sorted between ourselves that allows her to do that for the most part. The fact that he’s such a monumental fuck up and doesn’t want any of that on the record so has never pushed for more or going through court works spectacularly in mine and V’s favour. Court was never even mentioned, he couldn’t manage looking after a child, gosh he can barely look after himself, especially when he’s drinking heavily. He gets to see her, he gets to tell people he’s seen her and save face and be ‘involved’ - not that anyone who knows the reality of it would ever call it that. He has absolutely no involvement in anything, he’s never made a decision, I don’t even ask him anymore, after years of ‘do what you think’. He’s not on any of her school paperwork and there’s a short essay in the ‘anything you want us to know’ section about their relationship.
All this to say, he’s back in our local area. Surprisingly, with his fiancée and her kid (she’s 12).
Not really sure what the deal is with their relationship, we’ve never been able to work out what’s in it for her, having an unemployed alcoholic around her kid, but each to their own.
He sent a message saying they were moving back, she owns a house where they’ve been living but it hasn’t sold so they’ve just….. left the house and moved into one spare room in his mum and dads house? You know when something just doesn’t make much sense? He asked if he could have more time with V, but on her terms of course, so I’ve broached it with her and needless to say she was upset about the idea. We talked a lot about compromise, although that’s a big concept for a six year old who likes to get her own way! She did understand what I was saying, although she didn’t like it of course.
When I picked her up from his yesterday, I said maybe we could stick to every other week but he could have her Saturday and some of Sunday, then have her for tea one night in the week on the weeks he doesn’t have her at the weekend. He literally said ‘yeh we’ll see what she wants to do, I don’t want to come along and change everything’. Like dude you literally went out of your way to send me a message asking to change everything!! I think it’s likely that he’s probably has his fiancée and family mentioning that he’ll be able to see more of V now he’s back and he’s sent the message for appearances sake.
Given that she is technically his child, I spoke to her about his request when in hindsight maybe I should have just said nothing and seen what happened. I feel like I’ve upset her unnecessarily because when I’ve pressed him about it face to face he’s essentially said he doesn’t want anything to change, but if they have anything happening in the week he’ll message me to see if she can go 🤦🏼♀️
I’ll just never understand how anyone can only be happy seeing their kid for six hours every other week. I don’t understand how anyone could just disappear for weeks on end with absolutely no explanation and not even feel the need to send a message to see how your kid is.
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