Is this common when your DC’s dad is your ex/doesn’t live with you?

[Funnilyenough]

I have a one year old with my ex. Not sure if it’s relevant but I moved out prior to birth due to a breakdown in the relationship. He sees dc once a week mostly due to work commitments and travel (and the fact he’s an extremely selfish person…)

He’s pretty good with dc when with them but the other 6 days a week he doesn’t even ask after them. I find this really quite disturbing. Is it normal? I don’t know. I can’t imagine not knowing how my child is from one day to the next?

My kids were 5 and 7 when we split and spend 3 nights a week at their dads. I don’t check on them, he doesn’t check on them. We might do if they’d been a bit poorly or had a struggle today before , but not generally. We trust each other as parents to get in touch if required.

I guess it really depends on how much you want him in your life. We co-parent, we aren’t friends. We don’t need continual contact. I learned quickly to embrace the time I had free and built a life for myself.

I do understand that you’ve only got a baby, and they are still tiny etc. so you might feel he should be more attentive.

@Youcannotbeseriousreally thanks that’s a helpful perspective! I think because he spends so little time with them that it’s a huge amount of time not to ask after them? If he was having them for a chunk of time I wouldn’t feel so weird about it but I do feel better hearing about your set up! Thank you

Yes I would say common. As the child gets older there may be more things to communicate about especially if contact builds up to eow overnight stays but I guess he assumes you would contact him if there was any emergency in between.

At the age of one there isn't much to communicate about and you and he are exes so your own news is of no relevance.

It's normal people will tell you it's because men can compartmentalise their lives but it does feel pretty selfish to me and I couldn't do it

The alternative is lots of texts and phone calls which I would find really invasive and demanding tbh

But I also find it awful when their dad knows they are really ill and doesn't send a quick hope ds is OK message like when covid first hit the boys had it I rang their dad said they have suspected covid he said mine is confirmed covid then went on to say his parents will be dropping off food (driving past my house no offer to drop food off to his sons) and continued to talk about him and his girlfriend being ill it made me quite angry that his first thoughts were not for his children but for himself when they got covid again there was again no offer of help from him he said well thanks for letting me know but you don't need to as I'm not going to be seeing them for awhile (he stopped due to covid)

So yeah hope your ex is better than mine

I was only asked for and received regular updates in A&E type energencies. We parallel parent rather than co-parent really.

@Spirallingdownwards ok thanks :) that makes sense

@Theunamedcat sorry you had that experience. My ex is dreadful too and I have often had moments where I’ve genuinely been astonished by how selfish he is! V v v glad he is an ex!

It's probably better not to be on constant communication. He obviously trusts you so knows they're OK and that you'd let him know if there's a problem? Hopefully when they're older he'll regularly facetime

Me and exdp had 50:50 with ds23 and we checked in every day with each other. Ds18’s dad visited him daily (used to come to the garden during covid) and still does when he’s home from university.