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

Do not reply
Do not engage
Water off a ducks back
Ignore

I completely agree with this (I also have a dickhead exH).

Hold in mind that you don't have to JADE - Justify, Argue, Defend or Explain. I know you feel like you want to, but no reply is the best reply

That is the best and only reply to give

I absolutley one hundred percent understand how you feel, and how infuriating and unfair it is to be in this position, but in truth, there is no message that you can send that will get your point across or to make you understood by someone who is fully commited to misunderstanding you, and twisting every situation.

Breathe, and ignore. And resolve not to ask for his help, because for the one time he might actually be reasonable and provide assistance, there will be ten times like this that zap your energy and take up your brain space for a couple of days trying to think of retorts.

Save your energy. Honestly. He's a prick, he always will be. He's never going to be any different. The only thing you can change is your expectations of him.

If you must reply, I’d say something like:

”you don’t pay maintenance to absolve yourself of your duties to your children on my days. You pay maintenance to share the financial burden the children on my days. children don’t exist on a timeshare basis. The non-financial burdens exist 24/7 and will do for the rest of our days. You’ve just put in writing that you pay maintenance in order to have no non-monetary responsibility for our children other than on the four days per month for which you don’t pay maintenance. I’ll deal with [child] today as best as I can”

I’m petty so I would reply with….

I understand. Parenting the girls stops for you as soon as they’re not with you. Given that you’re a great Dad that cares for the girls mental wellbeing, I thought you might be interested in important issues. I have obviously somehow misunderstood this and I will make it a priority to not interrupt you in future. Have a great day! P.s thanks for the maintenance, that should sort out all the problems.

Just completely disengage, radio silence. If you absolutely ever have to interact with him, just be cheerful and minimal in what you say, it will kill him but make you feel fantastic and you will eventually forget about him. Not long to go now, your kids will grow and you will have decades of wonderful freedom.

remember as in any situation, with colleagues, customers, family, BELLENDS HATE BEING IGNORED, it destroys what drives them, just smile to yourself and disengage!

And and to any of his helpful not helpful reminders such as the dentist I’d reply ‘ all in hand’ every time. Everything else meet with deathly silence.
He sounds so arrogant, my friend’s ex is like this and she used to pander to him ( in that he’d always look angry or miserable collecting/ dropping off dc and she’d ask him if he was ok, he’d blank her so she’d keep asking) Made him 100x worse.
Keep telling yourself the end is in sight, you’ll be rid of him.

This.
It's very likely that the main reason he has the children at all is that he can use them as levers to get at you, to cause problems for you. If you stop engaging with him (except at a very basic factual level) you remove his ability to wind you up. He will then get bored and drop out of your life🥳

As you've said, it's not worth your energy. He's a dickhead, you can't change that, any reply you give is going to get you more pissed off.

Laughing emoji is the only possible response.

I agree with those saying not to respond at all and I'd never update him on anything from now on tbh - he has said it's all down to you so no helpful communication from now on. He can book them dentist appointments if he's worried they haven't been.

He sounds a total sanctimonious prick and the kind of person who will always want the last word so whatever you say, however neutral and unemotional, he will pick to pieces and instigate a back and forth (based on his ridiculous logic that paying maintenance means he magically has zero responsibility for his DDs 12 days out of 14) and that will only make you feel more frustrated. May as well cut it off now. I really feel for you btw, it's shit.

He sounds very similar to my ex. I usually give him a thumbs up or a laughing emoji and then ignore any further comments from him

"I see. Noted, thanks".

Give him an appropriate name. "Skin tag" will do. It is something annoying and unsightly that is attached to you and will fall off when you cut off its supply.

Minimal to zero communication. You don't need it.

I wouldn't bother mocking him, just be factual and business like. Keep it brief, no emotion at all. If you express any emotion you are showing him how you are feeling and that gives him information that he will use against you.
Be the grey rock, anything else feeds his ego and gives him ammunition to use against you.
He's a worthless nothing, stop treating him as if he's important.

"I'm sorry, I had forgotten you are so much more important than the children you so kindly donated nothing more than your sperm and 4 days a month to, please accept my apologies for thinking you actually had any interest in anyone but yourself"

Please @thegeniussquare congratulate yourself on getting rid of a huge narcissist of a twat. What a prick. How dare you take his precious time. God I'd want to deck him.

This is the way to do it, brief polite factual. Politely dismiss him in as few words as possible and then go about your day.
You will have to let go of any hope or expectation that he will improve and that is very hard, but it's better to face facts.

I think this is the way to respond!!

Don't respond.

From now on if he asks anything about dental appointments, medical appointments, school or whatever simply send him one message to ask his own daughters directly as they are old enough and ignore any further messages.

This is because all your DDs are old enough to speak to their father directly without your interference.

Your DDs are also all Gillick competent so while you may have to arrange appointments for them due to the individual healthcare practitioners system they can refuse to attend, refuse to have treatment or go on their own.

This is what my nieces dad was like to my sister and honestly the urge to reply calling him a fucking cunt was very very strong and it nearly broke my sister. I told her to redirect her anger to me via text about him because he loved nothing more than getting a reaction and by doing that we ended up laughing about how much of a complete nob he is and you should see my sister now lol she takes no shit from him and if he starts she just completely ignores him now and he fucking hates that lol it's got to the point now where he has wound his neck in because he knows one cocky smug word and he gets cut off. It's so hard to ignore an arrogant prick but it became so easy knowing how much it got to him and it gave my sister some power back.

He is a dick head but I think that he’s right. The current CM/child contact system is set up so that paying CMS maintenance (the bare minimum) is seen as a sign of a good dad even if they don’t see the kids. Lots of divorced dads only see themselves as parents when they physically see the child only.

There’s another thread about CM where women are saying outrageous like things why should the ex pay CM so that the RP can work when work is a choice 🤯 because many see it as completely acceptable that NRP compartmentalise their time like that. it’s a waste of time contacting your ex about parenting issues as he like many others, see payment of CM as abdication of parental responsibilities too.

Yanbu to expect better but your ex’s attitude isn’t unusual ime - even from women.

Your poor girls…. One day when they are old enough you can show them written proof that he literally “opted out”. What a heartless prick.

As pp have said, there's not reply that will make him see reason and he may well take anything you say out of context to use against you (like the dentist comment). So best to say nothing.

Just so you know though, I have worked with a number of men like this and they are so confident in their own self importance that they don't even think to cover up what arseholes they are so the likelihood is that everyone around him also thinks he's a dick. I had colleagues who would brag about saying things like this to their ex wives and about the shitty way they treated their ex and children. They clearly thought it made them look clever and other people would agree with them. There was one who frequently commented that his ex had been a 'starter wife', good enough for when he wanted children and was working his way up the career ladder but now he needed someone better. He also bragged that his ex and children had to do what he said because he paid their bills, and joked about intentionally making things awkward for them (eg insisting on taking the DC on holiday the same time as he knew they had other plans) because he could. He was shocked when his DC were young adults and they didn't want anything to do with him.

That message is absolutely infuriating

I can feel my BP rising and he's not even my ex

Everyone else is right - do not give his reply any oxygen. Ignore ignore ignore

If you must reply - the MN thumbs up 👍 or "noted"

Some of the suggested replies are great but he will not react the way you want.