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Dad never plans anything

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I separated from my ex 18 months ago after 13 years which was always pretty up and down. We are both much happier now and though he claims to feel very depressed sometimes about the situ he appears to have moved on with ease, finding a new girlfriend within weeks of the separation and enjoying his new life without all the family responsibility. I have managed (mostly)to stay on civil terms with him for the sake of our wonderful boys who are now 5 and a half and almost 3. They adore him and he sees them tues and thurs after work and does baths etc and has them a full day every weekend. My problem is that he used to take them swimming, to the park, football and stuff but now never makes any plans for them. When I pick them up my sons say they have spent the day watching tv/playing video games and dad is always doing other things. I have tried to encourage him to take them places or just pay them more attention and have made suggestions but he just says I am lecturing him and gets really angry. Recently when he took them out for lunch he went mad at me afterwards as they behaved badly (he said it was my fault as they have no discipline which is not true)Turns out, he had no toys or anything with him to amuse them. He gave them a big row and withheld a treat but I just thought his expectations were far too high for children of that age. Because he has stopped making any effort, I also overcompensate by trying to do loads of fun activities but with 6am starts 7 days a week and work, I just feel overwhelmed sometimes and wish he would take back some of the responsibility. I do everything else so I dont understand why, when his time with them is limited he doesnt make more effort to be the great dad I know he can be, it's like he cant be bothered anymore even though I know how much he loves them.

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Hi Kate. I can't thank you

Submitted by katrinam on Tue, 2008-09-02 09:33.

Hi Kate. I can't thank you enough for this advice. You were spot on, my approach to this has been all wrong. I think instinctively I still feel the need to critisise/compete/fight rather than trying to work with him. He can be really difficult/oversensitive and overreacts but I have now read lots of the other questions and realise my situ is pretty good compared to others so maybe I need to chill out a bit! Anyhow I dropped a few subtle hints to my husband yesterday and he has just called to ask if he can take our older son to the golf range after work so hopefully things are looking up. I am going to find some local stuff thats going on and see if this helps too. By the way, I think the book and this site are absolutely brilliant. I don't know any other single parents and its imposs for friends to know what this rollercoaster is really like. I still find it incredibly difficult to let new people know I am a single parent without feeling a huge sense of shame and failure and a need to justify my position - is this normal? This is especially true at work (I'm a solicitor - lots of old school traditional values!)But at the same time, I wouldn't go back to the marriage for anything. So just reading your positive words has given me a HUGE boost. Thank you Katrina

Well done well done well

Submitted by kate on Mon, 2008-09-01 12:50.

Well done well done well done , you may feel overwhelmed but loads of this letter is good and the rest so sortable outable.

Dad loves the kids , sees them regularly ,and everyone is getting used to the situation ,I think this is just a communication issue
So whilst communication is not my forte I recognize so much of what you have written that I am going to bat on an issue my two pennorth.

• You know the children better than Dad and can therefore help him to make his visits better
• You probably have a better handle on what is out there for the children to do with Dad at the weekend
• Remember that he doesn’t want to be told what to do
• All kids behave badly in restaurants at some point .. and they do need telling off or distracting
• The children love Dad and want to have fun with him
• Dad is still Dad and should discipline them if they need it and if they are anything like my boy two boys will need it and you will value Dads input reinforcing discipline and taking a part in this

So I think that all you need is to send a positive email or have a gentle conversation offering a bit of a hand , make sure you say that you realise that his time with the boys is his and that it is because you know what a great Dad he is and you know how much the boys love doing things with him but that all children are a bit of a challenge at times that maybe you could help each other make the weekends a success. . He is important and to be honest if all they do is sit around with him that is so much better than not seeing him or that the two parents really fall out so don’t overplay the hand the trouble is all three of them could have a better time if the time was a bit more structured.

There are some subtle ideas for both of you re this type of situation in our book and when it comes to filling out the co parenting form ideas should pop up. such as football , most areas have saturday morning football for children and maybe Dad could take the boys to this , or a swimming lesson , or drama or whatever interests the three of them .Maybe he just doesn’t know where to look or what is on offer

The children are young , they will get older and more vocal about what they want to do and they will get more interesting and responsive and more enjoyable to spend time with . They will have homework , they will want to go to museums , they will be able to ride bikes and do so much more in a couple of years time . Yes they are full on company/work at the moment so I would urge you not to rock the boat too much. Give help , come up with ideas and so on without nagging but do remeber that just being together with Dad is really important. And as for you make sure you spend your time without them recharging your batteries. I am sure Emily will have some words of wisdom to add

Kate