AIBU to expect my ex to stop disrupting calls with our son?

Same answer. Why should the child miss out on the chess call because of that? Unless it’s about punishing the non-resident father and not about what’s best for the child? Aside from all of your projecting there about what’s going on with this scenario.

"Unless there’s an issue op hasn’t disclosed, the mother should not be limiting the son’s call with his father."
Clearly there's an issue the OP hasn't disclosed, probably several, that's the massive elephant in the room...

Just saw this comment now... the non resident moved away, naturally they will have less contact with the kids. Why didn't they stay closer?
Do they want contact for the boring things? What about doing homework together on zoom? Or do they only want the chess games and the fun part?

Which is worse. Good relationships with BOTH parents are so important for confidence and future personal relationships. His mum should be putting her child's well being first, not her dislike of her ex. If she has a problem it's her problem only and she needs to grow up. I could see the point if the calls were taking place in the family living area and lasting for hours, but they're not. It just doesn't occur to some people that their exes have moved on and don't care what colour your walls are, they just want to speak to their child and the child wants to speak to them.

The bottom line is when you have children with someone you are no longer in a relationship with, it’s your duty as a parent to ensure they can have contact with them. It’s
not about you. That ship sailed when you had kids.

Unless there’s an issue op hasn’t disclosed, the mother should not be limiting the son’s call with his father. He’s playing a game of chess, which is something the child enjoys and is beneficial.

I think I recommended something along the lines of checking in with the mum several eons ago, to ensure that a game of chess wouldn't impact on any other plans.

Op has received quite a number of balanced suggestions ranging from trying to get a better arrangement in place through court, or trying to negotiate and work in better collaboration with his ex. He has completely ignored all of those suggestions and as far as he's written has made no effort in the past 6 years to take action on any of these fronts. Im sorry but personal accountability where its due.

I'm by no means saying that his ex is a saint of any sort (and I personally can't stand women who wilfully and maliciously withhold contact because it gives the rest of us a bad name when trying to legitimately protect a child) but when you're dealing with a difficult ex you try to work with them and if that fails you go to court and fight it out. What you don't do is sit on your hands, watch it impact your kids and do nothing. I'd imagine that many of the 'bitter man hating women' you're referring to have been through that exact process with a horrible ex which is the exact reason why they've no sympathy for op and are calling bullshit. If he had come on here and shown that he's exhausted every possible avenue fighting for his kids and trying to work with his ex as well as possible using mediation or similar I'd have every sympathy for him. But he's not showing that he's done any of that in the past 6 years and has avoided answering any questions in that vein.

My friends ex rings his kids every hour when she has them. It is part of his abuse and coercive control. He does it on purpose to interrupt her time with the children. He also has to bring them something every day again on purpose to interrupt. It is intrusive. It is constant. He will ring the kids 10 minutes after dropping them off for 'a chat'. It is really damaging as he hears her telling the kids to get ready for bed and he is on the phone telling them to ignore her etc.

So it can impact on the other party negatively. Arrange a time and frequency with her that you both agree on. Then stick to it.

OP, I think you have made a massive mistake posting for any sort of advice on here. It's full of bitter, man hating women who are full of double standards. So you are never going get any sort of balanced response.
I hear you (and I am a woman)

The OP has had over six years.
@GearC do you acknowledge that your ex has done the daily work of raising your children? It doesn't matter if at the point of the split you had to move, your children needed caring for. Six years later (at least?) you are still 100 miles away making sarcastic comments about the best interests of children. You see her as trying to speak to you face-to-face as a bad thing, this was during lock down, things couldn't have been easy for her. I think that there's probably frustration about the lack of parenting from you, but you want token phone calls when it suits you. Your son needs to ask his Mum when the phone calls and chess games can happen and you then follow her lead. Are you giving her extra maintenance to make up to her for solo parenting?

That seems like an extremely sensible solution but given how vague OP has been about the “various reasons” that have prevented him from moving nearer his kids in the last six or so years, I’m guessing there’s an unmentioned girlfriend in the background who doesn’t want to move and who is being prioritized over the kids.

I think you are getting a bit of a hard time on here but it seems to me that the current arrangements need revisiting. The evening in the week - is that weekly or fortnightly? How do you manage that with a 200 mile round tri?

if you were to agree a night for a call with your kids, would that help? Equally if she’s phoning whilst you have them, agree when - has to be fair both ways if that’s how she wants it

The distance must really minimise your time with the kids when you do have them and is a long way for them to travel. Have you not considered moving and reducing the distance to a more manageable 50 miles and commuting to work 50 miles which should also be manageable?

Otherwise I think you need solicitors advice

whats the purpose of this question? it doesn’t answer the question OP’s initial post.

cruel.

Yabu. You didn't prearrange a time to play chess with your son. Next time do that. Remind him to not use up his screen time for other things, so he could use it with you. If he chooses to spend his daily screen time, playing online games. Then that is not the mothers fault.

Ds1 secondary school keeps on sending messages on the dangers of social media on children. Your son is still a child who needs adult supervision when using social media. If he can talk to you using the chess game, there is the potential for groomers to do the same.

I also take away ds1 moblie phone and only give it to him at certain times. He is however, allowed to contact his father using the house phone during no screen time. That is only limited by bedtime and other prearranged activities.

I encourage my son to share his calander with his father, so ex knows when dc are busy. And during assessment week, ex needs to use the house phone to contact dc and vice versa. Moblie phones get taken away two weeks before and on actual assessment weeks. My other two dc don't have a moblie phone and it was ex who bought ds1 a phone.

Since you used to regularly commute before, can you see your dc more often during the week? Take them out to dinner?

My main priority for now, would be putting your son on the waiting list for an assessment. School might even put in reasonable adjustments for your son to help him thrive. Do this before GCSE start. Time is ticking.

OMG don't they just.

Totally agree. And after rereading his posts one after the other, far too many of his points sound like they've come from the F4J chat boards for my liking 😒

The difference here is that the mother has primary custody and she doesn't want her ex (who moved a hundred miles away) to intrude into her life.
We only have the OP's version of events, but he hasn't covered himself in glory with his snippy answers on this thread, so my sympathies are with the wife.

I was reading a thread earlier today about a 14 year old who would rather spend time in his room gaming instead of watching a film with his mother and siblings. The consensus was that he should be allowed to do that. What’s the difference here?

Suppose everyone agrees that YANBU (which they don't anyway), what exactly are you planning to do with that? Are you going to screenshot the replies that agree with you and send them to your ex as 'proof' that you're right?!

Tbh, you sound just like my ex BIL, who skews all of these sort of stories to make him look like an amazing dad, and my sister to look like a controlling, unreasonable shrew, even when there were witnesses to contradict him 🙄 In reality, he is the controlling, stalking, abusive partner. Are you? 🤔

At the end of the day, your son's mother is the one doing the bulk of the parenting, and if she's trying to limit screen time then your job is to support that, not undermine it. Unless undermining your ex is what you do best 😒

BTW @GearC I'm also autistic, and I have three autistic children.

The problem here is that people can hide behind their pseudonyms. They will beat you into a pulp for the joy of winning. Its a shame, as there are also many people on here who actually care.

My suggestion is the you ignore the witches, etc. They are not worth your effort.

I suggested some time ago on here that you perhaps contact your ex-wife. Make sure that there's nothing else going on before you start a chess game at 8pm. Just an idea, but could work, and it would shed you in a 'considrate' light.

In theory yes however when you have a parent who does the bare minimum parenting due to moving 100 miles away (his choice to move btw) and then blames mum for stopping him having his dc more than every other weekend, who then refuses to answer how he could have more time in term time as he cant get them to or from school mid week due to him living 100 miles from their school and mum being entitled to spend some weekends with her dc instead of just doing all the hard slog mid week and getting no fun/down time with them (no crt would agree to 1 parent having every weekend btw).
A man who starts a chess game at 8pm and gets pissy enough to start a thread about mum saying its too late after 10-20 minutes depending on which of the ops posts you believe, with the knowledge that chess games often take hours and uses the thread to verbally denigrate his ex at every opportunity and makes passive aggressive comments to anyone who doesn't buy his line of parental alienation is clearly someone who cant be reasonable in a co parenting relationship

You really aren't helping yourself here. All you are doing is proving exactly why your ex doesn't want your hours long chess games by phone/video call during her time, whilst blaming everyone else for your choices and actions, "look what you made me do" is the abusers mantra so you might want to think about how you are coming across to other people especially those who are used to dealing with abusers and child custody cases like cafcas, ss and judges who will be much more scathing of your choices than the posters on this thread have should you choose to go to crt.

The point that the posters you are attacking are trying to make is that if you really believe that your son has asd, adhd or something else going on then you are failing him by not getting him assesd, whilst simultaneously belittling those who have asd by implying that you can be a bit autistic no you cant, you are either asd or not same with adhd. If you meet the diagnostic criteria threshold you have asd and/or adhd if not then you don't.
Oh and before you go off on me aswell im autistic so is my son who also has adhd and several other conditions so please don't use ablist phrases like "somewhat nd" in the future thanks

A lot of comments seem to be shaped by bitter split ups and poor relationships. Having not been in that boat (touch wood) my take is perhaps naive.

If the child who's a teen, is capable of making the decision to call his parent he should be allowed to finish the call. That parent however should have a strategy agreed with the other parent that there are caveats ie homework is already done, the teen has not spent x hours gaming etc. If the teen has broken those rules that's when the call/game should be interrupted.

If both parents were together the game would be stopped if that were the case. Ideally.