NSW Contacting Children on Special Occasions and Holidays?

[Tee609]

Long distance parent, at best he speaks to his kids once a month. He's forever cancelling scheduled Facetime times.

I accidentally forgot his birthday. Normally I will text the night before and ask when would be the best time to call. This year I completely forgot.

He's now flipping out at me that I'm a bad mother, a b***h of a person and I'm doing this on purpose to be nasty. The choice of words in his text were a tad more vile then what I've put in here.

i apologised that I forgot and explained that we had all been really sick, it slipped my mind. I asked him why he couldn't just text me and say, 'Hey it's my birthday today, can I please speak to the kids?'

He really doesn't need to send me such an abusive texts 2 days later? (Personally if it was so important to him he would have done it the day of his birthday) He said it's his birthday, it's my job to remember and organise just like it's my job to organise all the Facetime contact for special occasions.

I again apologised and asked if now is a good time. He told me to F off; he doesn't want to talk to the kids now since I was such a b***h to not "allow" them in the first place. All I said in reply to that was when he's free and ready to talk to the kids, please text me a time and I will make sure the children are available to speak to him.

To be frank, this pissed me off because why is it my responsibility? Why can't he just be a little proactive and say 'Hey I want to speak to my kids for my birthday, Easter or whatever the special day might or any old day at that. She hasn't organised a time with me, I better text and ask. Am I wrong to think that if he so badly wants to talk to his kids he can lift a finger and just ask?

He is forever threatening me with family court when he doesn't get what he wants and tells me a judge will take the kids from me for doing things like this. I'm not that stupid to think that because I missed one birthday - a judge will take the kids but does it look poorly?

I dare say I might forget something in the future again. I'm not perfect, but seriously is it ok for me to tell him from now on if you want to talk to your kids on a special occasions or any day, you need to organise with me? Especially since hes forever cancelling any other pre existing arrangements we have for Facetime?

Thanks

 

[Rob Legat - SBPL]

I'm not a family lawyer, so this is just general advice.

I would think him acting like a 5 year old, and refusing to speak to the children because he's annoyed you forgot his birthday, is going to far outweigh you forgetting once in a while.

It really does come down to the type of person they are. My ex has 'forgotten' to tell my child about my birthday for the past 7 or 8 years. But guess what? Completely not her responsibility to do so.

 

[sammy01]

'He is constantly cancelling facetime...."

"I forgot his birthday" etc etc

I'm going to be blunt... Sounds like a bit of childish behaviour on both parents' parts. I've been there too. When I think back to the first 3-4 years of my divorce, I was certain she was trying to do things just to hurt me... Probably was some of the time anyways. Other times it was just misunderstandings or other random acts of stupidity. And I made my fair share of mistakes too. In fact sometimes I was a right twat.

Then I got some good opinions that I'm gonna share with you. Kill him with kindness. So instead of looking at faults - blame - he said - she said blah blah blah - I refused to play. So I'm left waiting at McDonald's for her to drop off the kids, she sends me a message saying 'running a bit late'

I reply - 'no worries'. She rocks up 2 hours late - I could see it in her eyes - just another stupid game. First thing she said when she got out of the car was 'you said, not to worry so we stopped for lunch.' blah blah. Honesty, I could see her waiting for me to play my role and argue. But I didn't... I had 2 hours at McDonald's reading a book, doing some work on my laptop etc etc. Yes I was really pissed off, but letting her know it meant that she won.

So my ex had to up the ante on her stupidity to try and get a response - but I didn't play... Just smile and nod. So two things happened. I stopped worrying about the crap like in your post and my overall stress levels came down... No more blood pressure medication....And the kids started to see me as the good parent - The ex didn't understand.

She would come to changeovers and complain about this or that and I would not respond, or I'd lie and say no worries - I'll try harder. But the kids understood that she was being horrible and I was not... For that reason I think I'm a pretty good parent.

So I'm hoping you've continued reading my rant - because here is some advice for you. Put the kids in the car, go to the shops, buy a small token, some chocolates for example, get a birthday card, get the kids to write in it, put a little note from yourself to him. That notes should say 'dear ex, sorry I missed your birthday' Then take the kids to the post office and send it to him... Go on dare ya. Let the kids see you trying and if he constantly chooses to miss his facetime - well that is his poor choice, nothing you can do about it.

Now to your question about you wanting to tell him that if he wants to speak to the kids he has to organise it with you ahead of time? Are you for real...? He has to make an appointment with you to speak to his own kids? Why not try this one - you text message him and say 'thought you'd like to have a chat with the kids. Please let me know of a time that suits' .

Do that once a fortnight or so. Oh and guess what? by doing that you'll also have a pretty extensive paper trail / evidence, so if it ever did wind up in court, he would not have a case... Go on - send him the chocolates, then a few days latter send a text message asking that he received them and telling him you hope he enjoyed them, while you're there ask him if he'd like to let you know when is a good time to speak to the kids. Go on I dare ya.

 

[Tee609]

Well to be honest your reply was pretty blunt to say the least but i appreciate your time and perspective. I will take on board your suggestion.

 

[Blessing]

If this was decided in court it would probably be something like, its his responsibility to call on the said dates and yours to make the kids available.

Politely letting him know when the best time to call on any given day is would be good enough. Then you make sure you are available and he can call if he can.