Postby ally30_1998 » Thu Mar 26, 2009 11:05 am
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.