Background: I know i’m the bad one here. My ex husband and I separated in October 2019. We had three kids over the course of 14 years, but neither of us were happy, nor had we been intimate for almost a year.
My children, current ages 15M, 10F, 6M, reside with their father, even though we have joint legal/physical custody. Kids wanted to stay in their childhood home and not change schools. This is an area that’s completely unaffordable for a single person, so I had to move a few hours away as I am paying him child support.
I met and fell in love with a wonderful man, who I am still with today, but, yes, I did cheat as technically I was still married.
My children met this man in April 2020 approx. six months after we started dating. Fast forward six months to October 2020, my now ex-husband (quick divorce due to it being uncontested and during COVID), is dating my boyfriend’s ex-wife.
Eight months later, he moved her and her three children (10F, 8M, 6M) into the house with my kids. Just a bit of info, this woman received a cash settlement of $250K+ during the divorce, so no, she’s not hurting for money and gets another $2500 a month in child support plus in addition to the $1700 I pay.
The issues:
My ex-husband refuses to let me have my children for half of the June holidays, even though they WANT to come and stay with me. The new GF and ex insist that my boyfriend and I get our kids at the same time, even though my kids want to have alone time with me, without these kids. Ex and GFs excuse is they want to go on a vacation.
I feel like we pay them enough, that it’s not our responsibility to coordinate with them so that they can go on a trip (ex-MIL has lived in the house since 2017 as well). They can obviously afford a babysitter or drive/fly their kids to a relative for a week. My parents live 1 hour away and would be happy to watch mine.
I picked my children up at the airport on Wednesday and my daughter’s hair had been cut – probably 10cm off the back. My ex promised me many times via text during the past year that he would NEVER let his GF cut my daughters hair (as she cuts her own kids).
I was devastated as it looks awful (this is a person who shouldn’t quit her day job) and when I asked my daughter (I didn’t make much of the issue because I didn’t want her to think I was upset), she said it was because the GF couldn’t get her hair into a bun before the ballet recital, so off it went.
I confronted my ex, he said his mom was supposed to take her to get it cut, but didn’t, and since I wasn’t around, he said fine. My own mother went to this recital and drove my daughter back and forth.
A simple phone call and she could have taken her to a salon prior. If not, I picked my daughter up two days later… they couldn’t have waited? The ex MIL knew how upset I was going to be.. yet GF and ex did it anyway. I have many stories like this, but ex says I’m the person overreacting.
Should I go to court?