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

Just take it at face value:

Maintenance pays for the girls' living costs only. As you well know, your obligations of love and emotional support to our girls remain and are independent of our relationship.

Easy - one word reply.

'Cunt'.

Well obviously the right thing to do is either respond with noted or nothing at all. However I would be tempted to send

'Yes he really is an insufferable wankstain with an overinflated sense of importance about himself. It's almost hilarious how he thinks he pays not to be a parent 99% of the time. But yeah, I think you're right the kids always do work out who was there for them in the end. I think I'll just ignore his response. You can't make someone into a decent person, god knows I've hoped and tried.'

Then follow it up with a text saying 'please ignore the last message, it wasn't meant for you.'

But obviously that's not the sensible solution. It would feel good for about 5 mins though!

Having read the thread, I'm with the camp that a brief, businesslike acknowledgment is best, if only so that you are covered when this moron decides to swing the other day and demand chapter and verse on dentist appointments or whatever. My reading of him is that it's not even about you wasting his important time, but about torturing you and lording it over you. Take some comfort from the fact that you must have really got one up on him in the past for him to now be so desperate to grab every chance to be a cunt to you. I expect it's because you caught his sorry cheating arse and got a decent settlement. So revel in the thought!

A thumbs-up on the message and a "Noted" should it. Absolutely no "thanks"!. And grey rock going forwards. If you communicate via WhatsApp, I'd suggest switching off his ability to see when you've read a message, for starters.

If a man with a mid-teen youngest child hasn’t grasped the obvious fact that contributing to the financial upkeep of your children doesn’t buy you out of all other parenting responsibilities, he doesn’t seem intelligent enough to parent competently and I wouldn’t be asking him to be involved.

As Children get older things change.
Your support will be required outside of your standard maintenance hours for teenagers and adults.
I am asking you as I have a situation which may require us to work together. Please understand that requests like this are for the benefit of our children and not me/you.

“I am doing everything I can to ensure X attends school. I presumed you would do the same. Noted that you do not wish to be involved in parenting of the children of contacted re the children when they aren’t with you. I will let the school know about both points. No response required. Thegeniussquare.”

Kudos for not responding, OP. I think you should see this as a spur to have as little contact and engagement with him (as is practical) in the future.

He comes across as a narcissist (based on the text you posted) and not getting a rise out of you is the main thing that will infuriate him.

Wow. He is a twat, though. Well handled yourself.

I think I’d reply. I couldn’t not. ‘It seems your lawyer didn’t explain it very well. You pay maintenance because you’re their parent, it doesn’t abdicate you from being a parent. But should I take this as a notice that you don’t want any parental involvement from here on? (Maintenance will still be required because they are your children though)’

When you communicate with him OP think of it as communicating with the judge, or your children when they are older. In other words try to keep your mind on how it will make you look. The more you can remain factual, unemotional, calm & polite -the more you can do that- the better you will look. AND the worse he looks by comparison, making it hard for him to claim to be the victim
Dont attack him, dont get into a back & forth, no mudslinging, no pig wrestling. Dont go there.
I know it's hard when you're bursting to read (shout) him the riot act but that only makes it all worse. Your best hope for a shift in his behaviour is if you can manage to not engage. I'm not saying he'll turn into a decent bloke, but the bear is less troublesome if you dont poke it.
(As per a pp's suggestion, imagine it as cutting off the blood supply to a skin tag if that helps)

You've been worth your weight in gold on this thread, every last one of you. Please give yourselves a pat on the back because you have no idea how much you've helped me.

Despite genuinely believing that you did the right thing by trying to inform him of the situation, I would be taking his reply as his own permission to NOT contact him ever again. He has “opted out”. You have this in writing. I would take the message to school and show them (especially the school counsellor) what he is like and ask if his behaviour may be contributing to your DD’s behaviour atm. Let them know that you are 100% on board with getting DD back to school attendance, and if that means that DD chooses not to go to Dad’s you’re okay with it.

Tell him it's called parenting. You can't pick and choose when to parent neither should he.

Ignore, but if you have to respond say something like :

Maintenance is like bed and board, it doesn't absolve you from being an involved parent.. But you have it your way. I'll show the school your insulting comment if they ask are there any issues they should be aware of.

Or laugh at him :

Dad of the year strikes again with his complete lack of interest in his own kids😆

Big career 😆 make sure they put that on your gravestone,

Oh dear, feathers ruffled this morning 🤣 Poor you

How does that work when they are 18 ? No money no care?

He sounds so awful OP.

Wow what a dick. Good on you for not being married to him and keeping your cool.

Thank god as your youngest is fifteen you won't have many more years of dealing with this knob. What a dick

Don't reply. Only a few years and you're rid of him forever anyway!

hes deliberately worded the text for maximum effect to be as goady as he can possibly be, with the view to it pushing the OPs red button.

hes clearly highly resentful of having to shell out all that maintenance money for his offspring and is taking it out on the OP.

completely ignore and ghost is the only effective way, to diffuse and neutralise his attempt at stirring the pot, otherwise it will descend into a back and forth damaging ping pong of abuse.

Oh wow. Breathtakingly rude. I’ve had to deal with twattish men like this before in a business/ professional setting and it was an absolute nightmare. I would ignore him OP. When they go low, you go high.

God he's a cunt, isn't he.

It's not spelled "your arrangements" dude, it's spelled "parenting." It's not part time.

He doesn't deserve the privilege of children.

Sorry about your ex
as an aside please google inattentive adhd and see if this applies to your youngest. It’s very common to be missed by schools in girls.

Op, this is the best response. Anything you say he will turn into a negative. He resents and dislikes you.

Stop sending him anything he could construe as you asking something of him.

Send it with the title FYI. When he complains about you having expectations of him, correct him and say that you have no expectations, the message was for information only and what he does with that information is entirely a matter for him.

You are nice and I suspect your messages are nice. You are being waaaay too nice to this bottomfeeder OP. Robotic FYI messages from now on.

I have learnt over the years not to reply. It achieves nothing. I also never ask him for anything after he refused to pay towards my son’s residential trip as “that was part of what maintenance was for”.

I obviously screen shot everything and slag him off with my friends but I think it annoys him more that I don’t reply. He’s now seen his kids twice in the last six years.

Your ex is a complete knob. I like the idea of sending a laughing emoji but then never ask him for anything