S
single mom
Guest
My Xhusband and I have a 9 year old daughter. My Xhusband is now remarried and his new wife has an 11 year old son. My daughter's stepbrother isn't really into extracurricular activies, yet my daughter loves them. All the stepbrother does from what my daughter tells me is play video games and watch tv. So the stepmom hasn't ever really been exposed to a child like mine who is very sociable and wants to do a lot of activities. My Xhusband and his new wife want those every other weekend visits when my daughter is with them to just be "family time". I understand family time is important, but it is also important for my daughter to be involved in activities. Now my ex allows our daughter to invite friends over, but he resents taking our daughter to her scheduled activities. I love family time too, yet I make sure my daughter is involved in activities. I make sure we have time for family dinner and my daughter's activities. But my ex seems to want the entire weekend to be "family time".
For instance Friday nights our daughter has ballet. That is the only day it is offered at her dance school. The class gets out at 7:30PM, whereas my ex had previously been picking our daughter up at 6PM. He doesn't like having his time shortened. Its only an hour and a half. I don't see what the big deal is. Then our daughter is involved in girl scouts. On some weekends there are girl scouts activities such as selling cookies, there are girl scout retreats, ect. There was a girl scout retreat awhile back and we had to switch weekends. My ex got mad about that and said his plans were all ruined by our daughter going on the girl scout retreat. First of all I told him well in advance and the only thing he had planned was dinner at his parents house, which he was then able to do the following weekend with our daughter. I try to accomodate my ex, but he just seems so annoyed that our daughter has activities she's involved in, and resents it. I think he just likes to put on this show of being one big happy family with his new wife.
For instance Friday nights our daughter has ballet. That is the only day it is offered at her dance school. The class gets out at 7:30PM, whereas my ex had previously been picking our daughter up at 6PM. He doesn't like having his time shortened. Its only an hour and a half. I don't see what the big deal is. Then our daughter is involved in girl scouts. On some weekends there are girl scouts activities such as selling cookies, there are girl scout retreats, ect. There was a girl scout retreat awhile back and we had to switch weekends. My ex got mad about that and said his plans were all ruined by our daughter going on the girl scout retreat. First of all I told him well in advance and the only thing he had planned was dinner at his parents house, which he was then able to do the following weekend with our daughter. I try to accomodate my ex, but he just seems so annoyed that our daughter has activities she's involved in, and resents it. I think he just likes to put on this show of being one big happy family with his new wife.