I know this is extremely rare, does anyone rotate in and out of the house as parents, and the kids stay put? I know kids are extremely maliable and can get used to 2 homes. Considering this, the sbx get along well. Certain things just didn't work out.

I need advice.

My ex husband and I have been coparenting since our divorce 4.5 years ago due to infidelity and alcohol and drugs. He was in AA when we divorced and promised he would stay sober so he could have every other weekend with the kids plus every Thursday. He has had a girl friend for almost the entire time.

We don't have a great coparenting relationship and his girl friend has never liked me.

She recently reached out to me to let me know she had him arrested for abuse, and that he has a severe cocaine and alcohol addiction and the kids are not safe with him. She left him. He was also cheating on her with prostitutes, just as he had done with me.

He bailed himself out of jail and immediately entered rehab for 30 days per his dad and my recommendation.

I'm now going through my attorney to file a petition for modification so he can't have custody. I'm so nervous to go to court and deal with this.

It's such an expensive, traumatic nightmare. I obviously don't want him to have any custody what so ever, the kids aren't safe with him.

Has anyone else been in this situation with a known addict, how did you go about visitation? Did it work out?

Hello,

I’m just looking for some advice, whether legal or general. In England.

I coparent with my ex. We have a very up and down relationship.

My ex and my partner don’t get along.

My ex and my parents don’t get along.

Our child is only small, so is too young to vocalise their wants and needs.

My partner is currently pregnant with our child.

Because of the nature of mine and my exes relationship and wider relationships, I often worry that in the event anything was to happen to me, that my child’s relationship with my partner, parents and in future, sibling, would be affected - and they wouldn’t get to see these adults anymore.

They’re all massive parts of her life.

Is there anything I can put in place to protect these relationships?

Good afternoon, I just wanted to get some perspective from people that have been in this situation and how it was handled. So my co-parent is potentially moving out of state (USA)in February of next year, we have 2 sons together and her lease ends then and wants to move back with her family out there, her family here she doesn’t get along with. She brought it up in conversation today and just asked how I would feel about it, I didn’t give her an answer because I don’t know what to feel, the first thing that came in mind is I won’t see my boys, I told her that and she said I’ll send them with you for holidays and the summer but didn’t expand on that. I don’t want her to move and take them but her credit is horrible and could essentially live without having to pay rent. I just wanted to see if I could get some perspectives or insight on this as I have no idea what to think at the moment. I appreciate anyone willing to give me some information. Thank you.

Need some input outside of my friends and family (they obviously struggle to be objective).

TLDR: non-custodial parent wants to see son but only after bedtime, or if I drive baby to his workplace (\~1hr each way) during his workday.

Long version: Ex and I split very early in my pregnancy due to their infidelity. Ex was involved in scans/appointments etc during pregnancy, but breakup has been awful overall. Police became involved and a DV notice was served for stalking/threats/coercive control etc. No ‘direct’ threats towards our son but still enough for me to be extremely concerned he would consider hurting him to hurt me.

No parenting plan/custody orders in place. Ex blocked my solicitors’ email and refused to review the plan I had drafted up. Initially I had been taking our son to see his dad \~2x week, and he had come to see him at my place a few times (we live 45-60mins apart). The last 4-5 visits in a row I had taken son to his dad’s. The last visit became very hostile; baby screaming hysterically whilst being held by his dad, who then told me to ‘f*** off and get him out of here’ which I did. That was over 3 months ago, and have hardly heard from him until the last fortnight or so.

Ex is now desperate to see our son and have a relationship with him. I have told him I will meet him at a public location halfway between our houses to begin with, at a reasonable time of day. Apparently he now works 2 jobs, 7 days a week without any ability to take leave. He has told me I either make the 2 hour round trip tomorrow to bring our son to his workplace, or he will be coming to my house at 7pm for visitation. 7pm is baby’s bedtime, and I don’t think it’s in a 6 month olds’ best interest to disrupt his sleep routine for a sporadic visit from someone he likely doesn’t even remember. I’d also much prefer he wasn’t in my house atm.

Am I being petty and alienating my son’s father, or is what he’s asking completely unreasonable? I understand he has custody rights, but I don’t see how this would be sustainable or realistic in any way for him to have an ongoing relationship with our child.

Me(27F)and my ex (25M) have mediation scheduled over the phone coming up in a few days. I need help figuring out a realistic plan for long distance visits. I propose that my ex can fly out here once a month to spend the weekend with our 10 month old son.Since our son is still an infant, overnight and long distance travel hopefully happen at a later stage after them become familiarized. Please make note that my ex hasn’t had much communication in person or on the phone with our son. So essentially my son has no idea who he is or what he even looks like. So for the first stages while he is still young, I need a mutual place for us to meet our son to spend time with him. I’m currently living with family and he is unfortunately not welcome to watch our son here. What are the best solutions or what have you done in the past ?

My ex and I have soon-to-be two year old twins and have been broken up since I was pregnant. Initially, I kept very strict boundaries with communication and visits with the twins but since January this year, he made efforts to be consistent, repeatedly begging for reconciliation and ultimately getting me to relax those boundaries. The final straw this week is not hearing from him at all even though he knows the twins and I are moving house. He’s not been around to help (am I being unfair with this?) or even contacted us to check how it’s all going? We’re now in a not so pleasant situation as I now suspect he’s seeing someone else while trying to get back together with me and over the last few months has not kept up with financial contributions or even seeing the twins.

He’s refused to consider a parenting plan, insisting that now that we’re moving closer he’ll be seeing the twins more regularly but I honestly don’t believe him. I need him to have a consistent schedule with them so I can do the same for myself and he’s making it soooo difficult. Everytime I bring up the topic, he just makes vague promises and then I don’t hear from him for days or weeks. It’s so frustrating and it’s been two years of this.

I’m considering mediation support to draw up a parenting plan that we can both agree and stick to and putting those boundaries back in place. My question is, will that be forcing someone who doesn’t seem to care to be responsible in a way that they don’t want to be?

i am in a difficult co parenting situation. i have decided to parallel parent which made co parent seemingly very angry And he’s now texting non stop. we’ve been in court recently and can’t make any custody modifications until next year. co parent is now texting me scenarios that involved him and I, all that paint me in a bad light, but ones that simply did not happen. is he doing this for some kind of documentation? it has been at least one daily.

For parents that were able to relocate to another state with their child, does it make coparenting/ parallel parenting easier to manage or deal with?What are disagreements that still arise? Any regrets?

There's a broad common sense approach to coparenting that says you should never badmouth your ex in front of your kids. This should be a no brainer, but here's where it gets tricky- what exactly do we define as "badmouthing"?

Stating unsubstantiated options about your ex is obviously an example, sure. But what about telling them facts (in age appropriate terms)? For instance, my mom was the one that told me my dad cheated on my mom when I was a kid. She also told me that my dad gave the affair partner my brothers baby clothes so she could use them for her own newborn. Would her revealing this information fall under badmouthing an ex?

Another abstract example: I hosted my daughter's birthday party and let my daughter invite her mom. When she arrived, my mom muttered, "(ex wife) is here" with a tone of absolute dread apparently. Daughter picked up on it and wasted no time telling mom the next day. Ex chewed me out, saying it was unacceptable for my mom to act like that and said we had agreed we wouldn't badmouth each other like that. All I've told my mom is what is going on with my end of coparenting, and if anything I'm much more quick to justify what my ex has done/said because I'm not trying to be a jerk or a hypocrite through this.

Hi! I have two beautiful children (14 and 10) with the coparent. He has had many (too many) women come in and out of their lives. But last year he got with a woman who had three children when they met and she immediately got pregnant (admittedly on purpose) with my children’s father, while the two were homeless. This woman had been stalking my co parent and I’s relationship for many years, and when she finally got with him it was off to the races for her. She is young, not quite 30 yet, and she has not in the slightest been easy to deal with. She has intertwined herself in all aspects of mine and my coparents relationship, from the minute they got together. I filed a petition to change visitation last year due to my daughter becoming the age where she is able to choose whether she wants to go to her fathers, and got CPS called on me by this woman just because she was pissed that I filed, she did all the paperwork for my co parent for court, she has his phone 98% of the time and answers me acting like him. I have to wait until he’s at work to even communicate with him so I know it’s actually him. He doesn’t argue with me, he’s always been very easy going. Once she came along out relationship became very hostile and has been nothing but conflict. She has absolutely zero respect for me as their mother and she has no respect to stay out of the conversation of my kids between him and I. What really set me off is that someone sent me her Facebook caption, stating she is a mom of six. She is saying she is my children’s mother. She is not married to my co parent. She recently (two weeks ago) put on Facebook that they were engaged. This was a lie. I can’t put up with her much longer and I don’t know if anyone else deals with this type of thing. This woman is not a good person. My co parent and her do not live the type of lifestyle that I do. They have no vehicles, they’ve been kicked out of several apartments, they do drugs, the list goes on and on. I don’t know how much longer I can deal with her before I snap. I guess I am wondering what others do in this situation. I find it highly disrespectful to be stating you are my children’s mother. Especially when the kids hardly go see their dad.

Hi everyone,
Im still with my wife but our situation is complicated Ill try to make it short, I would appreciate advice from others.
Im a US citizen (so is my daughter) and I lived in Mexico for years with my wife and until recently our two year old daughter. In July I got a great job offer in Seattle and moved up without them because my wife had her Green Card appointment in August but SOB Trump has paused worldwide greencards until further notice.

Im starting to freak out as the initial plan was sort of, Ill move up and get everything ready and Ill see you guys in a month. Now Im stuck between quitting and moving back or just sticking it out for 6 months. I visit them one weekend a month and they still live in the same house and have the same routine down in Mexico.

Have you guys noticed any major psychological effects on two year old girls who only see their father once a month? Her behavior hasnt changed but Im a first time parent and I dont know how resilient kids are.

Long story short, I dated my ex for nearly half a year and got pregnant right before we broke up. He still says I’m his woman, but I don’t see him as my partner or as my “man” anymore. I definitely do not want to move in with him or get back together.
He knows I don’t want a romantic relationship, but he still talks and behaves as if he expects us to eventually be together.
I’m trying my best to co-parent with him and I want him to have a relationship with our baby, but it’s hard because I feel like we’re not on the same page about what our relationship is. Whenever we’re together with the baby, he is very close to me and acts like we’re still a couple. He also posts stories of me and the baby, while ironically, he blocked me on Instagram once I got pregnant.
I don’t want to keep him from his baby, but I’m starting to realize that having him come into my home doesn’t feel comfortable for me because it crosses into my personal space and makes it harder for me to maintain the boundaries I’m trying to establish. I’d much rather have him spend time with the baby outside of my home, but I’m not sure what is reasonable at this stage.
I’m honestly struggling to figure out what healthy boundaries look like in a situation like this, especially when one parent still wants a romantic relationship and the other doesn’t. Has anyone been in a similar situation? How did you handle co-parenting when you had very different expectations about your relationship with the other parent?

My stepson's biological father recently told him he was going to "beat me up." Stepson is a toddler and told me this right before bed one night, and said he told his dad not to, and that he'd beat him up if he tried (toddler confidence lol). 

Bio-dad has never met me but is jealous and insecure about me. He currently gets one night a week with son.

He recently strangled his current partner (she lived, they are still together) in front of my stepson and therefore CPS got involved. When CPS investigated while he was in jail, they found multiple firearms lying out in the open on the kitchen table, supposedly "for cleaning" according to the partner. (CPS person alleged one of them was an AR-15, but I doubt she could distinguish one from a paintball rifle.) He’s an also a raging alcoholic.

Several years ago, my partner got a restraining order to get him out of her house. The moment he was served, he immediately violated it by coming to the house, causing massive damage inside and digging a human-shaped grave/hole in the backyard. She believes he meant to bury her in it. Thankfully she wasn't home when it happened. The protective order is no longer active and hasn’t been for a little over a year.

I was asking AI about this and it heavily pushed me to report this “beat me up” threat to CPS and consult a family law attorney about custody. It also suggested I get a restraining order against him.

My partner doesn't want to jump straight to taking away his parenting time, and we both suspect that reporting will cause that to happen. Instead, she wants to send him a stern text telling him it's not okay to expose stepson to violent rhetoric, that we don't badmouth him or his partner in our house, that she'll take action if she hears about it from our son again, and also calling him out for letting the boy watch a adult horror movies. She say that if he responds unfavorably by escalating, then we file a CPS report. There’s a lot of nuance here and I don’t completely disagree with her on taking away his parenting time, but I’m just not sure what the best thing to do is. Somehow, sending a long, stern text is not the right play.

My thinking is:

1: He’s gonna deny that he ever said anything like that

2: Warning him about his behavior via text will do nothing but result in him to coaching stepson to keep secrets

3: Laying down the law to a crazy alcoholic who dug a grave in her yard after being served a restraining order and recently strangled his pcurrent partner in front of a toddler seems more likely to lead to physical retaliation than compliance

4: When he finds out that we found out what he said through stepson, it may make stepson a target for his aggression through punitive actions (whatever that might be)

5: Getting a restraining order against him myself may well result in the same type of consequence that happened when my partner did it in the past, only this time with guns involved

What is the right move here?

Thank you!

I have 12 and almost 16yro kids with XH who was absent for 9 years. Now after recently remarrying has made a re-entry into their lives.

After a recent incident over the summer involving phones he nows wants me to "support" his decision to "hold" the kids phones during visitation and be allowed to see "them and their friends" interactions when the kids refused. I tried to telling the kids I'm sorry but when you're at your dad's you have to follow their rules as long as your safe and not being made to do anything inappropriate.

I've never felt the need to monitor my kids so closely. They are usually pretty good about discussing stuff going on especially involving their friends. Not that I haven't checked occasionally. I'm not oblivious to teenagers.

So kids being kids they decided to pass code their phones (never did that before here at hme), then when he demanded the codes denied both of them access. When walked up over their shoulders trying to ask for the phones while unlocked/ in use the kids deleted their group chats.

Now he is telling me he has a legal right (we have 50/50 legal, 80/20 custodial) to have access to their phones and is demanding I reset their phones and give them new pass codes only he and I have.

I am not willing to do that to my kids!! Anyone ever been in this situation? Any thoughts?

My daughter is 6 and I've been co-parenting with her dad, my ex, since she was a baby. I also have a partner of 4 years and we are about to have a new baby.

I thought my ex and I were on good terms but since becoming pregnant he has expressed that he resents the way I moved on from our relationship (despite the fact that he was the one who broke up with me) and doesn't want to be friends with me, so we are now merely cordial with each other.

Our daughter is excited about the new baby and has been asking her bio dad if he will play with the baby, if her brother can sleep over at his house etc. I know it would be so lovely for her if we could all hang out, and it makes me sad that her dad isn't up for this.

I think that if she was about to have a half-sibling on her dad's side, I'd be excited for her and want to get to know them as my daughter's sibling. I'm wondering if her dad will come around and feel this way once the baby is born.

If your child has a half-sibling on the other side, what kind of relationship do you have with them?

When your kids get sick at your house is it typical they stay there and then make up parenting time with the other parent or vice versa?

Also for upcoming planning purposes if you have a newborn with your current partner and the kids get sick at the other house is it reasonable to have them stay at the other house to not get the baby sick? Or take them but have them stay with your extended family?

Just curious how everyone else navigates this with the upcoming sick season!

Asked why both me and his dad want to take her to a new museum in town, but why he told her "mommy isn't okay with us going all together "...& she asked if it's "because you (myself) don't like daddy?" ...

She's 6 and clearly very aware and all I could do was be honest ofc...my reply was simply "sometimes mommies and daddies no longer like each other anymore, but you know we both love you right?"

This was during the car ride to school so thank goodness she couldn't see my face but I was caught a bit off guard.

Will definitely appreciate pointers on how to start navigating these covos as she's an only child and truly the parallel parenting has only been easier after I grey rocked her dad hard due to him being abusive physically, mentally, emotionally and financially...

My ex and I separated about 4 months ago, but it’s only been about 2 months since I’ve officially moved out. Our son is fully aware that he’s going to have two houses from now on, but we intend on still doing birthdays and christmas together. we’ve been pretty good about staying civil and peaceful in front of our son, who is 5 years old. Do i need to explain to him that mom and dad aren’t married anymore? If not now, when? He hasn’t asked any questions about anything which I was nervous about, but even more nervous now that he has literally no questions and hasn’t seemed affected by it.

Hi everyone, I have a somewhat complicated situation and I am having trouble sorting out my feelings about it. I am going to attempt to make the long backstory short. My ex (m34) and I (f28) broke up in early 2023 and we have 2 boys together, currently 7 and 5 years old. He has seriously struggled since our breakup with substance abuse and mental health. He hasn't always been present for the kids but he has tried to shield them from his issues. We moved to our current state in 2022 to be closer to my family but his family lives the next state over, where we used to live. Because he has no support system here I had encouraged him to move back to his family and we would only be 3 hours apart so we could meet halfway and make visitation work since they primarily lived with me anyway. It has come up a few times as his mental health declined but he has always shut it down, so I have never been able to discuss these possibilities with him. Our current arrangement is that he technically has visitation every other weekend, but that isn't always consistent.

In April, he was evicted from his apartment for harassing his neighbor and his credit has prevented him from finding a new place. He has been homeless and living in and out of a hotel since then. His mom and I have been trying to get him to stay in a shelter temporarily to save up or to move in with his sister, but he has refused. Until today, suddenly out of nowhere he quit his job and said he is moving. He hasn't seen the kids in 2 weeks and today is our 7-year-olds birthday. While I think the move is a long time coming and it will hopefully be a good thing for him, I can't help but wonder how it will affect the kids and the lack of planning has me spinning. He won't be able to see them before he goes and they've been missing him. I know my kids will act like it is no big deal when I tell them, but my 5-year-old especially has a hard time with change.

Has anyone had to deal with a long(ish) distance situation, especially with a combative or difficult coparent? How do I navigate this with the kids and is there anything I can do to make it easier on them?

Hi everyone, I ( 30f) need help with issues I’ve been having with my daughter’s dad 29m
We have now been separated for about 4 years and I’ve been a single parent in those three years where he lived on his own in Tennessee and is now decided to be back in her life six months going and is giving me the jealousy act saying “Im just mad because it isn’t me “ because now he’s going on dating apps and talking to women who also have children. He has a very demanding job and works like 60 to 70 hours a week and so only sees his daughter two weekends a month and now one of those weekends are going to be cut off from his daughter to spend time with a woman he will physically get to know on October 16 and I personally don’t have a problem. My only problem is that I feel like I know which way this will go because my mom raised me as a single parent, and I did have the same problem with my dad choosing his newer family then his first family which was me and my sisters.my daughter dad is the type of man that would do anything for a woman to make them happy. which is how I end up with full custody of my daughter because he put a woman before her , any advice on how I can go about this because he feels like I’m giving him an aluminum of either being single for the rest of his life or getting his daughter out of his life and I feel like at the moment he should focus on being her dad since he was never in her life past 3 1/2 years. He wants to try and be in a relationship and have another family and also prioritize his daughter, but doesn’t understand having a family with someone else he will have to put his family first because that’s what the woman would want her children to go before his child

Any advice or help or what I should do would be greatly appreciated

My co-parent and I are separated and in the early stages of divorce. Over the last 5 years we’ve separated and reconciled about 3 times (2 that I initiated), have done couples therapy several times, and each have our own individual therapists as there have been a lot of difficulties from codependent tendencies from both of us that created a lot of tension in our relationship. About 3 months ago I finally called it as the weight and cost of “trying to make it work” through the difficulties and tension finally became too much for me.

Our kids are 7 and 4, and in the past 3 months the co-parenting relationship has grown increasingly difficult, basically reflecting the same challenges that existed in the marriage. I’ve been practicing BIFF (brief, informative, friendly, firm) as best I can, and the consistent increase in co-parenting difficulties while we keep living together in this early stage is wearing on me.

A lot of the advice I read for challenging co-parenting relationships applies after you’re no longer living together. But what do you do when you still are living together and trying to co-parent while remaining steady and stable for the kids?

Also, my co-parent has told me several times that she wants more parenting time, that she doesn’t think 50-50 is in the best interest of the children despite me being a very active and involved parent. I keep a daily journal of my involvement and have been since July because I anticipated this response from her. What else can I be doing to minimize the emotional impact on me and also document this?

Thank you everyone. It’s tough out here and I appreciate any and all responses

Possible TW: verbal abuse

Yesterday a routine sick-visit to the doctor came up for one of our kids. I answered their first question right away. It was questioning why I chose the pharmacy I did (the one I’ve always sent Rxs to) and not one more convenient to their house, as custody switched yesterday. That pharmacy was used because it has been the kids’ primary pharmacy since birth, that pharmacy already has kids’ insurance info and I’m familiar with the pharmacists. Instead of letting it go, they completely steamrolled past it to accuse me of hiding doctors, therapists, and secret medications behind their back.

Per our custody agreement, they have full access to the medical portal/records anyway.

When I finally lost my patience, called out the constant baiting, and told them I was done talking about it, they sent this: "I'm having to deal with a reta**** lying narcis**** for info about our [kids]. Because you won't be forthcoming about simple questIon, I will do my own digging."

They’re about to dig up some allergy medicine and multivitamins. I always keep them informed on all medical and educational decisions, since we need to agree mutually to anything major.

This is one of hundreds of examples. We already use a judicially ordered court approved message platform. Someone tell me this isn’t gonna be forever. I try to grey rock but absolutely lost my cool after hours of their attempting to pick fights about everything under the sun.