Please help me compose a reply to my (difficult) ex-husband

OP we were possibly married to the same person..?! 🤪 Exact same tone. What a knob.

I have two friends I text when I get this sort of shit, and one always replies
'Fuck off you absolute fucking cunt' and the like and the other responds with a sensible low level 'noted, now fuck off' type message. It feels good to imagine the first one!

I would reply in his detached and legalese nonsense form- I generally try to mirror my ExH style and it helps me...!

'Noted. Going forward, I will refrain from sharing when our daughter requires support. I mistakenly believed you may wish to know her needs, even outside of your allocated contact time.
Kind regards,
@thegeniussquare '

"Your shared responsibility for the welfare of our daughters does not start and end with your limited contact time. DD requires a check in from you as well as I on occasion, and I will continue to inform you when this is necessary."

100% ignore it. He's a dick - don't give him the satisfaction. If I get stuff like this, I compose a smoking cathartic response, but never send it.

You can only ask him to do stuff and he will do it or not.

You should probably ignore, but I’d be sorely tempted to send something like:

To be clear, child maintenance is in place to provide financial support for your children (food, heating, clothing etc) in line with your legal obligations as a parent. Info here: https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/child-maintenance-introduction#:~:text=Child%20maintenance%20is%20regular%20financial,child%20when%20parents%20are%20separated.)

You are not buying my time to parent your children on your behalf.

Your reply, however, is noted.

He may be a high earner but he doesn’t seem to understand what maintenance is. It’s money to provide for the material needs of the children. He’s not paying you to do his part of the childcare. You’re doing that for free. I agree it’s not worth engaging but I would be tempted to point that out.

He may be a high earner but he doesn’t seem to understand what maintenance is. It’s money to provide for the material needs of the children. He’s not paying you to do his part of the childcare. You’re doing that for free. I agree it’s not worth engaging but I would be tempted to point that out.

How old are your DC? Does he just pay for the 15-year old? Do you have to speak to him about the other 2?

How long do you need to talk to him about the DC?

If possible I’d just cut him off. Do nothing. Only speak to him if you really have to.

Will it get his back up if you just don’t engage with him? I’d be telling him that he’s just an ATM machine to me, and from now on I’ll be finding other, better support for my DC.

Then when I no longer need him to contribute to my bills, I’d be telling him that binning him off was the best day in my life, because he’s a twat.

Do your DD’s like him or have they caught onto him being a lousy dad?

I've not read all the responses, so may be repeating, but if he has parental responsibility is he not equally liable for fines if she doesn't attend? I'd be pointing that out to him, but also adding I wouldn't bother him with the info in future. He doesn't want to be involved don't involve him, but you don't have to answer his questions either.

How about something like...

Your daughter's aren't a magazine (or whatever) subscription. they're human beings who (hard to think why given this attitude) love their dad and from whom a caring message from this man could make a difference to their emotional well being. But good to know your cash is in lieux of showing any actual love to your daughter's when they might need it.

You cannot argue with stupid. I would ignore he would only love the rise.

Oh and then ignore him from now on

Oooh I’d have to say something to round this off so if DC ask you in the future you have a bullet proof message that you can show them so they can understand. And nothing that makes you look bad. Only him.

like:

Thankyou for your message. I note your wishes not to be involved in any issues regarding DC. I had assumed that such matters would have been of concern to you but understand from your message(s) that you would prefer to keep this arrangement purely financial. We will of course all find this very sad but will respect this from now on.

I’m not judging you, I also have kids with a cunt of an ex.

I know you are tired of doing it all alone , but he is never going to do anything that he sees as “ helping” you. You need to stop asking him to do anything.

You need to stop replying to his “ helpful “ reminders. he’s only doing it to point out what a shit parent you are ( in his opinion of course ) and not worth what he pays you .

He doesn’t care about his kids I’m afraid and you can’t make him.

Just stop all communication with him , unless it’s a life and death emergency.

Look for other sources of support for you on your youngest child’s school issues. There are probably threads on here.

'You seem not to have understood that I have contacted you about our daughters education rather than about child maintenance which is completely irrelevant to the discussion. I will note that you do not wish to be inconvenienced by supporting your children's education or health'.

If these are WhatsApp messages do a screen save/grab and save before he thinks (if he cares) to delete his response(s) for when he tries to gaslight you. 🌹

I'd hold it but remember the line "Please take responsibility ". I feel you might use that one in the future for him. That's the line that irks me out of it all, as if he has any idea what you do for the three of them...

I wouldn't have went the text in the first place. Given your dd's age there's no real need to communicate at all with him, you did open yourself up a bit to a snipy reply.

I would also reply "Noted". Don't put thanks!

I’m in a very similar situation with my ex, OP - and you have my utmost sympathy.

The hands-off yet terminally judgemental tone of communications like this is blood boiling!!

But. I agree with previous posters. Replying won’t help. If you try and justify anything, he will bite back with disdain and criticism.

I know it’s hard doing everything on your own, and I 100% recognise the feeling of tiredness at having no support, however, I would still rather that than having to try and deal with the shit show that would inevitably come from my ex being involved - and the fallout afterwards.

💐

The impact of having emotionally engaged parents can't be measured monetarily. Our daughter is struggling and heading towards school refusal. I am bemused by your refusal/inability to send her a text message as a way of showing concern and engagement at some point during your working day.
^^
It goes without saying that I will obviously be checking in with her regularly throughout mine. As you were.

My ex is also like this... I pay maintenance and therefore I have absolved myself of responsibility for everything.

I have stopped contacting him about all but the most essential aspects of the DC's lives. It's so much easier to just acknowledge that he doesn't care, and crack on with parenting alone.

No point sinking to his level. He's clearly just an arsehole.
I'd now never speak to him at all and keep any rude messages just in case things get legal.
Just ignore it and don't reply. I'd block his number tbh.

He doesn’t care, and noting you will send back to him will make him care. He doesn’t want to be a parent and you can’t make him.

you now know what he is like, treat him accordingly.

id have little to no contact with him again.

Yes, so would I. Ignore this one, and any others. Save every single unpleasant one.

Dear X,

Finances aside, we both have parental responsibility for our girls 100% of the time. DD is currently struggling with school so we both need to support to continue her education, don’t we?

Thanks.