Hello everyone!

I'm brand new here and I'm seeking advice on parenting time scheduling conflicts. 

My SO (30m), has four children by two women. He has a son, 9, from his first marriage, and two daughters (8 and 6) and a second son (3) from his second marriage. He is still legally married to his second wife, and is pending a divorce.

There is no formal custody/parenting/support agreement with his first ex-wife, BM1, regarding his oldest child. They are relatively cordial and handle matters between them (mostly) satisfactorily without the Court’s intervention. Of course, it’s not all rainbows and sunshine, but it’s ok.

Then there’s the second wife… SO filed for divorce a year ago, and the matter is still pending, and it is a contentious situation. One source of contention is how parenting time should be decided. SO works 4 days on and 2 days off, from 6 AM to 2 PM, and I work a normal M-F 8-4 gig. With his 4 on 2 off rotation, SO only gets one typical weekend (a Saturday and Sunday, combined) off every six weeks, and that’s assuming the one weekend doesn’t fall on his National Guard weekends. It sucks, and a lot of this issue could be mitigated if he had a normal M-F job, I’m sure...I think.

SO’s second (soon-to-be) ex-wife, BM2, works as driver for Grub Hub. This allows a decent amount of flexibility in her schedule. I’m not sure how much she actually works, as she has never provided (nor has been asked for) paystubs. She once told me that she makes ~$30/hour, so who knows what her financial situation looks like.

Earlier this year, before parenting time could be hammered out by attorneys, I expressed my concern to SO about how he is expected to have all of his children during the entirety of his days off from work, leaving no time for him to pick up any overtime, and no time without obligations/responsibilities on his scheduled days off. My request was that he just allot for one day/night during his 2 days off to be able to do what he wants/we want to do. He verbally agreed at the time and demonstrated that he felt the request was reasonable and possible.

In theory, I was hoping the schedule to look something like this:

Monday – work 1st of 4 rotation;
Tuesday – work 2nd of 4 rotation and have kids in the evening until 8:30 PM;
Wednesday – work 3rd of 4 rotation;
Thursday – work 4th of 4 rotation and have kids stay the night;
Friday – off from work and kids stay until 8:30 PM that evening, until being dropped back off to their mothers;
Saturday – he is off work and free to work overtime/run errands/take a trip/have adult alone, quality time, whatever;
Sunday – back to work to begin the 4-day rotation.

This (ideal) parenting schedule would ensure that he has at least one overnight with them every six days, and they’d still spend three or four days and/or evenings in our care. (Keep in mind, the oldest three children are in school and the youngest stays home). The 8:30 PM drop off would allow homework to be done and dinner to be fed before returning to their mothers’. I felt this was fair considering how much child support he’d have to pay to BM2. Maybe this idea of “fairness” was my first mistake.

In reality, the schedule currently plays out like such:

Monday – work 1st of 4 rotation, pick up oldest child from school and have him until ~6 PM;
Tuesday – work 2nd of 4 rotation, pick up three oldest kids from school and then pick up youngest from BM2’s, and have all kids in the evening until he drops them off to their mothers’ at 8:30 PM;
Wednesday – work 3rd of 4 rotation, pick up oldest child from school and have him until ~6 PM;
Thursday – work 4th of 4 rotation, pick up three oldest kids from school and then pick up youngest from BM2's, and have all kids stay the night;
Friday – off from work and all kids stay the night;
Saturday – off from work and all kids are with us until 8:30 PM that evening, until being dropped back off to their mothers;
Sunday – back to work to begin the 4-day rotation.

This allows no time to himself/ourselves, except for a couple of evenings during the work week, from ~6 PM to bedtime. I logically understand that this concept of “alone time” is not something that would naturally occur if we shared these children or if he had primary custody of them, so I partially feel ungrateful that I’m complaining when we at least have a couple of evenings alone.

On the flip side, I know that these children’s mothers’ (more so BM2 than BM1, as BM1 has two other small children besides SO’s oldest child) get time to themselves to do whatever their heart’s content, often times for 50 plus consecutive hours. For example, SO had all of his children from 4:30 PM on Friday, 11/24, until 9:00 PM on Sunday, 11/26. This was not due to it being a holiday weekend, it was just because of his normal work rotation schedule. So BM2 had 52.5 hours, the ENTIRE weekend, to do whatever she wanted, with no obligations/responsibilities. I hope she utilized the time to work, but who knows.

Although SO originally agreed to the parenting time arrangement I proposed, he flipped the script on me one day without warning. He and BM2 had already had quite a few arguments about the idea of him not having the kids the entire time he is off of work, and I felt like he just caved into her pressure. His reasoning was, “I don’t think it’ll be that bad. I have vacation time from work that we can use to do stuff together, alone.” I was crushed, confused, and felt like he chose to appease her just to keep the peace. Her reasoning was that the proposed schedule left her no time to work. Not sure exactly how that math checks out but whatever.

Now, anytime SO wants/needs to work overtime during his 2 days off (which is not very often, although he could really use the extra funds), I am left to watch the kids, as he doesn’t want to rock any boats with BM1 or BM2, and he would much rather just “figure it out on his own” and not rely on his exes for assistance with childcare during his scheduled parenting time. Part of me is ok with this idea of being alone with the kids while he works, as I want to be a team player in our relationship and want to be a partner to him. However, I made conscious choices throughout my life that ensured that I did not have children to raise. I went as far as having my tubes tied at age 30, and here I am 2.5 years later, with 4 kids who I feel partially responsible for and no authority over what happens with them.

I’m willing to help with the kids, even if I don’t necessarily love being a babysitter. But now I’m feeling as if I’m almost being taken advantage of, as the parenting time schedule I originally proposed (and that SO agreed to) was blatantly disregarded. Why should I be so willing to bend my work schedule or use my time off from work, be responsible for providing transportation/care to these kids so that he can work overtime, when he wasn’t willing to give me one day of his two days off?

I’m willing to provide more context if it’d help with any advice I could get. I don’t know if I’m the a*hole here or not, and I’d like to figure it out asap. Of course, my therapist told me that I knew what I was getting into with this relationship and that I need to basically just let him do whatever he pleases, and my wants/desires are essentially irrelevant. I’ve tried to adopt that attitude, but I’m really struggling with feeling like BM2’s/BM1's time/desires are more important to SO than mine are.

Please help.

-Through Thick & (Spread) Thin

TLDR: I asked my man to have a parenting time schedule that allows him one day a week without having to work or have his children. At first, he agreed, despite his ex's objections. But then he decided one day that he would comply with her demands, and my request for one day alone with him was null and void. Now I'm expected to provide childcare whenever he wants to work overtime that conflicts with his scheduled parenting time, and I'm wondering if I'm being taken advantage of (considering I asked that he have one day off without them), or if I'm just an a*hole that shouldn't feel entitled to a luxury of time without the kids while he's off work.