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

[thegeniussquare]

A little context. I am a single, full-time working mother of 3 girls. My daughters stay with their dad every other weekend. He was a cheat and our marriage ended over a decade ago. He has always been snippy in his communications with me. I endeavour to ignore, as engaging with him isn't worth it. He'll never change and it is no good for my mental well-being.
He is an extremely high earner and I'm not. He makes it clear to me that I am a millstone around his neck, even though I'm a good mum to our 3 kids and do pretty much all of the nitty gritty parenting. He is unsupportive of me and an arrogant individual. Believe me, I have tried my best to keep things amicable.
Our youngest (nearly 15) is showing signs of becoming a school refuser. I am worried sick and doing everything I can.
This morning, I got her up as normal and was cajoling her along. I then had to leave for work but had a bad feeling that she may not go in. I emailed my ex husband and asked if he'd please check in with her, by call or text (as would I, as it's not like I have the luxury of simply forgetting!).
This was the reply I received. I actually don't feel like I can ignore it. I need to say something, even if it will fall on deaf ears. This man is ALWAYS right. The basic message is, 'I pay you maintenance so that I can opt out of these things and focus on my big career, so put up and shut up'.
Please don't judge me. I have had enough of dealing with everything on my own.
And if you are kind enough to help with a reply, it needs to be concise and with as little emotion as possible. Emotion annoys him and he doesn't take it seriously.
He's an arsehole, right?
Oh, and the point about blaming the dentist is nonsense. When he asked me if the girls had been to the dentist recently, I replied 'oh yeah, they must be due to go, but I don't remember receiving a reminder, so I'll check it out'.

Thanks for reading

I would keep it short:

Take some responsibility for your own children.

Yes, absolutely

It’s a really tough thing to accept/learn to do but very freeing once you do.

Some people are simply not willing or possibly even capable of care/consideration/empathy at a level that most of us think of as normal or easy enough to achieve. Like, they’re really, really not and no amount of logic or wheedling or trying to “manage” them will change that.

You’ve had kids with one of them. This realization sucks suuuuper hard (not least because it makes you feel that by having kids with a disengaged father you’ve also failed them in some way) but you end up feeling so much better once you process it.

My ex is a passive-aggressive shitshow and a Disney Dad at best, but now that I’ve fully accepted who he is, I just roll my eyes and laugh at his arrogance and pettiness. They used to stress me out and I would spend hours ruminating on why he couldn’t just be normal and cooperate, and I kept trying to “fix” the situation with carefully worded messages etc.

It’s an absolute waste of time and energy. Now I try to approach everything as though I am effectively a solo parent and that mindset change has been really good for me. In a weird way it almost makes your ex’s minimal contributions feel like a win rather than a loss. Of course I don’t thank him for doing the bare minimum but my own mindset is far more chill.

Bloody hell OP he's vile. Your poor daughters having a father who thinks it's acceptable to speak to their Mum the way he does.
He's really nasty and sounds so arrogant! What are your daughters relationship like with him? Well done for not retaliating and ignoring the arrogant pig!

I’d love to

OP such brilliant advice on here, the 'you have me confused with UBER' deserved a 'so sorry, I had you confused as a caring father'. Your now no response only via email, perfect, what a waste of oxygen he is. Good luck!

Oh my goodness, were you married to my ex H?!

The tone is exactly the same, even down to the terse, bossy instruction starting with ‘Please’ and ending in ‘Thank you’ (so you can’t accuse him of being rude and unreasonable). It is uncanny.

It’s a particular way of gaslighting in my opinion — my ex H has this annoying ability to make me feel like I’m the one who’s done everything wrong. Sometimes I even believe it. Your screenshot has made me feel better that there are other dicks out there like this, so thank you.

(Btw, my tactic is to ignore as much as possible. Let him think on it. And DON’T let it affect how you feel about yourself.)

Does he also present himself to the outside world as a great dad? Sun shines out of his arse? Just wondering.

Does he also present himself to the outside world as a great dad? Sun shines out of his arse? Just wondering

Mine certainly does.

I’m wondering if it would be worth sending replies ‘to clarify things’ (only so you can save his responses)?

eg Just to clarify - would you prefer I don’t update you on things concerning the children on the days they aren’t with you?

Would you prefer they always make their way to yours on public transport rather than you collect them?

And save ...

“Maintenance payments represent the proportion of your salary that you would otherwise spend on the children if you lived with them full time. They are a financial contribution. The payments do not negate your parental responsibility - legally or morally - outside of your allotted weekends. As such, I’d appreciate if you messaged (child) at X time to check in on her.”

I know it’s better to ignore but I love this!

Child support is payable until the child’s 19th birthdays as long as the child is in full time non advanced education . So it’s pretty unlikely that payments will end soon for a 15 year old.

Im letting you know this so you can avoid looking silly by asking another mother this in such a passive aggressive manner. No doubt you think that you are super duper clever, trying to oh so subtly imply that any resident parent asking a NRP to care for their own child is obviously only doing it for the money.

And she wasn’t asking the children’s father to “ parachute in and save the day “ or “ suddenly drop everything “. She was asking him to call or text his own daughter.

Not exactly too onerous , one would have thought.

I actually think you should reply to collect the receipt on how much of a rubbish parent he is so that you can use it against him later in for any custody battles etc.

To tick him off you should keep the tone professional. Articulate every email how to put him in a bad light in court.

"Thanks for the reply that you believe your parenting responsibilities end when the girls are with me. If I understand correctly from your response you do not wish to be updated when the girls are in my care and in particular, do not want to to participate discussing or being involved with their educational welfare.

Can you please confirm by reply email that this is the arrangement you would like going forward? That you would like to dissolve your parental responsibilities over the girl's education and limit your parental rights to what happens during your allocated weekends? That will be much appreciated if this is clear to help both my day to day parental decisions and also clear to the girls what your parental responsibilities you want to be limited to."

Having dealt with this kind of dude, I can assure you that all that will happen is he will “politely” deflect, deny, insist that you have gotten him wrong, accuse you of creating drama and refuse to engage in general.

OP could waste hours of her life on this kind of bullshit for nothing more than the vanishingly small possibility that it might help in some future court case, which, given the youngest child is 15, will never come to pass here.

I had a father like this. He actually said to me do u know how much my time is worth to me as a child.
I like the Thanks for your written confirmation and then radio silence
Another tactic with narcissists is to repeat their lies back to them as facts. maintenance covers the emotional aspect of parenting 🤭imagine you can just be transactional about everything worshipping the money God. The blood sweat and tears of parenting and all that common shared groundwork is priceless and a very strong bond ❤️that is to have truly made your presence alive in your daughters lives.

👏👏👏

Can I just add to my previous statements please?

I’m so glad that @thegeniussquare extricated herself and her kids from a living situation with the kind of environment this utter wankstain would create!!! Well done!

I really feel for you. My ex is like this but he pays no money at all towards our child. (So I guess in your situation I’d see him a source of income only and emotionally disengage from him as a human.)

My ex throws grenades from the sidelines. If I want to take her on holidays, he will agree then object so I have to get a court order so he can’t stop my taking her out of the country. I put her in private school (at my cost) and he tried to prevent that to.

With this kind of person, they just look for any way to cause hurt or problems. They resent being left and us divorcing them so they will never be able to relate in a neutral way. I just focus on the fact that one day I will be able to have absolutely no contact with him.

I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this. I don't know the circumstances of your split, but he sounds very bitter and resentful. Unfortunately many men think paying maintenance for their kids absolves them of parenthood and he is one of them. I would ignore him and keep the message as evidence of his appalling behaviour. Maintenance is for the physical financial upkeep of looking after children. You could point this out to him, but as he's a bully, he would probably retort with a nasty reply. Being a parent and caring for your children is an unpaid job meant to be undertaken for love. He obviously doesn't see it that way. I also don't think he's coping very well with his high flying job by the sound of it.

I'm sorry your daughter is struggling at school, mine did too. Every morning it was a mission to get her up and ready for school, every evening at pick up she would complain like mad about how awful it was, the teachers, the other pupils, you name it. She got on a lot better at college so maybe you could consider that for your daughter. Is she being bullied do you think? Could she have adhd or autism? The latter show up very differently in girls. It turns out both my daughters have adhd and I hadn't a clue because years ago nobody thought girls could have adhd.

It could also be a phase she is going through, you sound like a brilliant Mum so I'm sure you will both work it out. Good luck love.

Sorry, if you do want to reply to him here is what I would say:

Dear Twatface ( not this bit obvs)

"You are responsible for your daughter's emotional and practical needs.

Making (predictable) maintenance jibes is neither helpful nor mature.

Making personal jibes towards me is neither helpful nor mature.

Please take responsibility and support your daughter's emotional needs today which costs you nothing."

Absolutely agree with this. In my experience, you’ll never win.

Love this!!!

Sod the seagull jokes. Is there some sort of seagull fanciers club you could sign him up to the mailing list for!?

I know I keep saying it but your ex’s responses are exactly the same as my ex’s, it’s like they are twins 😬 I even used to respond by giving an example of what a decent response would be rather than the one he gave. It’s uncanny.

100%. Most of the suggestions for comebacks are just a waste of time with someone like this (my ex could be his twin). Minimal contact, and straight to the point otherwise my blood pressure would go through the roof. I’ve thrown things in frustration at the responses I’d get (in private of course but as a release). Even now, kids grown, he’s still the same (thankfully contact very minimal) but I no longer need to care and the kids have a good handle on his character now. People like this don’t change, there’s something missing in their humanity.