Advice for dealing with difficult ex

[icklacknok]

Ex is being difficult. We have a son together. If I send text asking how he is for example the reply will be "you'll find out at the weekend"

Do I respond? Really struggling with how to deal with it.

Is your split recent ? Did you instigate it ? I am not saying it's ok, but if you left and its recent then there are a lot of emotions flying high. Not least the fact that 'you' (don't know if you are mum or dad) has precious non child time, while resident parent has no respite until the weekend. Sounds like it could be a good idea to take on more of the child care and give the other parent a break .

Your ex has the lion's share of the responsibility for your son and may be somewhat busy dealing with a million and one day to day tasks and responsibilities. Meanwhile you want progress reports ?

Surely they'd let you know if anything major cropped up concerning your son.

You will get the fun bit, the weekends, leaving you free to pursue a career with no Mon-Fri childcare hassles.

It's nice that you seem interested but texting "how's little Ben ?" takes seconds from your child-free time. Texting back with a summary of little Ben's recent life events/experiences when actually looking after little Ben, and dealing with shopping/cooking & feeding/washing and possibly working too is a lot more onerous.... do you see ?

Assuming he is the resident parent, can you ask him more specific questions - is Ben's cough any better? Did Ben enjoy swimming today?

Would that help? You have my sympathies, I have a difficult ex (although I am the resident parent) and it becomes very weary.

Don't respond.

My ex (non-resident) has started to be demanding with contact (I'm not talking about the odd text asking how our child is) but I am trying to remain civil and non responsive to some of the preposterous demands.

Clicked send before finishing!

I am trying to say it is better in the long run for the child to be as amicable as is possible.

Are you able to have telephone contact? Or is your son too young? Maybe agreeing to speak to your son 2/3 times a week instead would be better.

That is really tricky, and sad, I think. Despite what a PP said, it doesn't take 30 seconds to send a civil update. My exH and I have managed it, despite him knocking someone up within weeks of us separating. We focus on the kids and we both know that us being civil benefits the children.

You can't do anything about it though I'm afraid. You can try - "I feel X when you do y" sort of formula but if your ex is not willing to communicate then you can't force it.

Perhaps take it as no news is good news and that you would hear if something was wrong.

Received a text message....
"DS has come home with some lovely language today, he went to bed early as a result!"

I never swear and he's only been with me all weekend. I assume ex is after a reaction from me. Do I respond or just ignore the text?

As your ex must know you quite well (seeing as you made a child together) . I would respond with.. 'As you know, I never swear, so assume you are not suggesting it has come from me. I would guess he has picked it up from school. - I will have a word with his teacher if you think it would help.' - this way you can be seen to be taking a responsibility for your child's behaviour and offering to look for a solution. Resident Parents get so hacked off with having to 'deal' with all this stuff, whilst the joint parent gets all the fun and none of the responsibilities. Offering to look into this issue without being asked, is what joint parenting between separated parents is all about.