"AITA for taking and making a private matter public?"
My ex-husband and I have four children together. We are considered high conflict as we cannot agree on anything. One of those many things is that my time should be my time and his time should be his. He believes all time is his and if he let's me have my time I should be grateful to get it.
Background of the conflict: we divorce in 2023. He got married in 2023. He let me know 10 days before he was getting married that he planned to get married on my weekend that he was already aware we were going to be out of town because he had given me permission to take the kids out of state to a family function.
Long story short he guilted me and used the kids to make me feel bad about not letting them having them question me about why I didn't want their daddy to get married again so I allowed them to go.
My only requirement was he absolutely had to be on time to pick up because I was still going out of state to the family function. He was over an hour late. Ignored calls and texts. He posted on social media about being at his bachelor party. So I took the kids and left out of state. They missed the wedding.
He has never forgiven me.
Recently I got married. I planned it months in advance. I planned for my weekend and made sure the kids would be with me for the ceremony and reception so they could attend and would never interfere with his time.
He did try to interfere but it was shut down. Kids got to attend.
Recently at a function two of the children were showing off outfits from my wedding to him and went to screaming at me because it wasn't fair they missed his wedding but were at mine because I am bitter.
I was getting hate so I told the full story to everyone, his new friends AND his wife who did not know full story. Now everyone is upset. His wife is mad I never told her. I feel bad I didn't share the story before but also that I shared it at such a public event (kids' birthday). I just get tired of taking all the heat for his choices. AITA for outing all this?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Only-Breadfruit-6108 wrote:
NTA for telling your truth.
Question: how that his new wife has heard your side, with her help would you be willing to try coparent better in the future? Seems like this could be an opportunity.
OP responded:
Oh no. She dislikes me because I am married to a woman. She is afraid I will spread The Gay 🌈
Warbird979 wrote:
INFO: How did you express your side of the story? Did you resort to name calling or did you just stick to the facts?
OP responded:
At this point I stick to facts. Its taken years anf lots of therapy to get to just sticking to facts but I can now just do facts. My psychiatrist believes my ex is a narcissist based off of the stories I have told and everything he has gone over after the dv cases and the phone call threats to his office when he realized I was going and assumed they were telling me to leave him.
organic-petunias75 wrote:
NTA. What were you supposed to do? Just sit there and take his mistreatment? He was screaming at you about the kids missing his wedding at a child's party as a result of his own lack of responsibility. You merely cleared up his lies. You are under no obligation to sit by while someone lies about you - the fact he did so publicly allowed you to clear the air publicly.
forsaken_insurance92 wrote:
If he knew everyone would be upset by the truth, he shouldn't have done what he did.
OP responded:
I am sure he thought he would get sympathy because he thought I wouldn't speak up. Before I did not speak up against him because he would twist everything I said.
He is the kind of person that if I said the sky was blue he would Google a pink purple and orange sunset and prove me wrong then talk me down until I felt like crap and I let him for a long time. We were together for 14 years and married for 11. I am sure he feels like can still do those things to me.
LadyJ-78 wrote:
I'm sorry, but this is my favorite post. The karma came and smacked him squarely in the face for the world to see. He hates you more than he loves his kids or he wouldn't act this way. Hopefully he won't be able to hide behind his mask of the poor father anymore ❤️
FormerlyDK wrote:
If he’d been smart enough to have his wedding on his weekend, the kids would be there and there would have been nothing else affecting that. And whenever he makes a real AH move, feel free to make it public so everyone knows it’s not you being TA. NTA.
NHFCNFRE wrote:
It sounds to me like he might be engaging in parental alienation if he’s bringing the kids into it (especially if they’re repeating things he’s said—I truly doubt a child would come up with you being bitter, for example, without hearing it from someone else). I hope you’re taking excellent notes.
swirlyflurry wrote:
NTA. The people who always say “don’t air dirty laundry in public” are inevitably the people who did the horrible thing that they don’t want others knowing about.
If your ex didn’t want people knowing about x, he shouldn’t have done x! It’s not on you to protect his reputation.