'I am debating leaving my partner over her co-parenting relationship. Is my perspective skewed?'

"I (37M) am debating leaving my partner (36F) over her co-parenting relationship. Is my perspective skewed?"

I (37M) have been with my partner (36F) for around 1 year. She has been separated from her ex-husband for about 1.5 years. They co-parent 2 children ages 5 and 12. I am starting to resent her for, in my opinion, lack of managing her co-parenting relationship. TLDR at bottom.

Her ex-husband is rather high-conflict. Very quick to react when he does not get his way. Yells, curses, the whole deal. My partner is one to very much try and keep the peace, however I feel as if she does this at her own detriment. For starters their divorce is yet to be finalized. They have a no contest divorce, therefore the process should be straightforward and easy.

In the beginning this did not bother me, however their divorce should and could have been finalized months ago. She keeps telling me her ex-husband is handling it as he paid the fees for an attorney to draft the divorce papers and she should get papers in the mail "any day", but this has been the story for months.

I have voiced my concern over this as I feel like she should be pushing this along for finalization as well as the simple fact that it is beginning to bother me. My biggest issue here is her not addressing the issue with her ex-husband. While their custody is 50/50, my partner performs all custody handoffs.

She even drops items off for their kids on weeks / days her ex has them. He works early AM with 2 days on and 3 days off and it is not uncommon for her to wake up at 4am in order to pick up their kids so he can get ready for work. In my opinion, she should either keep their kids on the days he works early or he should drop them off on the way to his shift.

My partner quit her job as a sever a few months ago as this would take away a lot of the nights she would spend with her kids on the weeks she had them. I encouraged her to do this and offered to pay her bills for a few months while she got her substitute teaching license squared away.

She now her license and is able to teach. During the week she has her kids she is only able to teach at one of their schools in order to perform school pickup. On weeks she doesn't have her kids, she could teach at any school, however due to her ex seeming to always need help with school pickups, even on his off days, she can still only really teach at her kids school.

Substituting at only two schools really limits the amount of available work. Again, my issue is the lack of honest, transparent communication with her ex about how they can resolve these issues so she can work and provide as well. I have again voiced my concern in him being able to dictate when she can work.

Overall, I feel that she does not have a voice within her coparenting relationship. She views everything she does as "taking care of he kids" while I view it as her being taken advantage of. I understand coparenting is hard. I have a 6 year old myself, however my coparenting relationship is different. We respect each other and do what we can to help each other out within reason.

I know that I should not compare my coparenting to hers, however that is difficult when they are so drastically different. My partner is overall wonderful. Very caring, genuine, and kind. I love her very much but I am starting to really resent her for not managing her coparenting relationship when it causes her financial and mental stress.

TL;DR: I am starting to resent my partner due to her not managing her coparenting relationship and always wanting to keep the peace.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

WeeklyConversation8 wrote:

She was only separated, not divorced, for six months and you thought it was a good idea to date her? Why? She has to co-parent with her ex like it or not. Her kids come first. She's trying and he's making it difficult. High conflict exes always make things difficult. She shouldn't be dating anyone right now.

She needs to focus on getting divorced and getting all communication done through a parenting app the court monitors. Break up with her and either don't date single Moms or only ones who have divorced for a while and have a good co-parent relationship with their ex.

Affectionatebite3827 wrote:

So let's see here: She was freshly separated when you started dating (six months is not much in the grand scheme of a whole marriage that produced two children) Her STBX is high-conflict (and I'm betting was high-conflict during their marriage at best, full on dangerous at worst).

She has changed careers. Yeah this is a whole mess. I'm sure you're both nice people and I don't think single parents have to remain celibate and give up any semblance of a personal life forever, but she has no business being in a serious-ish relationship when she has so much going on that needs to be sorted.

Her kids can't be doing great with all the back-and-forth and conflict.

It's great you have a perfect coparenting relationship but she and her STBX and you and your ex are not the same people (and may have had vastly different circumstances surrounding your separation).

laundry-wizard wrote:

My partner has a crappy coparenting relationship with her ex and often does a lot of “extra” parenting when it’s not her time. They do 50/50, 7 days on 7 days off, but at least once or twice a week her ex’s transportation (his mom) bails and can’t drop the kid off to school.

In these situations, he tells my partner that he has to keep kiddo home from school because he doesn’t have a ride, unless she comes and does drop off/pickup. She’d love to tell him to go pound sand, but their kid is the one who ends up suffering.

I always say that the hardest part of being a step parent is dealing with the co parent. My partner’s ex and her ex’s mom are two of the craziest people I have ever met, and they make our lives hell.

Every time my stepson comes home from their house he has a horrible attitude and it takes a couple of days to get him back into a routine again. Unfortunately if you date someone with kids, you might end up having to deal with a toxic coparent.

raerae1991 wrote:

You are witnessing coercive control, Financial and economic mistreatment by her ex. You think if she stands up for herself that abuse will go away. You are wrong in that assessment.

Things will escalate if she does that and continue till he finds another victim/relationship to distract him, and even then there’s no guarantee it’ll stop. What I’d suggest is she get her own lawyer and have him deal with her ex, including him not complying with 50/50, pickup and everything else.