It makes it very difficult, I have never once in 6 years bad-mouthed SD's mum but we have a similar issue with Christmas, it's our turn, but when OH asked for the dates she literally laughed in his face. We've only had her twice before for Christmas (he was blocked until he got the court order) and the last times he has been soft and only had a few days. This time he asked for the week - as is his right in the court order. She seems to think she can refuse this and told him to get a court order, I was like er, we HAVE one, it says here every other week of holidays, and every other Christmas that's a week of holiday! Last time it was 'our' Christmas she insisted we pick her up Christmas eve, and when he went to get her she had already had all her presents, and a slap up dinner with the family, er, how is that 'our' Christmas. This year she is refusing saying 'but I have family coming'. SD's family are not family at all in her mind she blocked SD from seeing them for 2 years. So last visit SD happily is chattering on about how it's our Christmas so blah blah blah and we kind of have to go quiet. What are we supposed to say, no, cos mum won't allow it. They make it near impossible to give them positive press, and the irony is I'm afraid it doesn't help if you give them negative press as kids tend to shoot the messenger if you slag off parents. (which actually is part of the reason SD loves me so fiercely because mum openly tells her she hates me so ironically SD feels kinder and fiercely protective to me! BACKFIRE!). But there comes a point what can you do if her mum won't budge we will have to tell her.
The problem is, atop the guilt you have the fact that these are nice guys, we wouldn't be with them if they weren't, and they are generally I'm afraid not very nice ladies, or they would still be together. My man puts up with a LOT before he blows. In my case his ex was very abusive, and certainly when you use a child as a weapon like that it's a form of abuse, so you have this nice chap who has to face up against an abuser who has the power to block him seeing his child, or worst of all to hurt his child in the worst ways possible. Ours is having nightmares right now because of things mum has said.
So in our case we had 2 years of mum ruling the roost, she blocked visits, messed about, dictated, commanded that her child must not see his friends or family, must not see me even though we had moved in together, must not come to our home, changed the visits at the drop of a hat, screamed and yelled at him and attacked him when he picked up his child. It made me feel like a complete outsider the he wouldn't stand up to this, it was very upsetting and felt like he wasn't fighting my corner. But she was threatening to stop him seeing SD altogether, and until he had the order the problem is they can carry out that threat and it can tax 6 months to get things in place to be able to over-turn that, by which time dad is a virtual stranger to a 3 year old. Once he had the court order EVERYTHING changed. She had her little tantrums and demanded this and that, and suddenly quiet kind softly spoken OH told her she couldn't HAVE this and that as it was not her weekend so unfortunately we had plans. It infuriates me that dads don't just have automatic rights when a couple spilt to the minimum visits they usually grant. I think this should be law because until they have that legally I'm afraid if mum is a bitch they just decide that they 'own' the child and get to 'grant' visits, and it leaves your OH's in a position that if they say what they want to say to these women they can stop them seeing their child. Only when that threat is effectively removed do you get a more level playing field - still as you see we get problems, but at least we now have the option to send something in writing to say, we will have these dates at Christmas as is dad's right in the court order, if you don't understand this go and talk to your solicitor, and in the worst case if you refuse we WILL roll up with old bill and he'll be taking his child for a week.
Sorry I should also say in terms of the guilt, you need to work on this one a bit if you can. I know they don't want to hear it but that's exactly why they need to. Their child NEEDS them. The fact that they chose to let the kids stay with mum was to not cause them more upheaval and upset then they possibly could, that is a sacrifice, so to ladle onto that that the child should see dad even less at the whim of mum is extraordinarily poor, and dad needs to realise he MUST fight for every second he can get. Having a dad that doesn't live with mum can be confusing and upsetting at times, but this can be minimised with confident happy handling. Having an upbringing with an absent dad damages kids. No one 'owes' anything to an ex and particularly an abusive one or a cheating one. But they have a responsibility to their child and owe them, and above all else owe it to them to be a consistent presence in their childhood, so they MUST fight for that, and I'm sorry but if mum doesn't get that and has to have her ideas about owning their child shattered in that process then that's not even a mild concern frankly. Luckily my ex gets this as sadly when his parents spilt he didn't see his dad so he knows the pain of that. But even still it took me a huge amount of time to build up his confidence that even if he didn't feel worthy of his child's love having 'left' her he needs to stand up, put on his game face and fight for his time or his child will be damaged by it. You only get one mum and dad and if you don't know for sure in your tummy when you've 6 that they love you that leads to all kinds of problems. You don't get to be victimised any more, if you wanted your child to see you raising them whilst being stamped on you might as well have stayed with the ex! The guilt does pass in time finally, I hear this also from my mum friend who has split custody, after a long while you finally start to think sometimes, cos I also enjoy my kid free time too - and that's a new kind of guilt for a little bit! But if a routine can be established it really can actually be the best of both worlds if only people wouldn't insist on making it so **ing hard!
