Ex spending less time with the kids

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-17-2003
Ex spending less time with the kids
1
Wed, 12-28-2005 - 1:29am

My ex and I share joint custody of our children and everything was going well until he met and fell in love with his girlfriend. He is now spending less and less time with his children. He works in retail so his hours are often crazy - sometimes he doesn't come home till 10pm. His mother lives with him so childcare isn't ever an issue.

They were very spoilt because he didnt work for a year and had no girlfriend so focussed totally on them. Now they have to share what time off he has from work with the girlfriend and her 2 children.

How do I best handle the children when they are upset with him spending less and less time with them? Should I try to justify his actions and explain that he is in love and its natural for him to want to spend some time with his gf or do I tell them that I understand why they are upset.

My eldest dd(11) is getting to the stage where she doesn't want to even go to his house because she feels so hurt by him spending so much time elsewhere and she is the one that most complains about the situation but the other two ds(10) and dd(7) are starting to be unhappy too.

I have spoken to my ex about the situation and warned him what will happen if he allows it to continue as has his mother but hes just so focussed on his new relationship and the stresses of his job that all he does is try to justify and then does spend more time with the children for a short while before everything goes back to how it was.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Tue, 01-03-2006 - 12:14am

The best thing that you can do is be there to listen to your children..... acknowledge that you see how they are feeling, but take no side or explain or make excuses for him.


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~