"AITA for not supporting my ex with our kids?"
I (40f) was married to Mike (44m) for almost 10 years. We’ve been divorced for 6.5 years. We have three kids, 17m 14m and 11f. During our marriage, he chose to work overnight shifts because he didn’t like getting up early.
Mike insisted that I be a SAHM until they were old enough to be in school full time. I did, which was stupid, but beneficial for them and us financially. So he missed a lot of our kids childhood and activities.
He didn’t have a substantial bond to our youngest and since we’ve been split up, it’s been nonexistent. Child support has been a nightmare, as he makes nearly 3 times as much as I do annually and his monthly support payments barely cover any of the kids expenses let alone anything else.
I don’t get alimony. During mediation, we agreed that the kids should not have to sacrifice what they did or what they were accustomed to prior to our split just because we were no longer together, so the agreement is that extracurriculars are split 50/50.
Prior to child support being court ordered, I covered all of their extracurriculars with no help from what little savings I had. This included elite competition cheer, travel baseball and year round wrestling.
Here’s the problem: My 14m and 11f don’t have a relationship with their father at all, while my 17m has a somewhat cordial relationship with him. Mike would bad mouth me in front of them, make outrageous/false claims about me and blame me for basically everything that was wrong in his life.
He doesn’t know how to parent in general and definitely not to a girl. Mike texted her and said if she wanted to cheer, she would have to ask him directly for his half of the money.
She texted him back saying that makes her uncomfortable but he insisted. So she set up a shortcut/automated message that asks for the money on the 28th of every month.
Today he wrote back and asked if she planned on talking to him or only asking for money, which she replied “u are forcing me to do this after I said I was uncomfortable”. He then demanded to take her out and she said she would only go if her older brothers went too because again she is uncomfortable.
She doesn’t know him, has had two 3 hr visits with him across 6.5 years even though he lives 20 minutes away. He’s made no attempts to see her or build a relationship with her which I made very clear to him.
Mike asked if I would support him on forcing her to go out with him, which I told him no. He then accused me of keeping my children from him. How? He had temper tantrums, bad mouthed me and attempted to break into my home which reasonably scared my children.
They didn’t want to be around his brand of crazy and I don’t blame them. Because of all this and the fact that our daughter made it clear that she’s uncomfortable being alone with him, I can’t in good conscience support the way he’s doing this and trying to force her into a relationship. So AITA?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
NTA. But you need to get the legal system after him. He is bullying your daughter for money he agreed to pay in child support. Sounds like the court needs to reassess how much he should be paying you at the bare minimum. Kids are old enough to decide what they want from their relationship. But regardless of what they choose, he needs to support his children.
Nta at all and I love that she automated her request. But you should take him back to court since he’s making his mandates support contingent on things not included in the court order.
V_annem (OP)
I was just impressed that she knew how to do that lol
You can both be impressed at her cleverness at building defense mechanisms against her dad and disgusted that she has to in the first place. Only being proud of her cleverness in protecting herself is not enough. You are supposed to be protecting her, too.
V_annem (OP)
I feel that I have been protecting her for all 11 years. I’ve made it clear that she has the control, as I would not allow her or any of my children to be in a position of discomfort or being bullied by an adult.
Take this back to court with all the documentation you can find. Have them enforce child support, including the split for activities. Have them address his attempts at parental alienation and breaking into your house. Get rules in place to protect your daughter if she is uncomfortable seeing him.
NTA, but you should find out what your legal rights and responsibilities are if she doesn't want to go when he has custody time, because you don't want to get in trouble for keeping the kids from him.
NTA, but is it possible for you to go back and revise your custody/support agreement? This doesn't seem remotely proportionate to your means.
NTA. Please, for the love of all that is good and right, take this fool to court. This guy makes THREE TIMES what you do. Ask the Friend of the Court to re-evaluate everything: child support, whether alimony should have been awarded, visitation rights & schedule, health insurance coverage, EVERYTHING.
NTA. I don't know the laws where you live but in some places he might accuse you of parental alienation, I'm not suggesting you're guilty of this at all, but you might want to document times you have coordinated him having access to the kids or something, just to cover your bases in case.
You sound like you're doing everything right. Parental relationships are built through parenting. Also he's acting like a child.