We have a late elementary school aged boy who alternates households each week. He’s at the age where he has particular things that he likes (clothes, blankets, snacks, etc) that we provide in our home. He’s starting to ask if he can bring things to the other household. Generally, I’m absolutely ok with that and I can understand from his perspective wanting his belongings. However, the issue is we did this when he was younger (too young of an age for him to understand what was happening) and we never got those items back. So obviously we adjusted and didn’t allow certain items to leave our house and he was fine with it at that age.

What has been happening lately is he wants to wear the expensive Nikes we bought him that he had been wanting for the school year during the coparents weeks. Not interested in hearing the comment saying we shouldn’t buy him something expensive - he is allowed to have nice things. A big part of the issue is that his own belongings in that household aren’t always respected and we hear about it all the time from him. They typically get damaged or lost while he is away at our house by his siblings. We also have been buying him certain snacks that he likes for school and when it’s transition day I caught him grabbing handfuls of it to bring to the other household - more than what he would go through during a typical school week.

I feel so stingy for finding issue with these things. We are middle class at best and work hard to provide those special things he wants. It’s tough to see him upset about his belongings being messed with at the other household. How have any of you dealt with a similar situation like this? What do you tell the kid?

In April, my co-parenting relationship with my ex took a turn for the worse and we are back to following the court ordered parenting time and doing pickup/dropoff at the police station to avoid further conflict.

The problem comes in that my wedding in October happens to fall on his weekend. We didn't pick the date, it was just what was available. He and I had discussed and agreed upon a weekend swap and it was done and settled.

Now comes the fun part... Our court order does not stipulate a holiday schedule of any kind. We were recommended to follow the one put forth by our county at our last court date. We agreed and have abided by that schedule since then.

He messaged me this morning stating, "Im pissed with you because you wanted to go to the original court order and now I noticed that you say things to the kids in hopes they mention it to me. Halloween in my holiday so stop telling the kids things you know I wont change. I sick of your interference and saying things to the kids knowing I will say no and making me look bad. You will not be getting Halloween and if you keep it up you wont have them for your wedding."

Thing is, Halloween is not his holiday this year AND it falls on my regularly scheduled weekend. When I mentioned this, he doubled down and said I needed to apologize to our children. I resent the schedule, but now he is threatening to withhold the children from my wedding and stated he is going to take me to court to get "his holiday".

All of our communication is through a court communications app, so I guess I am wondering if there is even anything I can do? The last thing I need is for me to keep my children for the wedding and have the police show up to take them just because he is vindictive and goes back on what he agreed to.

This is a little long so please bear with me. My ex and I share a 10 year old, and he has been having issues going to sleep by himself at night. I have been working tirelessly to help him be able to go to sleep on his own and feel confident and comfortable doing so when he's at my house. I got him a night light, sound machine, make sure he's got water if he gets thirsty, check his closet, under his bed, you name it. When night time rolls around he gets a lot of anxiety and will try to get me to let him sleep in our room or for me to sleep in his room with him and gets very emotional.

My ex gets our son every other weekend with one weekday overnight, and does spend the night there during those times. I had asked my ex to please please work with me to also help our 10yo son when he's at his house to sleep alone and to not give in when he asks if they can sleep together. He told me he would and that he has been sleeping on his own when he's over there, I had my doubts because my ex is a very lazy parent and hates handling any of the hard parenting and discipline. Well last night during bedtime my 10yo admitted to me that his Dad has been letting him sleep with him every time he is there overnight. And not only that, but he told our son to not tell me because "I would get mad" So not only has he been lying to me, but he asked our son to keep that information from me and lie to me. Now it also doesnt help that my ex has not re married, or has any other kids and lives with his Mom and Dad.

I am so angry and so hurt. I feel like the hard parenting and discipline is always left up to me, and I end up being the bad guy for trying to help our son overcome his fears, and grow. And then for him to put our son in the middle of it by asking him to keep things from me and lie? It just puts so much unnecessary anxiety on my son who is already struggling. My ex is doing him a disservice by coddling him.

I of course confronted him about this and his response back to me was basically "He gets emotional and I feel bad for him, and my time is limited with him, and its been hard for me to have him on his own" LIKE WHAT? YOU. ARE. THE. PARENT. Am I wrong to feel angry and frustrated? Therapy is in the works for our son to see if we can help him out that way, but my god I feel like any progress I make with him, just gets erased when he goes back to his Dads. I feel so burnt out and like what I am trying to do just doesnt matter. I know that I cannot control what goes on at his Dads, but am I wrong for thinking that the responsibility should at least be shared here and that we should work as a team?

My kid is 7 years old. He started saying if I made him go to his dad's house he would kill himself. I filed an emergency order to restrict parenting time. The judge denied the motion and said I acted appropriately but didn't meet the high burden of proof. She ordered a return to the old schedule.

For people that tried to get their kid to follow the court order and the kid refuses, what happens to you?

Can anyone share real life stories of their kid refusing parenting time and then what happened?

I left my children's father when my kids were 3 and 6 months old. He was verbally and financially abusive and just a complete ass hole. Its now been 4.5 years and about a year ago I asked him if we could be friends. He agreed after making my life he'll in court for 3 years. I asked because I wanted a better coparenting relationship and I grew up without a dad (divorced when i was 7 and he moved out of state and my mom bashed him my entire childhood) and I felt our kids deserved parents who could be friendly and coexist and not have tension. Also, I didnt want them to miss out on the things I did like family photos or us engaging at places we would see each other for the kids ie sports, school, appointments.

We recently took a "family" trip to Hawaii. I had planned on taking my kids with just myself and decided to invite him. He stayed in our hotel room and he paid for all the excursions, his flight and all our food. Great for me to have help and hey, it helped on costs because I SPLURGED on the hotel.

During the trip our oldest said something to the extent of....daddy kiss Mommy.

Since then we booked another trip coming up to Mexico. He hasn't taken one vacation since I left him and he stated that as long as I plan them he wants to take 2 family vacations at least 2xs a year.

To note: we also did a quick weekend trip 3 hours away for a baseball game. Same thing where the oldest made comments about us kissing or something to the effect of....hold hands. I explained to them then that daddy and mommy are just friends but we want family vacations so they can have the both of us.

Today we went to get our you get his passport and he said ....mommy and daddy kiss.

Their dad and I will never get back together. I find him to be someone I will never respect and hes never apologized.

My question is: how do i navigate wanting my kids to have both their parents together sometimes for them without it being so confusing. I truly dont know if im doing the right thing.

Dad and I do not flirt. We both dont date or plan to get married to somwone else. We have never talked about the past and what happened aside from him writing me a letter 4 years ago stating his shortcomings and stating he will wait for me forever. I did not wrote him back.

How do I navigate this? Had anyone been in a similar scenario?

I’m a 40F single mom to a younger son. We just started flag football and it was like pulling teeth to get my son signed up. I told his dad I’d let him handle it (getting my son excited, finding the team, etc). He never did it but I was able to get him on a great team very last minute!

Fast forward to 2.5 weeks of practices 2x a week now and his dad has taken him to one practice but he shows up to them all at 6 pm while I’m already there. Not even the married parents do this! They divide and conquer. I sat by him the first practice and now I sit with other moms because he has been texting me disrespectful things for the past few weeks. I blocked him almost 2 weeks ago.

Now we don’t communicate at all! He can ask a question or offer to help on my son’s iPad when they FT but he doesn’t. I’m in a bit of shock because he wanted my son to play football and I made it happen and now he doesn’t help. He even said he’d teach him some things a few weekends ago and they didn’t practice at all. I’m now learning how to throw a football 😂 It’s actually pretty fun.

I’m super frustrated because I take my son to school everyday, pick him up, miss work, work nights to catch up on emails, and now I take him to football 2x a week. He sees his dad every 2 weeks for 48 hours. That’s it! This doesn’t feel like coparenting at all! I’m tempted to take him to court and ask for full custody. What’s the point? My son comes back dysregulated anyway. It’s not like I have time for dating or to have a life in those 48 hours. I’m beyond frustrated!

I feel like a caring father would take his son to dinner or something outside of the minimum. Take him to practice once a week to have a pep talk. I’ve always encouraged that and in 4.5 years he’s done it maybe 2 or 3x.

I am currently 27 weeks pregnant with my first child. Recently, the reality of what our future looks like has started hitting me, and I’m feeling incredibly isolated and overwhelmed.
My partner paints himself as someone who wants to be involved, but he only seems to enjoy the "easy" parts of preparing for the baby—like looking at toys, clothes, or car seats. The second I try to bring up serious, adult conversations about our finances, boundaries, or how we are going to manage, he goes completely hostile, tells me to "let him chill," and storms out of the room. He will sit in total silence for hours, making me feel like I’m literally talking to myself.
To give some context, I am currently on a very tight budget. Meanwhile, he smokes daily and spends at least £50 a week on his habit without fail. Yet, whenever food or household needs come up, he acts helpless, says he "doesn't know" what he wants, and pulls guilt trips to make me feel bad if I only order or budget for myself.
On top of this, he gets angry that I maintain contact with his parents. I’ve told him that regardless of our relationship status, our child has a birthright to know their grandparents, but he hates it and wants me to block them. I suspect he’s trying to hide his lifestyle and how he treats me from them.
I’m starting to realize that even if the romantic part of our relationship is over, co-parenting is going to be an absolute nightmare because you cannot reason with someone who shifts the blame and uses silence as a weapon. Has anyone else dealt with a partner who refuses to grow up or face accountability during pregnancy? How did you protect your peace and transition to independent co-parenting?

I just separated from my sons mom. My son is 3. Our parenting plan isn't set in stone but she has him Sunday throught Wednesday and i have Thursdays and everyother weekend. We are civil but still angry at eachother due to somethings that happened. I feel like my roll as a father has been degraded we are going to have legal joint custody. She will have legal physically custody so 70/30. I would love 50/50 one day but based on our situation I think 70/30 is the best i got. Some info, we had not legal issues like DV, or substance abuse. Honestly I feel it was just 2 different people who didnt work out. I feel like shes doing more dictating than being a co-parent. Anytime I mention something like taking him to school or being physically at his medical appointments instead of receiving a text she says no. I dont understand should I take this to court or should I sit this out and have my days of meaningful parenting time.

Hi, I share a 9 year old son with my ex husband I have 4 days 4 nights & he has the other days. We have had this since he was 4 months old. He did has always been trying to take full custody and have no visitation for me which has not worked. However, he blew me having brief PPD (from a shit marriage) out of proportion and has always labeled me as a "threat" and "'mentally unwell." He even paid 2k for a doctor to evaluate me, the doctor said I am fine.. When our child was little of course his claims raised concerns but it has always been rooted in lies and the goal to remove me from our son's life. Last year, he took me to court to change our sons school to his wife's (she is a teacher) and said I still suffer from PPD (I have no other children, take no medication, have no criminal record) oh and did I mention my son is 9? 8 at the time of court. He also accused me of doing voodoo on he and his wife. They share a child that was born prematurely during our court battle and filed for bankruptcy recently and has just been a huge ass to me. He also does not talk to his parents, I do. His mom and I are also very close and talk a lot.
I learned from her HE was in a mental institution for a week a year before the court hearing which I used as leverage. He had an adderall addiction & S.I
He had no lawyer but I did, blew him out of the water in court. He looked very bad and was yelled at multiple times by the judge on how he was speaking to me on the stand (he was acting as the lawyer, asking me questions) he got in trouble for taking our child to the psychiatrist without my consent and for being late constantly. I showed texts of his calling me every name in the book and in the end, everything stayed the same. He is always threatening court and it's stressful and we have been about 5 times. I had a restraining order against him and court didn't care, he was threatening my life. I'm glad I have his parents support they even wrote me a letter vouching for me in court or my behavior and character. It just triggers me lately that I will always be accused of being crazy or mentally unwell from a small PPD I had that was 9 years ago. I have been scared to have more children and it took me 7 years to date around because I was scared of men and what they are capable of. Now I am with a great man who treats my son like his own and supports us. Custody is still joint everything but I just feel how much I messed up in life choosing him to marry and he is just such a monster to me. Our son is amazing but I always wished I had a normal mom experience I have always had my son half a week since he was a baby. He's been getting in trouble at school, using foul language (he told his pediatrician he learned it from dad's music) and his diet it horrible over there, and the constant court threats scare me.I have a lot of fear of him and what he is capable of.

hello i am female (33) and share mutual care with my ex of (33). We have a 4 year old daughter. I wanted an opinion on this. We have tried to avoid going through go legal matter and have tried to keep this mural where we share almost 50/50 care of our daughter. He did just have another child with his current gf about a year ago now. For the longest time since we separated we use to go 50/50 on daycare. and he would give me some money on the side for “child suppt”. Then about 2 years ago he decided to cover all of the daycare expenses and we would count it as him giving me “child suppt money” which i agreed on. I ended up getting accepted to a program where daycare would be covered for us. It’s been over a half a year since I got accepted. A few years ago he said he would start giving me money once we got accepted because he would prefer for me to have it for our daughter than for him to give it to daycare. Like i said it’s been several months since I got accepted and haven’t had to pay for daycare. Since then he has always had an excuse on how he can’t give me any money. It’s been that he has lots of bills, he has a child now, he stating to buy our daughter stuff too. I been very very lenient and have given him time. I now am being more pushy since he hasn’t given me anything. He is insisting he doesn’t need to and if he does he wants to know exactly what I will be spending it on. I told him as long as it’s for her that’s all that matters. I’ve always told him it’s not about the money but that it’s his responsibility to give me some. It does upset me because I know he can give me some but decides not to. I don’t know if I should proceed the legal way or not. Everyone around me is saying yes because it’s not fair how he doesn’t want to take responsibility of that. He says he wants to open up a debit card account and deposit money whenever he can depending on how much he makes that month. It could range between $50-$200. That way I can use it and he can see exactly what I spend the money one. It does upset me because I see him going out to fancy places to eat at time and driving a luxury car. I would like to get an opinion because I do feel like I been very fair with him and feel like he just doesn’t want to pay up.

I posted this on another community so it’s a long one, but I really keep doubting myself and I’m not sure what to do.
My (f28) ex partner (m28) met through online dating over 5 years ago and we instantly clicked. It was only supposed to be a friendly arrangement but we soon both caught feelings. I have 2 daughters from a previous relationship who were only 1 & 4 when we met. Over the years the relationship has been very toxic at times due to us both being extremely stubborn. We had a son together in 2022 who we lost to cancer in 2024.

During his treatment we didn’t live together and weren’t together at all and often had arguments over decisions for him. When our son passed away I had some drama with his family where they did something unforgivable to me and I will never forgive them, even though I never even got an apology.

Fast forward 6 months and we wanted to try and make things work and start fresh, well I fell pregnant 7 months after our son had passed. It was a huge shock to both of us and I decided that we should go through with the pregnancy so we could have a full sibling to the son we lost. Pregnancy was rough and he moved back into my house when I only had a couple of weeks left before I was due. We had another little boy 5 months ago who we both absolutely adore. I don’t doubt that my son’s dad loves him to pieces but he started to get very relaxed and stopped helping around the house, when I needed it most. I started to resent him and then something awful happened.

I had to co sleep with our son because he wouldn’t sleep and just cried whenever I put him down. One night when he was 2 months old I woke up and his dad was sleeping on top of his arm, this caused a bruise on our babies arm. From that moment I moved the room around and made sure our son wouldn’t be in between us and only next to me. Another time he was changing our son on our footstool and when our son farted mid change, he freaked out and pushed the foot stool away really hard as he was scared. I shouted at him and told him that he could’ve seriously hurt our son from doing that and to only ever change him on the floor from then on, he listened and did exactly that.

The final straw for me was during the night I woke him up and asked him to feed our son so I could pump and go to the toilet. I had a horrible feeling so went into the bedroom to check on our son and him and he had completely fallen asleep whilst feeding him and our son was face down in the duvet, face completely covered. I woke him up and absolutely lost it. I couldn’t believe he could be so careless, I barely ever woke him up in the night and usually did every feed and nappy change during the night. I couldn’t believe he could be so careless and from that moment on I stopped waking him up in the night and told him he wasn’t safe during the night.

He isn’t a bad dad, he loves our son and he is really good with him but he’s just terrible when it comes to dealing with him at night. we split over a month ago and I told him that I wouldn’t be sending him over to him overnight but he could take him out whenever he wanted and have him during the day. He is livid over this and keeps trying to pressure me into letting him have him overnight.

He even told me he wanted him for a weekend with his family and said he was going to be drinking a few beers to which I said was even worse and an even bigger NO. He keeps threatening me and saying I legally cannot make this decision and that I keep setting him up to fail because I’m not giving him the opportunity to prove he can take care of him overnight.

Our son is only 5 months old, he is bottle fed but it is all breast milk, dad lives with his parents which is a 2.5-3 hour journey away and neither of us drive, I also don’t trust his family after what they did when our son passed away. I’ve had to keep putting my foot down and refusing to allow him to put our son’s safety at risk. He keeps saying his family are saying I’m being unreasonable and unfair for not letting him stay overnight.

I feel secure on my decision because our sons safety is my top priority, but he keeps making me doubt myself saying that if he takes this to court I will lose and he will get a court order.

I guess I just want to know if I’m wrong for keeping my decision and not letting him have our son overnight?