In shared custody arrangements, amicable coparents often turn to each other for childcare. But is that fair? What if one parent is doing more than the other?
A mom of two turned to the “Am I The A**Hole” (AITAH) subReddit to ask a hypothetical Would I Be The A**hole (WIBTAH) question for feedback.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However there are no official voting acronyms and no final judgment given.
This post—edited for length—was marked by the OP as specifically seeking advice.
Life_of_the_PartyXO asked:
“WIBTAH if I stop all of the favors I’ve been doing for my ex since he has refused the one favor I asked?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“My ex-husband Greg (38, male) and I (30, female) have two kids—Louisa (9, female) and Ted (7, male). We divorced over 5 years ago and coparent very well.”
“The divorce was because I was happy with our two children, but he wanted more, and even therapy didn’t help. It was me who filed for divorce—he said he could probably go to therapy and find a way to make it work, but I knew I couldn’t ask him to do that.”
“We have had basically no issues, there’s no child support (we’re 50/50 custody⁶), have never had issues having the kids if the other parent has something come up, and understand that it’s just about making sure their lives aren’t too disrupted.”
“Greg got remarried to Tessie (38, female) four years ago and they have another child, a boy, and another about to make their appearance in this world in a few weeks. I am marrying my fiancé Luke (36, male) in February.”
“We’ve been together for about 3 years and he’s known my kids for 2. We moved in together last year.”
“We all have a group chat, but aren’t overly friendly or anything—we only talk about the kids and keep it pretty lighthearted. Our only ‘rules’ with the other dating were that we would introduce our partners to the other before they met the kids, which went great with both of them.”
“When Tessie and Greg married, I obviously kept the kids an extra week for their honeymoon, and again for my actual custody week so they could settle in (they didn’t live together before they got married).”
“When they had their first baby, I kept our kiddos for about a month (but brought them over a few times to see their new brother, obviously) so they could settle in since it was Tessie’s first baby.”
“A few weeks ago at one of Lacie’s games, Tessie told me the date her c-section was scheduled for, which is in the middle of their custody week. I told her we were excited for them and of course I could keep my kids that week and my following week, and we could go back to normal their next custody period.”
“She kind of hemmed and hawed and asked if we could keep them for another of Greg’s custody weeks to give them a month again to get used to things. I said that was fine.”
“I didn’t expect them to need that much time for their second baby, but I know c-sections are major surgeries and I said I’d be happy to keep the kids. They don’t live far from us, so bringing them over to hang out won’t be too out of my way and, of course, I love having my kids with me.”
“Anyhoo, we’ve finalized our plan for our honeymoon, which is 3 weeks. I know it seems excessive, but it’s something on both of our bucket lists—a trip to Japan. But not something the kids would be too interested in, so the honeymoon seems like the best opportunity to do it.”
“Basically what would happen would be that we’d get married on Saturday (my week), the kids would stay with Greg that night and then stay for his week, then they would keep them for our week and then their next custody week.”
“So they’d only have them for one of my custody weeks, plus one extra evening.”
“I don’t have family around, my parents died young, grandparents before them, and the aunt and uncle who helped raise me retired to New Mexico (3 hour plane ride + 2 hour drive at minimum).”
“I have friends who have watched the kids before, but I didn’t see a single issue with asking Greg to keep them for a week since it seems like there’s a bit of a precedent. I texted him the general plan and emailed him a more detailed one with locations, days, times etc… so he could know where we were/how to contact us if there was an issue.”
“I thought all was well and good, but they never responded until a few days later they emailed me what Luke and I jokingly now refer to as The Manifesto. It was long, rambling, repetitive, and still somehow partially written by ChapGPT.”
“The gist of it was:”
“• what kind of mother goes on a three week vacation without her kids”
“• I’m a terrible person in general for asking a young mother to have her stepkids full-time for three weeks while I go and enjoy myself. They/she kept calling Tessie a young mother, I think she means mother of young kids and I know it’s not the point, but it kept annoying me because she’s 8 years older than me. Also it wouldn’t be her alone—Greg would obviously be there.”
“• I am a horrible coparent for asking them to have the kids for three straight weeks while their kids are so young—their newest baby will be 6 months old by then, by the way.”
“• It’s all well and fine that Luke and I don’t want any more kids—he has had a vasectomy and known he didn’t want kids of his own for a while—but we’d better not think that gives us permission to ‘dump’ Louisa and Ted on them to galavant around. I don’t think I’ve ever galavanted in my entire life!”
“• we needed to figure our own weeks out ourselves, this was not life or death, and it was ridiculous to ask them.”
“I got petty after this, especially them acting as if we are constantly ‘dumping’ the kiddos on them, so I went through the last four years of texts and made a spreadsheet of how many times either of us has asked the other to keep the kids and the duration on an Excel sheet.”
“While we both have made these requests, they have done so for 87 nights (52 times) vs me 12 nights (8 times). Obviously, this makes sense since they have a baby. I didn’t send it to them or anything, but it was good to know I’m not crazy.”
“My friends say I should tell them that I won’t keep the kids during their custody time after their new baby comes. I’m not going to do that. I love my kids and want to see them as much as I can!”
“But I do a lot extra for my ex and his wife. Just some examples:”
“• I (sometimes Luke if he’s off work) pick the kids up every single day after school. On Greg’s custody weeks, I drop them off at their house since he doesn’t get off until 5, so that Tessie doesn’t have to take the baby out to pick them up—keep in mind that she does not work anymore.”
“• Our divorce decree says that whoever’s week it is must drop the kids off at the other parent’s house, but I’ve been doing all of the back and forth for a while, again, because they have a kid and because it’s not THAT far—5 minute drive, 20 minute walk if it’s nice.”
“• I take the kids to all of their appointments, do all of the school parent stuff during the day, etc… since I have a super flexible schedule and Greg’s isn’t. He would need to use PTO for all of this stuff.”
“• We usually split health insurance per the divorce decree, they’re on his work’s insurance, but since I take them to all of their appointments etc…, I pay all of the copays. I keep a tally just in case I would end up owing him money (and I know what he pays towards the premiums), and in the past it was minimal, but our daughter unfortunately has Type 1 diabetes which has gotten pretty expensive.”
“It wasn’t killing me, but Greg mentioned how tight money was once when I was bringing it up, so I decided that since it’s not affecting my life, our daughter needed it, I’ve been letting thd added expenses go.”
“• Their son has been in the process of being diagnosed with autism, and has pretty bad meltdowns—this is all I know from Greg—so they call me pretty frequently to see if I can come and get my kids for a few hours if things are overwhelming. Of course I love my kids and spending time with them, but I’ve had to cancel plans to help them out, but they have not cared.”
“• Greg was in an accident and has been using my old car for the past 7 months, with no effort to replace his vehicle. I got a new one and hadn’t sold the old one yet, it’s not worth a ton or anything.”
“• Greg travels sometimes for work, and they (Greg and the kids) have a cat over there. Normally Louisa would take care of the litter box if Greg was travelling, but since her diagnoses and until we get her labs/health under some form of control, we BOTH agreed that we don’t want her messing with it—they let the cat go outside during the day.”
“Since Tessie has been pregnant, she said she shouldn’t have to do the litter box, and Ted is a little young (he tried, failed, now he ‘helps’), so I’ve been doing it.”
“Anyways, these are all benefits for them that I’m going to inform them are ending.”
“I won’t go back on my word to have the kiddos after she has her c-section, but the absolute gall of them to not do the one thing that I have asked of them (and after all I’ve done for them!) have brought me to this.”
“Most of my friends say I’m not going far enough, but a few have said that it might cause a breakdown in our coparenting relationship, which would affect the kids. That’s really the only thing I care about, so now I’m hesitant.”
The OP later added:
“Greg’s mom does not get along with Tessie and doesn’t believe they need help after she has the baby.”
“We have backup for our honeymoon. They don’t have any backups, so they’ve always relied on me.”
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not wrong to stop going out of their way to help their ex and his wife.
One respondent summed up the general consensus of Redditors.
“They are really biting the hand that feeds them. I would respond to the email saying, ‘wow, I’m so surprised at this response given the positive relationship and co-parenting dynamic we have had thus far. We will make other arrangements for the kids for that week’.”
“‘I’ll also need to be selling that car, so let me know if you want to buy it priced at $XXXX or I’ll come to get it (5 days from today). I also can’t be continuing to care for your cat, I’ll be stopping as of now, and Louisa still can’t do it’.”
“‘I will still keep the kids for your two custody weeks in July as I had previously agreed to, but going forward I will be working off the assumption that you will cover your time with them as I will with mine’.”
“‘I’m sorry you prefer this type of arrangement, I was pretty happy with what we had before, but I understand’.”
“They may walk it back; or not. But if they don’t, you don’t have to be a doormat.” ~ HungryDeparture3358
The OP provided an update:
“I was overwhelmed with your responses. Like I thought, I was being taken advantage of, and my ex, Greg, and Tessie do need to be introduced to ‘reality’.”
“Greg and I have a long history. I’ve known him forever since I was 4. We were always friendly and then we started hooking up when I was in college and I got pregnant.”
“He 100% stood up, married me, took care of us, paid for everything while I finished school, and even paid for my college. But even before all that, he’s always been a great guy and my friend. Over the years, people probably thought I was taking advantage of him before I started making the big bucks.”
“And there has been reciprocity in other ways. After we divorced, he definitely helped me a lot in setting up our new home before Luke and I got together. Doing things like mowing, cleaning the gutters, fixing appliances. Obviously those things don’t happen anymore, but I’m just saying it hasn’t always been me doing everything.”
“Finally, all of this has NOT been thankless. Up until The Manifesto, they were grateful and appreciative. Doing things for appreciative people is great and makes me feel good.”
“Unfortunately, now that we are living in the Post Manifesto Era, I don’t get any joy from helping them out like I used to.”
“With all that being said, I can’t continue bending over backwards for him just because he was good to me before.”
“Anyways, I decided to respond to The Manifesto, but as I was hyping myself up, Greg called. I was pretty amped so I decided to answer his call.”
“He started with apologizing. He didn’t say it directly, but I got the hint that Tessie wrote the email in anger because of how overwhelming everything is for her. He reminded me that it wasn’t just his son’s issues, Louisa was also struggling to get her diabetes under control, and Tessie misread my email to think that I was asking for them to keep them for 3 of my custody periods for a total of 6 weeks.”
“Going back to The Manifesto, I can kind of see where she was saying that, but it wasn’t the most coherent thing to begin with. He said one week for our honeymoon is totally fine and they will figure it out.”
“He acknowledged that the email was entirely inappropriate and uncalled for. Unluckily for him, I was not in the best mood and told him damn straight it was one of the most deranged and untrue emails I’ve ever read. I asked him if anything they wrote in the email rang true to him in the cold light of day and he admitted it didn’t.”
“I had kind of been going back and forth on this and was originally going to tell him to go to hell and we would never switch custody times again. I didn’t care if they had 5 more kids with c-sections, but I decided against going that far.”
“I told him that I would get the kids when Tessie had her c-section, keep them through my custody, and would expect them to have them back during his next custody period, which still gave them 10 days to recover. If he needed more help, I expected him to figure out any extra childcare for our kids like he will need to with his other son.”
“He started arguing, but I just bulldozed through and told him that he could make up for this and all of the other times I’ve helped him out with childcare by watching the kids during my week during my honeymoon. He said that sounded fair and thanked me.”
“But I told him that the email was so far out of line that that any and all extras I’ve been doing were over immediately. He could either find a new carpool (no bus, private school) or I would keep picking the kids up from school, but he or Tessie would have to come get them from my home during their weeks—I’m no longer a daily deliver service.”
“If they are unable to care for the children due to their son’s meltdowns or their new baby, I would be willing to help them. But warned him that due to their accusations, I would start tracking this and if I thought it was becoming an issue I would file for primary custody.”
“I asked him if that would help, he could have the kids every other weekend, I wouldn’t demand child support in light of his very difficult situation—even though I know I could, but he insisted that wasn’t necessary, that it was on them to figure childcare out.”
“He really didn’t have a lot to say back to any of this and apologized again. I told him that it wasn’t impossible to rebuild the trust we have had in the past, but it was going to take a lot of time and hard work on his and his wife’s part because I was done putting in so much just to get attacked.”
“He promised he understood and he’d figure everything else out. I told him that since this was another verbal (not legally binding) agreement, the first time either of them slips up, makes outrageous demands, or says anything remotely close to what she wrote in that email, I would bring down the hammer because due to the attacks on my character I now had a lawyer on retainer. He confirmed he understood.”
“Tessie sent me a text apology—it seemed sincere, but I don’t trust her anymore. I know Greg wouldn’t throw her under the bus, but the fact that she thought it was OK to send such a demeaning and demonizing email to me after all I’ve done for her really ruined any grace I was willing to give her. I sent her a short acknowledgement text, and went on with my day.”
“Both their lives are about to get much, much more difficult. If they try to put any of that discomfort or difficulties on my kids, I will move swiftly. If it means that my kids get a little less at their dad’s house than they do here, that’s not the worst lesson for them.”
“Their needs will always be met, I know that, and they’ve been in therapy for a while so while I’m concerned that Tessie could take her frustrations out on them, I truly think they would tell me.”
“Two things:”
“So the thing with the car—it’s meant for my friend’s stepdaughter for when she gets her permit. Her father is purchasing the car next week. Greg knows he has until then to acquire a new one.”
“And the cat isn’t Tessie’s cat. It was Greg’s guilty divorced dad first Christmas gift for our kids. I really like the cat, she’s very sweet and snuggly and I haven’t minded helping, especially since Louisa does feel bad she doesn’t do it anymore.”
“Honestly, if it wasn’t for that, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to help! Luckily, the c-section is soon, and Greg won’t be travelling for a while, so it’s a moot point. Obviously, if they were to decide to get pregnant again, they would need to hire someone to do the litter box going forward. I’ve probably only done it three times, but I see that was crossing some boundaries I should have put up.”
“I’m not at their beck and call constantly anymore and won’t come running just because their son has a meltdown or they’re overwhelmed with the new baby. If they ask me in advance and it works, sure! I will always go if my kids call me.”
“I will still be tracking how often it happens.”
“I’m going to keep enjoying the life that I’ve worked hard to build. I know they’ll always be around and in my life. It’s unfortunate for them that the choices they made got them in this situation, but they’re going to have to rebuild their village without me.”
“I’m excited for the wedding and especially excited to go to Japan! Those things and, of course, my kiddos are my focus going forward. Peace!”
It’s unfortunate that the OP’s relationship with their ex-husband has been damaged, but actions need to have consequences if you don’t want to be taken advantage of.