OnDivorce Messageboard

My boyfriend is currently going through divorce proceedings. He has 2 children aged 4 and 8 with his ex wife to be and is finding things difficult with regards to the access with his children.

Prior to his ex wife to be knowing that he was dating someone, she was quite happy with daily access to his children. He works shift work and when he was on lates, he would pick up the kids and take them to school every day, if he was on earlies, he would pick up the kids and have them for a few hours every day until Mum came home from work. He also used to have them every sunday.

Now since his ex has found out, she's said that she only wants him to have the kids every sunday and the daily access has stopped. They've worked out a routine whereby he's reasonably happy with access, obviously he'd like more but with his job it's difficult.

Sorry, I digress the problem is now since the daily contact has been cut the children are more reluctant to go with him. He knows for a fact that his ex is not exactly making it easy for the kids to see him, sometimes she'll mention a treat just before him visiting or she'll have his youngest son in his pj's when he picks them up at 5.30p.m. He then equates pj's with bedtime and bedtime with twiddling with his mum's hair so he's reluctant to go. But when he does go, by the time he's in the car he's perfectly happy. He's just had a text from his ex saying his daughter who's 8 has just said she doesn't want to stay with him tomorrow night, which will probably mean his 3yo son won't either and he's very upset.

Now I'm wondering what steps my boyfriend can take to try stop this from happening?? He's feeling extremely guilty about "forcing" contact with the kids, yet I'm thinking that you can't let children dictate access. I realise it's a very fine balancing act here and would really appreciate a few pointers from more experienced members of the board.

Many, many thanks