'AITA for being 'high conflict' with my ex-husband and his wife over our kids?' MAJOR UPDATE

"AITAH for being 'high conflict' with my ex-husband and his wife over our kids?"

So to start my (33f) ex Harry (35m) and I have been divorced for 6 years. We dated a bit in high school when I visited a relative in his hometown (which is a major city) for the summers but I would break up with him when I went back to my city for school which is about 2.5 hours away (not the most mature I know but even my parents were like, you don’t need a LDR before you can vote!).

We kind of kept in touch on Facebook (lol) at the time but my sophomore year of college he ended up transferring to my school. We got back together and got married basically right after I graduated and moved to my hometown/ city.

Our kids Matt (11) and Elise (8) came pretty quickly and we had a few good years before (stop me if you heard this one) I just felt as if I was already a single mom of three kids and was sick of working, doing all the childcare, and all of the cleaning/ cooking/ planning. We tried therapy but ultimately decided that it wasn’t going to work.

For three plus years it was fantastic. We had a wonderful 50/50 co-parenting relationship, he was such a better father when he had them all to himself, and I had the breaks that I had been begging for. We agreed to never badmouth the other in front of the kids or make them responsible for our feelings or anything like that.

We didn’t have to spend a fortune on a divorce because we were able to amicably work everything out, which only benefited our kiddos. In later 2022 he let me know he had gotten back together with Amy (35f). He said her name a bunch like I should know who she was, and I finally asked and apparently she was the girl he had dated when i was not in town/ before we reconnected.

I was honestly happy for him. I’m not interested in dating tbh, my kids are too young and I work a lot and have a ton of friends and family. Amy lived in his hometown and I know he visited her a lot when he didn’t have the kids (we were week on week off) but he always was there for his parenting time.

The kids met Amy and said they liked her a lot so I was happy. My parents were also divorced but found other people while still being amazing parents so I was really hopeful. But in 2023 he let me know he had proposed and would be moving back to his hometown to be with Amy.

I was pretty stunned because he was such a dedicated and present father and asked how he expected that to work. He was insistent that he wanted to keep 50/50 custody but admitted he could only do every other weekend parenting time. Before he moved we didn’t have any sort of alimony or child support or anything since we were 50/50 and split big expenses evenly.

He said he would keep splitting big expenses evenly and offered me child support since my expenses for the kids would be going up having them so much more (not that I was complaining about that!). Again, we wanted to work this out ourselves mostly, why spend money on lawyers when we have two kids who could use it!

I make a bit more than him, not that that really matters, but the first amount her offered ($400 for two kids a month) was laughable. I didn’t laugh at him or anything but told him that would not be acceptable. He said he was willing to continue paying half of big expenses (which?? Duh?) plus he’d be driving a five hour round trip since he was the one moving every other weekend.

I thought about it a LOT and figured that I am fine financially (as much as anyone is these days) and didn’t want to bankrupt him for child support. The most important thing to me was that he continued to be a present and amazing father and said I would be ok with $600 a month plus the shared big expenses. I thought he would be happy with this, but he kept grumbling that he thought $400 was more than fair.

Ultimately he agreed to $600.

Again, I really wanted to make this work for my kids so please don’t tell me I was an idiot for some of these things. I really went out of my way to be helpful, like I said I am single and have a ton of family and friends so I had more free time!

If they had things going on I never minded keeping the kids for their weekend, always encouraged the kids to be excited to go there, bought gifts from them for things like fathers/ stepmothers day/ Xmas/ birthdays (idk if I believe in love languages but if my kids have them, it is absolutely gift giving and it’s not like their a--es have jobs 🤣).

Even worked it out for my relative in their city to pick our kids up from their wedding ceremony since they had an adults only reception.

These kind gestures were never reciprocated.

I tried to brush it off and thought maybe I was just doing too much and tried to take a step back when the kids told me that some of the weekends they stayed with me Harry and Amy had gone on vacations to places like Europe and Disney!

I don’t follow them on social media obviously so I had no idea. I go on vacations too, but the idea of going on such an expensive vacation and not taking my kids sounds nuts. They’re great travelers, we actually went to Japan last summer and had a blast.

Maybe I’m an annoying parent but I couldn’t believe he’d leave the country or go to freaking Disney and not only not take the kids but not even let me know. I wanted to remain amicable but after I found that out the favors stopped and for the past few months anytime he asked me to keep them for a weekend because they had plans I’d say oh sorry same good luck.

Yes even if it was far in advance. I wasn’t trying to be petty but it wasn’t as if they were asking to switch weekends ever. It was always just SKIPPING them. I know his family is useless, no idea about hers but he should be able to make time for his children four days a month.

Then a few months ago I found out he’d been asking MY RELATIVES in his city for help (sometimes they did if they could but not always). I didn’t want to keep bothering them so I ended up saying yes to keeping the kids more (plus I obviously love them) BUT I started keeping track of every time he asked me to keep them. Over a five month period it was 5 times.

And around that time Matt had told me some pretty upsetting things and confided that he was ok staying here more. I was clear that he could tell me anything and that nothing was his fault at all. But he told me when he was at his dads:

Both he and his sister needed to be in their rooms at 8pm (keep in mind this is weekends!). Not in bed but they weren’t allowed to be in the living room or anything or have friends over.

I asked if his dad and Amy were home during these times and he said yeah, but Amy’s dog is aggressive and they keep it in their room during the day so when he and Elise go to their rooms they let the dog out so he’s not cooped up all day (I love dogs, we have two, and what the f--k?)

Elise got a bad flu a few visits ago and apparently she had asked Harry to sleep with her in her room and he refused and said he needed to sleep with Amy.

Our kids do NOT cosleep but we always let them sleep with us if they were sick and asked. I don’t expect Harry and Amy to let her sleep with them or anything (both kids are not ever allowed in their room bc of the dog) but why couldn’t he have stayed with her even if it was just until she fell asleep?

I did NOT say this to them, but told Matt and Elise that their dad had just gotten over the flu and probably just didn’t want to get her sick again which makes no sense I know I shouldn’t have lied but they were upset.

The worst IMO is that when Matt randomly told his dad he wanted to see him more he yelled at him and told him that he was seeing him a lot already and he should want his dad to be happy and not miserable and alone like his mom.

(I would like to again reiterate that I am very happy being single and have turned a lot of guys down. I prefer to spend my time with my friends and kids and can date when they’re older. I don’t like the stats on unrelated men being around kids and don’t feel the need to risk it anyways)

So between all this and the missed visits I decided that I needed to stand up for myself and my kids more. If Harry could go on European vacations he could afford more child support, and I was done keeping up the appearance of “50/50” custody when he only had the kids about 45 nights in 2024.

So I told Harry I was going to file for updated child support and primary custody, and get everything in writing and signed off by a judge. He said he was ok raising child support, he had apparently gotten a few raises since we settled it and said he would be fine with upping it to $750. First of all you got all these raises and didn’t even think to raise it yourself despite skipping almost half your agreed visitation?

And that low of an amount - I told him it was insulting and we could just let the court figure it out. He reminded me that I made much more than he did and I was like yeah that’s why I’m able to take them on vacations when apparently you couldn’t scourge up enough money to take your children to Disney world.

I know that was immature but I was pissed. He tried fighting more but I told him I didn’t intend on fighting with him outside of court and filed. Obviously because im writing this, the judge agreed to almost all of my requests. Child support was increased, I have primary custody and decision making, and it can be adjusted more if he continues skipping weekends.

TBH this has all helped me with the kids and their increasing expenses and needs tremendously. We only communicate ambit text or email and it’s only about the kids. But a mutual friend of ours told me that at a wedding recently Amy and Harry spent a bunch of time complaining about me, calling me high conflict and a parasite.

And much worse things when they drank more but I won’t repeat them. I got upset. My only goal is for my kids to have a great childhood and a present dad and I feel like I f--ked that up. My friends told me that Harry’s the one who f--ked it up but I’m really doubting myself. So AITAH for pushing my ex to do more?

The commenters did not hold back one bit.

Technical_Injury_67 wrote:

NTA you are standing up for your kids. At the end of the day that’s what you need to do. Sounds like harry likes being a dad when it suits him but now that he has Amy she is his focus and the kids take a backseat.

OP responded:

I get what you’re saying. It’s upsetting because I wanted him to be happy as I thought it would, you know, trickle down to the kids. But it hasn’t.

Grayblue_grrrl wrote:

"Amy and Harry spent a bunch of time complaining about me, calling me high conflict and a parasite. And much worse things when they drank more"

They can call you anything they like but the proof is in the pudding, as they say.

Who has full custody? Where do the kids live? Where do the kids want to be? Harry and Amy are showing their ass to the world and everyone can see it for what it is. You better be able to as well or you will be easily manipulated again. NTA.

OP responded:

Yeah they did say to our friends I blindsided him for custody and they asked if that was true and I laughed showing them the receipts. I know they are wrong but I’m worried I blew up our co-parenting relationship and it will affect my kids.

OnlymyOP wrote:

NTA. Stop worrying about what Harry and Amy think. You've been looking out for your kids as any good parent should and more importantly you're present for them .

Focus on you and your life with your children and leave your ex to mess things up for himself as he's no longer your responsibility.

OP responded:

It’s not that I give AF about their feelings - at all. But if they hate me apparently there is no way that’s good for the kids and although I cannot see where they are coming from, if they resent me it’s only going to affect Harry’s relationship with the kids.

Elehcarthefirst wrote:

NTA at all! My guess is Amy hates you and "your" kids bc Amy feels she's always the runner up with your husband. He dated her when you weren't around. He married her when you divorced. She feels like she's not his first choice and she wants to see you suffer as she feels she did. That's my guess. I have family members like her.

OP responded:

I don’t know that this is true. She told our friends that she knows I “always felt a certain way” about her and says my jealousy is why they couldn’t have been friends but I literally had no clue who she was. I knew he dated other people when we broke up but that’s fine so did i.

Shelltrice wrote:

NTA - good for you looking out for your children. You have done all you can to make this a positive. I would worry if they have children together, it is only going to get worse.

OP responded:

I knew this, but another fucked up thing is that apparently at one point Elise asked Amy if she was going to have a baby and Amy told her that she had her tubes tied, so no. But didn’t elaborate and Elise is only 8!

Like Matt would have understood but we have not had any of those kinds of talks with Elise before this and she was devastated asking me why Amy had tubes. She’s apparently always been child-free which is totally fine I have a lot of friends who didn’t and still don’t have kids. And I did talk to Elise about not asking people about things like that again.

Three days later, OP shared an update.

I’m pretty emotional now, but I think you’ve already changed my mind about offering to drop child support. I will be going for full 100% custody, though. Unfortunately, things have degenerated since my last post. To get this out of the way, I am in therapy (usually once every other month or so, it was more often closer to the divorce) and so are my kids.

I know Harry was seeing someone when he lived here, no idea if he still does.

He was supposed to have the kids next weekend as scheduled. Wouldn't you believe it, but the other day he called - they got last minute tickets to a concert out of town and asked if they kids could stay here.

I let him know that I actually had plans the entire weekend that had been set months ago, so he asked if I could either bring them or if they could stay with one of my family members in my city. I normally would have done just that and pulled out my calendar and marked this off as another missed visitation but I was just sick of it!

I told him he needed to figure it out, and NOT to call my relatives in his city. They were not his personal FREE babysitters, and he was their father so he needed to start acting like it. He got upset and said he was 'drowning.' I almost laughed but didn’t, asking him what he meant and he said he was struggling financially due to the child support and felt like I was trying to punish him for moving.

He said I was allowed to be upset we weren't together anymore, but needed to put the kids first and work with him. I couldn't believe he was saying those things, he knows why our marriage ended, he knows that I have moved mountains to make our coparenting relationship work (and I have pages of texts and emails of him thanking me for being so accommodating and sympathetic to his situation.

Some were even just a few weeks ago). I hung up, I was at work and did not have the emotional bandwidth to be lied to about this shit. He tried calling me back a few times but I had meetings and I realized I shouldn't have spoken in anger so I wanted to calm down.

He even had his wife call me a few times but I let it go to voicemail. She left a few cruel ones, nothing shocking just saying I'm bitter and jealous that Harry moved on and wanted to punish them (I want to emphasize again and I would rather cut my legs off than be back together with him, I'm the one who filed for divorce and stuck to my guns).

It's like these two live in some kind of delusion where I not only want my ex back (barf) but I have never helped them once. When I got home, I pulled the calendar for the past two years which had every missed visitation, including last minute requests all color coded accordingly.

I emailed this to both of them and said that Harry was responsible for coming up with appropriate childcare during his visitation, and that if he was finding that challenging we could look into changing the visitation schedule to something more accommodating to their busy lifestyles.

Then I left to take my kids to their sports practices. I did not hear from him. Normally Harry calls our kids every school night evening around 8pm, but he didn't that night.

I felt guilty, as I've said the only goal here is for my kids to grow up with a present father. It might have been dumb but I did call him that evening so he could say goodnight to them but he sent me to voicemail, I told the kids he had gotten caught up at work (which does happen often enough that they weren't weirded out).

At about 3am he sent me maybe the longest text in recorded history. I have my phone on sleep mode but keep his and my parent's numbers able to alert me for obvious reasons, and I'm a light sleeper so I did wake up. But I was half asleep, saw how long the text was, and decided it was a problem for the morning.

I wish I had gotten up because he ended up sending a few more.

The texts really just proved that they do not occupy the same reality as me.They were all self-centered and deranged, and even when he brought up the kids it was all about him, his wife, and their lives and feelings, saying:

It is my job as a mother to facilitate the kids relationship with him because he could have easily forced me to move to the city he's in (wtf?) but chose not to so I could stay here with my support system.

I don't thank Amy enough for 'opening her life' to the kids by keeping her dog in their room when the kids are here and giving them their own bedrooms even though they're empty much of the time.

That he and amy are 'young newlyweds' (they are neither of those things) and deserve to have that honeymoon period with trips and opportunities without me putting up roadblocks.

A lot of it was that insane belief that I am somehow jealous and have always been jealous of Amy and needed to get over that for the kids.

Apparently, my cruelty knows no bounds because I have never driven the kids to him in his new city. The court order is for him to do so since he's the one that moved (this is standard) and, no offense, I'm already FURIOUS that my kids have to spend so much time in the car every few weeks and I'm not putting miles on my car just so that he doesn't have to drive more.

At one point, because I know the kids hate the long drives, I offered to split costs for flights between our cities (which are like 30 minutes and anywhere from $50-75 per ticket, so not cheap but saves time) and he refused saying the airport in this city is 'annoying to get to.' (there is no direct Amtrak between our cities, it would be like 8 hours plus I believe).

They might just get full custody and make me be the one to jump through hoops to see my children so that I can know how they feel (you know, simply just get full custody because apparently in their world they deserve every little whim of their own desire).

Accused me of financial abuse for upping child support when I wasn't destitute. Apparently unless I'm living under the poverty line my kids don't deserve financial help from their father. I have PTO to burn and just decided to take one today because I'm so overwhelmed and upset about all of this.

YES I did screenshot all of these for my lawyer. I don't want to be the cause of my kids' father abandoning them, but I have been at and beyond my limit for so long I don't know what to do. They both treat me so horribly and make these assumptions that are just simply not true. I WANT my kids to have their dad in their lives.

I've run myself ragged making it work, taking up the slack when they dropped weekends, doing ALL of the mental heavy lifting for looking ahead and switching weekends if, for instance, father's day falls on mine or her birthday (when I know she doesn't want them around) falls on their weekend and planning ahead of time/ contacting them. I'm so done. I want to offer this: fine, you win.

No more child support. Keep all your money. You can see the kids the weekends after Christmas and Thanksgiving (those are when they celebrate the holidays anyways) and on Father's Day, but otherwise they're with me. You two can live your childfree life and me and my kids will be just fine without you. I can't keep putting up with this abuse, I'm at my breaking point.

The comments kept coming.

repthe732 wrote:

Don’t open the door to him not providing child support. You should use all the evidence you have to get more custody and also increase his child support. F--k your ex for wanting to abandon his kids and for thinking he can actually get full custody when he’s constantly bailing on his current scheduled times.

He’s delusional and thinks threatening you will get you to let him do as he pleases. The reality is his lies won’t get him anywhere and he doesn’t have the power to follow through on any of them.

OP responded:

I’ve been devastated all morning/ day. I know logically that the only way he could possibly get full custody is if I were to pass…and I can’t stop crying thinking about my kids being forced to their rooms every night at 8, never going to trips to to fun things, and living with a stepmom who can’t stand kids.

I probably shouldn’t have posted bc I’m so upset and emotionally but I’m so lost. I don’t like talking to people IRL about this other than my therapist bc I don’t want to poison them against my ex or put my problems on them but this is the only thing since my divorce I feel so alone about. I feel like I failed my kids by giving them Harry as a father.

Material_Cellist4133 wrote:

So why do you want your children to have a relationship with an ab*sive father who is choosing his wife over his children? Yes, he is ab*sive by extension of his wife’s action.

OP responded:

Outside of the internet, people harp on me how important it is that I do everything I can so he can stay in their lives, telling me not to be THAT ex wife keeping the kids from their dad. I don’t talk s--t on him to people IRL. Okay yes my very best friend and sometimes my parents but they say the same thing.

Fantastic_cow_6819 wrote:

It’s so gross that he took out his anger at you on the kids by not calling them. That is not a good dad.

OP responded:

I feel so guilty for that. They weren’t too upset or anything but I’m so mad at myself for losing my temper and then he does that to them. They’re the victims here not me I need to remember that but I’m just so defeated and feel like the worst person on the planet. 🌍

WanderingGnostic wrote:

You have a lawyer, use them. You have detailed evidence of him evading taking the kids when it is his time. Use it. Take his ass back to court, get full and permanent custody with no more visitations. You can prove to the judge he doesn't want visitation from his kids. Pull in your family members to testify about him dumping the kids on them when it's his time. Stop engaging.

Mute him unless he actually has the kids and save everything for more evidence. Speak through your lawyers or a court ordered tracking app. And you absolutely DO NOT have to engage with her, but definitely keep her messages as evidence that she and her dog are a danger to your kids. Fight smarter, not harder.

OP responded:

I know all of the legal things and my rights. I just have been told repeatedly how important it is for my kids to have their dad in their lives and don’t want to be the reason they don’t have a relationship with their father. Like I reasonably KNOW I’m not the main problem but it doesn’t make me feel any less s--ty.

PedXing23 wrote:

NTA: Except you don't have the right (morally and in many states, legally) to drop child support. Child support is to benefit the kids. If you honestly can give them the same things without child support, then put the extra money into 529 college fund for them. Talk to your lawyer about consequences for your ex's behavior.

A lot of your stress comes from bending over backwards to protect the kids' relationship with their father, I think you need to let that go. Its the dad's job to maintain the connection. They seem to hold your desire to protect that relationship as a tool. It might even give them the sense that you want him in your life.

OP responded:

I can legally drop child support since I am not on any government or welfare programs. But you’re right about the morality of it, and I already do exactly what you’re saying in your third sentence. I am seeing my therapist later. You’re right. Not more favors. I was cutting them back more and more but they’re over.