My story of WAH

[seaspin]

Just had a conversation with WAH about kid logistics this week, initiated by him.

Normal visitation schedule - Thursday evening, Friday overnight, all day Sat.

Proposed schedule:
Monday - he would like to take my van to go buy some furniture and transport it. He will take the kids with him.

Tues - He would like them for dinner. I said that I had plans and would like more advanced notice. Then he suggested why not have them spend the night Monday night and he bring them home on Tues as an alternative. Again, this is not a normal thing, so I'm left speechless trying to figure out my schedule. He's throwing me off. He says he's "trying to be flexible". I did say I had to think about it and would get back to him.

Thursday - his usual night with the kids. WAH casually says he can't do this night. I say something like, since it's your normal night, I already had something planned. He starts getting mad at this point and says he needs to leave. His hands are clenched. WAH normally doesn't give up this night, so I wonder why??? Guess it doesn't matter.

When coming up with the parenting plan with our MC, the visitation days were chosen with WAH's work schedule in mind. MC said not to expect us to drop everything if he happens to be free on another day. WAH didn't like that idea, but he agreed since he had no choice - he works out of town most of the week (with OW). He used to have Tuesday night before his "work" started taking him out of town weekly and we had to drop it so that the kids did not expect him on that day (per MC).

So here's my dilemma, I don't want him to think I can just drop everything and change my schedule for him. However, I just realized that last week, I asked him 3 days in advance if he could change his days with the kids since my family was here. Occasionally, I would ask last minute if he could take them for an extra hour. (Not often though) So... I am not practicing what I'm wanting to "preach".

The pattern with WAH is that he'll ask to do dinner on Tuesday night when he's in town. He'll either tell me the day of or the day before. Some days when he's in town, he doesn't ask and has his own plans.

After leaving the house WAH sent a text saying that 5 days notice is not "too short". How much notice do I need? Reluctantly, he said he'll make Thursday night work.

I feel like I have to do things "perfectly" so that he doesn't point fingers at me and say, well you did such and such. I think a compromise would be fair, especially since I asked him to change his schedule last minute... It doesn't make me feel better though. I struggle with setting appropriate boundaries vs just being nice and letting him have the kids when he is available.

I really don't have firm plans like I told him, but could always find something to do.