'AITA for saying no to babysitting my ex's child with his wife when she asked?'
"AITA for saying no to babysitting my ex's child with his wife when she asked?"
I (30f) have two children (11 and 8) with my ex. He's now married and he has a 3 year old... maybe a 2 year old. I forget the age of his third child but he has a child with his wife. For the last two and a half years I've had custody of our kids.
This came after a lot of messed up behavior toward our kids. Including telling our kids I had died and even recording them sobbing, leaving them with a friend of his who was high and had paraphernalia all around them and trying to force food into our younger child's mouth.
He has no visitation with our kids. There been 5 court appearances since he lost custody and we had to meet with a child advocate three times in the time since I was awarded sole custody.
His wife is not someone I know. In the six years they were together we spoke twice. The first time was before he lost custody and she accused me of trying to ruin their wedding by making him work excessively long hours to pay an unreasonable amount of child support when they were trying to get married.
The second time was after one of our meetings with the child advocate and she blamed me for him not being much of a husband to her or father to their kid because he was trying sooo hard to get his custody time back. She didn't outright say he was a lazy father but I would guess it's more of that than he's doing what he can to get visitation with them at least.
So I never expected to hear from this woman. But last week, last Tuesday actually, I was home because my kids had no school and she called me at 8:30 saying she was going for a small procedure and needed someone to watch her child until 4pm or 5pm.
She told me she had nobody else and it would be good for the kids to have some kind of contact. I told her no and I ended the call. She called me back but I didn't answer.
Wednesday, Friday and Saturday I received several texts from her asking what kind of mom I am and telling her I should be ashamed of myself for not helping in an emergency and denying the kids a chance to see each other.
I don't feel bad about it but I know this child is half sibling to my children so I acknowledge there might be some wrong on my part for not helping.
Maybe. AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Again with this. No one owes anyone babysitting. Ever. For any reason. No is a complete sentence. Low key YTA for bring this here.
Let’s be real. If she had the energy to send you five texts shaming you, she had time to call a friend, neighbor, or daycare. Being related by sperm doesn’t make you the default caregiver.
You're not the AH. You're under no obligation to help someone who has treated you with hostility, especially when it involves caring for the child of a man who lost custody due to dangerous, emotionally abusive behavior. It’s completely understandable that you wouldn’t want to be involved in anything connected to him — especially without warning or a respectful request.
Her trying to guilt-trip you after the fact only reinforces that you made the right call. Wanting to protect your peace and your kids' emotional safety doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a responsible parent.
You owe nothing to your ex or his wife, especially after everything they put you and your kids through. Her emergency doesn’t make it your responsibility.
NTA. I think what she's trying to pull here is low-key ridiculous, like expecting the OP to just drop everything and babysit her kid as a favor because their dads were married once. That's not how family ties work when there's been no real relationship or effort to connect beforehand. The wife should've thought about this before deciding to have another child.
If you had a better relationship that would be a different story but honestly I wouldn’t trust her to take this opportunity of you watching her kid to say something happened to make you look like a bad parent to help her husband get more time with the kids. NTA stay away and keep you and your kids protected.
She might be trying to set you up. You’ll watch their child and then they will accuse you of mistreating the child or something similar. Do not ever watch their child.
These people sound like leeches. NTA. They should only be contacting you about your children. Perhaps advise them to utilize their lawyer who can communicate with yours for all future contact.
Why do I have the feeling that she'll drop the child off and never come back?
Do they even know where you currently live? If not, all the more reason to avoid them finding out.
NTA, really, dodging that one was fantastic, and honestly, I'm kinda jealous because I would love to unleash my inner chaos monster and just... well, let's just say I have fantasies about leather and a really good whip, you know, purely hypothetical of course...
But I digress, it's important to prioritize your own sanity and not let someone else's drama seep into your life, my boy's just starting to hit that awkward stage where I'd rather not deal with that on top of everything else.
I'm guessing that because she said she had nobody to watch the child she had with your Ex that your Ex is now her Ex too? YNTA but would you be open to meeting her with her child at a different time/location so that the half siblings could get to know each other? Or maybe just meet with her to find out what the situation is?
You could end up being each other's support if you ever needed it - it's unlikely but you never know. You do have similar taste in blokes so there is that. No one would think any less of you if you decided to not to have this woman and child in your life. You can make the call here on how to progress here. NTA (from my perspective of the situation).