I understand your point. I am definitely considering allowing him to go for a few hours.
The issue I have is that I need to protect my son. I feel like I have bent over backwards in accomodating her requests in the past. On more than one occassion, she has failed to pick him up, tried to weasle out of picking him up, or shown up more than 30 minutes late.
There is no worse feeling than packing my son's bag and not having her show up. My son knows that when I pack his bag, its time to visit his mother. She's played with his emotions on far too many occassions.
Is it fair to my son that she only wants to be a mom for 12 hours a week at the most? I know that if the roles were reversed, I would be considered another deadbeat dad.
Looking back, I believe that I enabled some of her behavior. I have gone 6 months without any financial help from her. I have missed days from work to help care for my son when he is ill. Plus, we have visited the doctor 4 times in the past 7 months for various reasons. Since I am his father, those are my responsibilities and I will never shy away from them.
At what point does one say enough is enough. I know she is not the person she was. I do not want to cause her anymore pain than she already is in. I just want her to know that we are doing fine and we care about her deeply.
Yet, look at all the turmoil she has caused me, our son, and my family. But, I feel like I am shielding her from the consequences.
