'AITA if I stop all of the favors I’ve been doing for my ex since he has refused the one favor I asked?'
"AITA if I stop all of the favors I’ve been doing for my ex since he has refused the one favor I asked?"
This is kind of sweaty, but my (30f) ex husband Greg (38m) and I have two kids - Louisa (9) and Ted (7). We divorced over 5 years ago and coparent very well, the divorce was because I was happy with our two children but he wanted more, and even therapy didn't help.
We have had basically no issues, there's no child support (we're 50/50), have never had issues having the kids if the other parent has something come up, and understand that it's just about making sure their lives aren't too disrupted.
Greg remarried Tessie (38f) four years ago and they have another child, a boy, and another about to make their appearance in this world in a few weeks. I am marrying my fiancé Luke (36m) in February, we've been together for about 3 years and he's known my kids for 2, we moved in together last year.
We have a group chat, but aren't overly friendly or anything - we only talk about the kids and keep it pretty lighthearted. Our only 'rules' with the other datings is that we would introduce our partners to the other before they met the kids, which went great with both of them.
When Tessie and Greg married, I obviously kept the kids an extra week for their honeymoon, and again for my actual week so they could settle in (they didn't live together before they got married).
When they had their first baby, I kept our kiddos for about a month (but brought them over a few times to see their new brother obviously) so they could settle in since it was Tessie's first baby.
A few weeks ago at one of Lacie's games, Tessie told me the date her c-section was scheduled for, which is in the middle of their custody week. I told her we were excited for them and of course I could keep them that week and my following week, and we could go back to normal their next custody period.
She kind of hemmed and hawed and asked if we could keep them for another custody week to give them a month again to get used to things. I said that was fine, I didn't expect them to need that much time for their second baby.
But, c-sections are major surgeries and I said I'd be happy to keep the kid. They don't live far from us so bringing them over to hang out won't be too out of my way and of course I love having my kids with me.
Anyhoo, we've finalized our plan for our honeymoon, which is 3 weeks. I know it seems excessive but it's something on both of our bucket lists, but not something the kids would be too interested in, and the honeymoon seems like the best opportunity to do it.
Basically what would happen would be that we'd get married on Saturday (my week), the kids would stay with Greg that night and stay for his week, then they would keep them for our week and their next week.
So they'd have them for one of my custody weeks plus one extra evening. I don't have family around, my parents died young, grandparents before them, and the aunt and uncle who helped raise me retired to New Mexico (3 hour plan ride + 2 hour drive at min).
I have friends who have watched the kids before, but I didn't see a single issue with asking Greg to keep them for a week since it seems like there's a bit of precedent. I texted him the general plan and emailed him a more detailed one with locations, days, times etc so he could know where we were/ how to contact us if there was an issue.
I thought all was well and good, but they never responded until a few days later they emailed me what Luke and I jokingly now refer to as The Manifesto. It was long, rambling, repetitive, and still somehow partially written by ChapGPT. The gist of it was:
What kind of mother on a three week vacation without her kids? I'm a terrible person in general for asking a young mother to have her step kids full-time for three weeks while I go and enjoy myself (they/ she kept calling Tessie a young mother, I think she means mother of young kids and I know it's not the point but it kept annoying me. Also it wouldn't be alone with her - Greg would obviously be there)
I am a horrible coparent for asking them to have the kids for three straight weeks while their kids are so young (their newest baby will be 6 months old by then, by the way.)
Apparently it's all well and fine that Luke and I don't want anymore kids (he has had a vasectomy and known he didn't want kids of his own for a while), but we'd better not think that gives us permission to 'dump' Louisa and Ted on them to galavant around (I don't think I've ever galavanted in my entire life!)
We needed to figure our own weeks out ourselves, this was not life or death and it was ridiculous to ask them. I got petty after this, especially them acting as if we are constantly 'dumping' the kiddos on them, so I went through the last four years of texts and made a spreadsheet of how many times either of us has asked the other to keep the kids and the duration on an excel sheet.
While we both have made these requests, they have done so for 87 nights (52 times) vs me 12 nights (8 times). Obviously, this makes sense since they have a baby, and I didn't send it to them or anything, but it was good to know I'm not crazy.
My friends say I should tell them that, fine, I won't keep them during their custody time after their new baby comes. I'm not going to do that. I love my kids and want to see them as much as I can! But I do a lot extra for them, just some examples:
I (sometimes Luke if he's off work) pick the kids up every single day after school, and on Greg's custody weeks I drop them off at their house since he doesn't get off until 5 so that Tessie doesn't have to take the baby out to pick them up (keep in mind that she does not work anymore)
Our divorce decree says that whoever's week it is must drop the kids off at the other parent's house, but I've been doing all of the back and forth for a while again because they have a kid and because it's not THAT far (5 minute drive, 20 minute walk if it's nice).
I take the kids to all of their appointments, do all of the school parent stuff during the day, etc since I have a super flexible schedule and Greg's isn't, he would need to use PTO for all of this stuff.
We usually split health insurance per the divorce decree, they're on his work's insurance but since I take them to all of their appointments etc I pay all of the copays. I keep a tally just in case I would end up owing him money (and I know what he pays towards the premiums), and in the past it was minimal, but our daughter unfortunately has Type 1 diabetes which has gotten pretty expensive.
It wasn't killing me, but Greg mentioned how tight money was once when I was bringing it up and I decided that it's not affecting my life, our daughter needed it, so I've been letting it go.
Their son has been in the process of being diagnosed with autism, and has pretty bad meltdowns (this is all I know from Greg), so they call me pretty frequently to see if I can come and get the kids for a few hours if things are overwhelming.
Of course I love my kids and spending time with them, but I've had to cancel plans for this and they have not cared. Greg was in an accident and has been using my old car (I got a new one and hadn't sold the old one yet, it's not worth a ton or anything) for the past 7 months, with no effort to replace it.
Greg travels sometimes for work, and they (greg and the kids) have a cat over there. Normally Louisa would take care of the litter box if Greg was traveling, but since her diagnoses and until we get her labs/ health under some form of control, we BOTH agreed that we don't want her messing with it (they let the cat go outside during the day).
Since Tessie has been pregnant she said she shouldn't have to, and Ted is a little young (he tried, failed, now he 'helps' lol), so I've been doing it. Anyway, these are all benefits for them that I'm going to inform them are ending.
I won't go back on my word to have the kiddos after she has her c-section, but the absolute gall of them to not do the one thing that I have asked of them (and that I've done for them!) have brought me to this.
Most of my friends say I'm not going far enough, but a few have said that it might cause a breakdown in our coparenting relationship, which would affect the kids. That's really the only thing I care about, so now I'm hesitant.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Honestly, I would send an email with the spreadsheet (pretty bad ass imo) and let them know that you don’t appreciate their ungrateful attitude and that you are more than happy to go by the parenting agreement forward. People want to be petty and ungrateful & so do I. Lol
Life_of_the_PartyXO (OP)
I just feel like the best thing for my kids is to have a good coparenting relationship, my friends parents were divorced and they did NOT get along and made her childhood miserable.
It’s not their fault we didn’t work out and I want to do everything I can to make their lives not that much harder. But I agree I need to stop being so accommodating. It will be a horrible wake up call and I just don’t want them to make my kids lives worse.
So I had to be the person to tell you this hon, but will you have is not a good coparenting relationship. What you have is two people who are running rough shot all over you and using you to make their lives easier and to skimp out on the care that your ex-husband should be offering to his children to make their lives easier.
I think the best thing to do would be to send them an email attach the Excel sheet that you have and let them know since they feel so strongly about sticking to the parenting schedule and people skimping out on the care/dumping (that dumping wording really upset me) the children.
The best thing to do moving forward is to stick to the letter of the parenting plan since it seems that that’s what they rather do starting immediately, which means that the previous times that you’ve agreed to cover in the future are no longer on the table no matter what.
They need care of the children your ex-husband had because he cannot have children, get remarried, have more children and then pretend he doesn’t have a duty to care to the rest of the children.
NTA. Don't let anyone walk over you. They said you were dumping the kids on them when they were doing exactly the same.
Life_of_the_PartyXO (OP)
I just hated the word dumping as if my kids aren’t a delight to be around (I mean for their parents, I’m not one of those crazy moms or anything I just can’t imagine saying they were dumped on me)
Send the spreadsheet and explain since they can’t help you out you are no longer helping them out. If you don’t stand up for yourself now BEFORE the birth of their second baby then you lose traction. Think your husband has to have surgery or his parents become ill, they will not help out with the kids. Stop this right now to show it goes both ways.
Why does he get to be an AH and not help, please do not be “nice” as someone older then you you will end up regretting not standing up for yourself ( most women will tell you the same) and cancelling the post birth taking the kids for a month as they will not learn their lesson.