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

Oh god these bloody women on here 🤬 your ex is toxic and needs to back the fuck up and let the kids contact their dad whenever they want! So sick of these toxic women and they wonder why the kids grow up and go non contact

Neurodiversity involves a cluster of known traits, which exist on the overall human spectrum of personality. There’s a point at which neurodiversity is diagnosable as a recognizable challenge or difference from the norm. So yes, in that regard, you are diagnosed as either “on the spectrum” or not. The autism spectrum is a zone within the range of human functioning.

My nephew is neurodiverse (back in the day he’d have been said to have Asperger’s Syndrome, but now that is just diagnosed as part of the spectrum). It’s not a significant impairment but it’s almost immediately apparent to anyone who deals with him. He’s not “somewhat autistic”, he’s on the autism spectrum.

My daughter on the other hand has some characteristics that could indicate a neurodiversity (she’s very sensitive to noise, fabric textures etc) but there’s no additional cluster of traits that would give the casual observer pause or rise to a diagnosable level. She’s just a sensitive kid.

My mum, who worked with special needs kids her whole career, had my nephew’s mild autism pegged before he was five; she has never mentioned any thoughts about my daughter being neurodiverse. It’s definitely something that can be diagnosed by experts as there or not there. If you believe your son is being impaired by autism, you owe it to him to get a formal diagnosis.

Calling out third-person phrasing after quoting Dorothy L. Sayers rather makes the point

Oh, I don't think so.

Thanks for confirming what most of us already knew about you.

There's no need to write of yourself in the third person.

Where am I "playing victim"?

It's her time and I wouldn't want my child online at night, regardless of what they're doing.

(cue next sneering, bad faith response)

You're the one who is writing sneering and bad faith responses @GearC

You are unwilling to accept that you could be wrong in any way.

This does give us a clue as to why your ex doesn't seem to be terribly keen on you.

To paraphrase Dorothy L. Sayers:

"he seemed to have had the word "compromise" left out of his make up".

People are either autistic or not autistic.

If your son is showing some traits of neurodiversity, he should undergo testing.

I strongly encourage my kids to call and text their dad if they want to tell him some news or ask a question throughout the week. However theres no history of abuse or using the kids to get at each other. Only you will know if theres a back story that affects this. But assuming there isnt i think you and your kids should call and text each other whenever the need arises. Video calls are a little bit intrusive in the home so he should keep them to his bedroom probably.

Indeed. It means nothing at all.

What does "somewhat neurodiverse (undiagnosed)" mean?

This

And it wasn't a 10 minute game. You were 10 minutes INTO your gaming with him online.

Could you apply to have some extra time with your son, but online (as you’re so far away)?

Chess is surely a good activity for him.

He moved to a house that he already owned. I went through a house purchase simultaneously with a divorce. It's not pretty.

If one parent is preventing their child from speaking to the other because they find it “intrusive”, this is not putting the child first. This is selfish in the extreme. You need to just grow up and get over it.

I think the op's unpleasant and aggressive manner on this thread probably gives us a clue as to why his ex doesn't want his presence in her house.

He wants her to fall in line with his wishes, and she doesn't owe him that.

I'd go so far as to question whether we're actually sure the ds wanted the call, because I wonder how easy he'd find it to say if he didn't, when the op clearly doesn't easily accept a "no". For all we know he's signalling for his dm to get him out of the situation.

I haven't read all of the post because it was making me annoyed.
As a single parent to 2 ND children of similar ages to yours, I think it's great that you are trying to stay so involved!
My children's dad also moved away and works a lot, so only sees them for a few hours each week. Restricting the access he has to his own children because of choices he made regarding our relationship would only punish the children.
Regardless of what caused the breakdown of your relationship, your kids are old enough to make their own decision about how much contact they want with either parent. In terms of the chess, if they really had used up all of their screen time, I would have made an exception and allowed them to finish the game and say goodnight etc and encouraged them to arrange a more convenient time to play next time.

If he's in his own bedroom what's the big deal why are you bending over backwards to try and justify her ridiculous behaviour !
This is about punishing the dad having control and screw the poor kid who just wants to play a game of online chess with his dad !

Had you of been a woman the replies on this post would be very different and I'm pretty disgusted in some replies tbh .
He's 14 old enough to decide if he wants to talk to his dad he can do that in his bedroom that in no way impacts her or her privacy its purely a control move nothing more . If she won't allow phone calls etc then the same should go at your home she might then realise how bloody idiotic her behaviour is . The joy of older children is they can have contact with the other parent so you dont have to , personally I found it great once my kids were old enough to call their dad and arrange things themselves because it meant I didn't have to speak to him .
You are not in the wrong here .

Because I was replying specifically to the comments criticising him for moving away…

Who's to say it's anything to do with punishing anyone. For all we know she'd asked him to tidy up and he hasn't done it, or she's noticed he's already been on a screen for at least an hour and feels that's long enough and wants him to get involved in something else the family are doing. Or maybe she wanted some quality time with her son in the evening before bed. We don't know how many other evenings op has phoned that week. We don't know what way the exes evening has gone.

Op has assumed shes deliberately intercepting the relationship between him and his son, but we (and op) don't actually know the full context of their day or their week. As the primary parent she does need to be able to make a judgement call on things like screens without being undermined. Which is why communication between op and the ex is the real issue here.

If op and his ex were able to have a remotely healthy co parenting relationship then he could have text her and asked about it and come to an agreement around this type of interaction. He could have gone to court to seek an agreement around such contact. But he's not done any of that, he's gone on here to vent about his ex. Instead of actually acting on the bits that are within his control. I think what's unreasonable is sitting back and complaining that you don't get on with your ex while expecting them to act like you do. If his ex has shown him clearly that she's not willing to work with him, then he needs to go to court to resolve that and gain more access to his children.

Its absolutely nothing about him being a man, I'd say the exact same to a woman in this scenario.