thank you for all of your kind advice - I am going to take it easy for a couple of months and see what happens - I think we are all a bit stressed at the moment.


Thanks again!

I understand your dilemma, having encountered this myself. It's rarely ever straightforward.
The thing to consider is whether your ex-husband is like this generally - ie: always putting your needs second to his and lying to manuipulate the situation to his advantage.
Even if he is like this, he may well still need you to be flexible at the moment to enable him to hang on to his job. If you are in a situation where you rely on him to be in work to pay you maintenance and so on, then being flexible helps you as much as it helps him.
The key thing is to get yourself to a point where you are not relying on him for childcare for your respite time. Do you have any family or freinds who could help out (freinds in similar situations may be happy to 'swap' overnights as they benefit equally)?
If he is the manipulative type, and he is doing this as a 'power trip', then the above appraoch will remove his motive to behave that way.
If he isnt that type and he is simply struggling to keep his head above water like rather alot of people at the moment, then this approach helps all concerned.
I hope this helps.

no it wouldn't be difficult I suppose its more that I don't want to be a muppet and taken walked all over. Tough to know if he wants flexibilty because he needs it or wants it because he feels he can ride roughshod over my plans...

can I ask if he is ok in every other respect? it sounds like he is just needing flexibility from those close to him at a tough time. Can I ask if you work? Is it difficult for you to be flexible?

Hi
My ex looks after our children every other weekend but he has recently started swapping the weekends around. This really messes me about because I obviously plan other stuff on the weekends that aren't "mine". He claims this is due to work and that he can't help it (he is very stressed at the moment and is worried about losing his job) but I still feel a bit as though that shouldn't be taking my time. In other respects he is a good "ex" in that he pays maintenance etc.

Advice please? I don't want to be unreasonable!