I had a baby with a man I barely knew. Today I got served papers for shared custody and establishing paternity. I don’t want my baby to be away from me. She’s only three months old and breastfed. My heart is hurting so much.

For context, a year ago my husband (37) began sleeping with a 21 year old coworker. In this time we learned that he was sleeping with us both pretty regularly until I called him out on it. I also got pregnant and half a newborn. We have three kids under 5 together (including the newborn). He lives with her and supports both our living situations right now.

He has recently said he would like for all of us to hang out with the kids, which we have. Once a week at most… and yesterday we went out to dinner together with the kids.

I am wondering at what point is this normal? Is it that important for the kids to see us all together? And how can my husband possibly be ok with this dynamic?

My ex (42 m) is using Christmas as a bargaining chip for his ego and doesn’t seem to care that the kids are the ones getting hurt.

For context, I (37f) grew up celebrating Christmas in the very American way. My ex is Chinese and never celebrated Christmas as a kid or an adult. When we were together I did EVERYTHING to make Christmas magic for the kids (now 5 and 3). I got the tree by myself (even when pregnant), decorated it and took it down, bought and wrapped presents, put them out in the middle of the night, cooked the holiday meal, everything.

Since the kids are so young, it’s not just about tradition but the magic of Santa Claus. I am devastated for them missing out on it or having it corrupted by someone who doesn’t even like Christmas. I specifically put in our custody proposal the kids would be with him for Chinese New Year and July 4th, as they were the biggest holidays he always celebrated with his family.

Now he’s sending some ChatGPT generated bs saying he wants to make meaningful Christmas memories with the kids. Like, what changed? It feels like he is intentionally trying to hurt me, and he’s doing it through taking magic away from the kids.

UGH. any experience or advice would be appreciated.

Negotiating a divorce and I do not want to give my cheating husband 50/50. I do not want to keep him from our son but I believe his multi year affair has kept him from really understanding the home parenting duties. Hes present and he "knows" them, but I feel our child will not succeed with constant switching or even school nights at his house.

I personally grew up on every other weekends and Wednesday afternoons. I'd like to give just above that if I could make it work in my favor. ​

my 8 year old is with her dad for the weekend and my husband and I do have a 2 1/2 year old together. Now, in our town there is a truck or treat event, a pretty big one in town and I would love to take my kids however my daughter is with his dad for the weekend. Is it okay to still go and take my 2 1/2 year old? I really want to take him but my mom guilt kicks in knowing that if my daughter found out she would be so sad that we went somewhere like that without her. Am I over thinking it?

We are going through a very high-conflict divorce. My ex-wife cheated, lied, and stole from me. The problem is, I’m fine with letting her go, but the issue is my son her and her new boyfriend. She met this homeless guy on TikTok, and they were sexting while she was at home with our son. Not only that, I later found inappropriate pictures of our son on her phone, and she tried to delete them when I confronted her about the pictures of her boyfriend.
During discovery, this was brought up, and her answer was that the pictures were taken because my son had skin problems. But nowhere in those pictures is there anything other than his private part, and there are multiple pictures. My lawyer advised me to drop it because I don’t have any proof of anything.
Not only that, she was doing all these weird things around him. Her sister caught her on the floor staring at him while potty training him, and when the issue of potty training came up, she called her boyfriend, which resulted in him calling and threatening to come to my house.
Around her, my son doesn’t eat well and has anxiety, and she would stick her finger out for him to rub to calm him down?
She went and told her lawyer that he doesn’t have any issues and that he is very bright, yet he is going to therapy twice a month because of his anxiety.
On top of that, during the divorce, I found out that she accused me of being mentally abusive and said that I’m very rigid with my son’s routine because I want him to be treated in an age-appropriate way. (Wanting him to eat by himself rather than having her play something on the phone and hand-feed him is an example she told her lawyer.)
Idk, all of this is killing me because I don’t know if I’m just overreaching or not, but now she is fighting hard to have her homeless boyfriend introduced to my son, and she is going to have him overnight at her place, since she moved out last year.
What do I do? I want my son to be safe and happy because he is only 4. I want him to have both parents, but it’s hard to sleep at night worrying that there might be something going on.

I left my ex husband almost 4.5 years, and it seems as though I am still being punished for leaving. Our shared child is used as a source of conflict..a way for him to retain access to me and consistently put me down.

We have 50/50 custody, child exchanges occur at the end of the week. It is court ordered that child exchanges occur after school on Friday, with each parent simply getting child from the bus to begin their respective week with the goal of reducing in-person exchanges. In-person exchanges are problematic because my ex lied to the police multiple times with claims that I assaulted him, and his new girlfriend yells at me/belittles me/starts conflict everytime she completes child exchanges on her own (this was occuring while child exchanges took place at the local police station)

But if there is no school on friday, we complete child exchanges in the same way on Thursday in order to reduce in person exchanges.

There is no school tomorrow. I asked my ex this morning if he planned to get child from school today since there's no school tomorrow. He said he needed to ask his mom to pick child up, then reported back to me:

"My mom is getting him so it's more days for him to be around stability (:"

I don't know what gives him the impression that my house does not have stability, but I cannot talk to him about the child at all without him taking some kind of shot at me. Every single communication attempt (regarding the child) ends with him throwing unnecessary insults around- "(GF) is a way better mom to (child) than you'll ever be...maybe you should take those parenting classes with (GF) and all those other moms who actually care about their kids....giving birth doesnt make you a mom...you're such a POS mom...you're the cheapest prostitute around from what I've heard...you cant hold a steady relationship cuz all you act like is a body, a useless body that gave children to 2 different men."

WHEN DOES THIS END

I am dealing with someone like this and it’s sickening how our child is being objectified, with decisions about our child’s life being strategic for their position. Every communication feels like it’s that they’re trying to put something “on the record”.

How do you deal?

I have a 4 year old and most of his life the coparenting relationship has been hostile and overall rough. He moved 2.5 hours away when LO was 10 months old. Our parenting plan says that we meet at a designated place that is roughly halfway between us.

Recently he revealed he is moving about an hour further away because he’s having another baby. That’s great and all but the issue is he is expecting me to drive half an hour more which makes my travel time 2 hours one way. We meet on Friday and then on Sunday for exchanges. That’s 8 hrs a week just driving.

Currently he has our child for his parenting time so I cannot bring it up now because he will keep him and tell me I have to drive all the way to get him (has happened multiple times) because of the conflict. But I’m not sure how to approach this. I want things to remain amicable as they have been for about a month, but I can’t help but feel like I’m being taken advantage of. He’s the one that moved away in the first place and I was willing to drive that far so my child can keep a relationship with their father but my life choices did not move me 3.5 hours away from my child. His did.

Any advice on how to handle this would be appreciated. First time poster, I just need the help. Thank you.

My ex and I split about a month ago. We don’t have anything established for custody yet and most likely won’t by our daughter’s first birthday. I want to be the bigger person and invite him to her first birthday party but don’t know if it’s the right choice. He has no family in the state we live in and wouldn’t have anyone to show up to a birthday party if we had separate parties for her. Currently I’m dealing with multiple accusations coming from him and petty drama. I just keep my mouth shut and communicate about anything necessary in regards to our child and I’m still somehow doing something wrong. Everything is always unnecessarily difficult. I believe I can be civil long enough for a 2 hour party but he has had a problem with ruining holidays, birthdays, vacations, and any special occasion including her birth and the day we brought her home. There is always some sort of major problem, an accusation, or a life changing conversation that just somehow arises the day of or day before special occasions. It got to a point these issues and the timing couldn’t be a coincidence anymore and I truly believe he does it intentionally.

I don’t want it to keep happening, I don’t want every special occasion to be tied to bad memories and I especially don’t want that for my daughter as she gets older and can understand what’s going on around her. I know not inviting him is going to make me a villain, but I also know inviting him allows him an opportunity to ruin the day. I’ve tried having conversations with him previously about what he does and eventually got to a point I begged to just be able to enjoy special occasions. He never stopped. I feel like I have to invite him to avoid retaliation and more accusations but at the end of the day I just want it to be a good, stress free day celebrating my baby. How should I go about this?

It’s incredible how much a single hour long visit (albeit supervised because of some dumb behavior) can make your week. It’s never enough time and the whole ‘supervised’ thing sounds horrible but I’m so happy that I was able to see him. There is nothing more important to me than the privilege of being a Dad.