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

[GearC]

My ex-wife shut down an online chess game I was playing tonight (Friday) with my son (14). He’s very keen on chess and had asked me to play. We’d been playing for about 10 minutes. She scolded him for being on his phone too much, and when he explained he was playing with me, she said, “He(I) can do it in his own time” and insisted he end the call. This isn’t an isolated incident—she has tended to show extreme controlling behaviour over the years. She regularly disrupts or curtails our calls, and a few years ago she completely stopped our once-a-fortnight video calls, saying they “invaded her privacy.” (I can say with 99% certainty it was actually payback for an unrelated argument a few days earlier)
For context, I have the kids (him and his 13-year-old sister) every second weekend and one evening midweek. My son is somewhat neurodiverse (undiagnosed) and has very few friends or social outlets. It’s really hard to see him spending so much time alone. These small interactions—like a game of chess—feel worthwhile. They give him a bit of connection and enjoyment, and for me they’re a way of trying to make up for the father-son time we’ve missed. Not being able to be there for him, especially given his situation, has been genuinely heartbreaking.
I want his mother once and for all to stop interfering in our relationship. I do nothing to interfere in her calls with the kids when I have them. They can talk as long as they want.

I guess that’s the bit you might not be aware of, whether it’s affecting something else going on the home, it might well be he’d been nagged to start his homework for the past hour and he kept doing one last thing on his phone for example.

regarding court, I was just wondering why you were on a coparneting app as that’s often used when there’s been a high conflict custody battle and allegations of abuse/mistrust between parents, in these situations (I see there was an allegation you hurt her hand) then it’s not usual for parents to feel comfortable having their ex on video call in their home.

my advice to you though is not to try to control or change you ex but empower you son. Ask him about what happened and what the rules are at mums house. Help him to negotiate the rules with his mum, whether that is arranging a set time or letting her know first when he wants some privacy and how long for for a call/game (with you or someone else) so it’s not interrupted. He might already know but if he doesn’t he can have a chat with her and you can work around what him and mum have worked out is fair. As th current situation sounds annoying for both of them.

Some may say “bitter”, others may say “unfortunately well-acquainted with the ways a narrative can be written to falsely paint oneself as a victim”.

The OP does not really seem to have much doubt he’s the “good” parent here which makes me wonder why he’s really posting.

He also freely chose to move 100 miles away from his children, which makes his complaints of not wanting to miss out on “father-son time” a little rich. (Does he have similar complaints about father-daughter time, I wonder?)

His story of the ex wedging herself in the car to force a conversation doesn’t sound great, however I can personally attest to the immense frustration of trying to have important discussions with someone who insists on doing it on his timetable only.

She may have been determined to have the conversation in person because she knows there’s no telling when the promised phone conversation might actually occur. Yes, wedging yourself in a car door is bad. Attempting to shut a car door on someone who is wedged in it is also bad and not the get-it-of-jail-free card the OP seems to see it as.

I’ve heard so many stories about “controlling” exes who are in reality just trying to get a bit of traction with men who are themselves extremely controlling. The OP does not actually appear to be here for advice, which makes me wonder what he really is here for.

I know you’re scatter-gunning him with questions to find a way to cast blame - but none of them bear any relation to his, reasonable sounding, question.

We’re talking about a 14 year old here, I think they can have a voice in how they spend their time and contact with their parents. This is not a toddler who needs an iPad holding. Also… it’s occasional online chess…

^this.

So you’re saying a 14 year old boy can’t play online chess with the non-resident parent because that parent moved further away? Are we missing some steps in your thought process here?

If this is something you'd like to do I think you need to ask your ex if it's something she'd be open to and what she'd need for it to work for her. Like a particular day or time of the evening.

You need to acknowledge to her that she is raising the kids, that she is the one there in the evenings overseeing everything and that your calls might be potentially disruptive if not handled well I.e. she's asked DS to do something or simply put his phone away, and he doesn't do it and feels justified because he's speaking to you.

She's on the treadmill of daily solo parenting and if you insist there's nothing you can do to move closer and take more physical responsibility for your kids then I think you need to show her a bit more respect and request rather than demand this.

Ok so OP I have experience of this and I am sorry, it is really invasive to a degree it can feel like you have no privacy and it can be quite disruptive to the children. I actually experience this from the children’s mother. I do support contact, as does my DH, but it drags on, it interrupts our time with the DC and we don’t do this in reverse on her time. We tend to encourage the contact on the DC’s term, so if they ask specifically for her they can call her for 5-10 mins.

When contact was on her terms we were finding this was really creeping into our lives in a pressured way, mornings before school making us late, delaying bedtime and bedtime routines, disrupting holidays. The calls drag on without much purpose (no one really chatting with intention just ‘online’ together) and it does feel invasive, whether you like that or not, it feels like someone who doesn’t live with you has unfettered access into your life at any time they want or desire and you aren’t sure of their intentions. DC usually do divulge stuff about each parent, you are just going about your day in your own home and there is another adult - who you aren’t in a relationship with - in the background of your home.

Personally I would take a step back and put yourself in her shoes.. would you really be ok with this? It wouldn’t feel too much? Perhaps you can make contact more purposeful and make sure it’s not too disruptive

Sorry but this would piss me off too

you chose to move away and not share 50/50 and then whilst she is doing all the hard work of parenting (let’s be honest every other weekend is not parenting it’s just “fun time”) you are inserting yourself into the household

managing screen time for kids is a very difficult parenting wise these days without you then usurping her authority. You don’t know what his behaviour was like that day or days leading up to it or what had been agreed as his screen time limit that day

The Family Link app is not a co-parenting app, I think you're thinking of something different. It's just an app which allows you to monitor and control a child's screen time and phone use.

I think 8pm on a Friday night, a 14yo should be allowed to play chess with whoever he likes unless.....

1. Supper has just been served up
2. The mum had arranged another activity in advance - cinema booking etc.

The teen can play in his room, mum doesn't need to feel the imposition.

During the week when homework needs to be done, when food is on the table, later at night when ds should be asleep etc are not OK.

I agree with PussinBin20 there are some good kind women on here but others who twist everything into men being the bad guys. It is difficult to make a supportive comment without hearing both sides of a situation.

He’s nearly old enough he’ll be able to meet up with you at a chess club or similar

I think at 14 he should be able to contact you independently of his mother. I also see nothing wrong here - yes he is “on his phone” but playing a game of chess with his dad is not the same as watching mindless TikTok videos or worse.

I do get what people say about the intrusion of video calls in the home but he should be allowed to do this in his room or a quiet corner.

Go to court and get it sorted

A father being forced out of his children’s daily lives (I did not "choose" anything of the sort) — that’s seems fine.
A father being reduced to scraps of time with his own kids — no issue. He probably deserved it.
A father having to rely on the odd phone call just to stay connected — perfectly acceptable.

But a 10–15 minute call on a Friday evening with his son?

That's what "pisses you off" in this scenario? Seriously??

Nobody has ‘forced’ you to do anything, based on the information you’ve provided.

• You’ve chosen not to live closer to your children.
• Therefore, you’ve chosen not to see them more.
• You’ve chosen not to go to court about any of this.

Your ex might be a complete harridan or she might be lovely. It doesn’t change the fact that these are choices you have made and continue to make.

She's right about the video calls being invasive of her privacy. It's a window into her home that she can and did choose to close.

You don't know what was going on in the home when you called. You might be calling at inconvenient times that are disruptive.

Set up a regular contact schedule via court.

You created the situation where your not part of his day to day life by moving 100 miles away that was your choice.

The result of your choice is that you only spend "scraps of time" with your child whilst his mum is left to do everything

If you hadn't chosen to abandon your parenting responsibilities by moving so far away you wouldn't need intrusive video calls or phone calls on mums time to "stay connected"

This is a you problem that you created when you chose to move 100 miles away, if you don't like the consequences of your choices then move closer to your son and actually parenting him instead of leaving it all to mum

I got to carefully scrutinize the wall in the spare room upstairs once a fortnight.
Hugely "invasive" of course and far too big a price to pay for the fun it gave the children seeing their dad.

This is parental alienation
Go to court for approved access

They live a hundred miles apart.
The dad decided to move that far away when he split up with the mother.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Why are you posting here? Seems like you are just posting here to be argumentative with women.

What?
This post doesn't make any sense.
Are there some words missing, or typos somewhere?

That’s quite an impressive amount of assumption packed into one comment.
You’ve managed to conclude that I “abandoned” my parenting responsibilities, chose to only see my children in “scraps of time,” and engineered the entire situation myself—all without having the slightest idea of the actual circumstances. Nice work.
Unfortunately, none of that is accurate.
Parenting arrangements after separation aren’t something one person just redesigns on a whim, and “just move closer and get 50:50” isn’t how any of this works in reality.
As for the “intrusive” calls—if a 10-minute game of chess that my son asked for qualifies as that, then we’re clearly working with very different definitions of the word.
I’m not trying to replace being physically present with phone calls, and I’m not “leaving it all to mum.” I’m maintaining a relationship with my child within the structure that exists—something most people would consider fairly normal.
But by all means, if inventing a backstory that makes his mum a martyr helps your point, I can see why you’d go with that.