[Solved] How much to tell their mother?

Hi There,

fellow dad,

I suppose it depends on how comfortable you both are with sharing your separate adult lives with each other..... does she tell you what she gets up to on the weekends that your children are with you?.... really its a personal thing and depends on the relationship you have with your ex.

In my personal opinion what you do with your life away from your ex has nothing to do with her..... and why should it.

I understand that if you were taking your children you would let her know the details but otherwise no.

you are both going to move on with your lives and neither is the gate keeper of the other, keep her informed with regards the kids, or if something is going to affect them.... but other get on with your life and enjoy it.

Thanks for your quick and helpful reply, much appreciated.

I left the initial question as neutral as possible but there was other information I deliberately left out.

She rang me early afternoon to tell me that she wasn't feeling very well and to see if I could pick the girls up from the school; I couldn't very well answer at the time (scrambling over rocks on a beach!!) so I only saw her WhatsApp message an hour or two later.

I replied at that point that I was away until the following evening but it was at this point that she got angry. She has now apparently deleted my contact off my phone and stopped this weekend's visit from my girls.

I think she is being ridiculous, but she insists that my behaviour and lack of communication is unacceptable. But I wanted some neutral opinion, thx.

Hello chrisbird16,

I agree with ChainMail's reply to you in it's entirety. However, you have been given an insight as to your, soon to be ex wife's, potential behaviour towards you if you do not agree to her requests / demands.

You are separated now and accordingly are free to do as you choose, where, when and with whom. There is no pre-requisite to inform your "ex" wife what you do or when so long as this does not affect the arrangements you have agreed regarding the children.

For her to stop the children visiting you is, I believe, a control tactic for you to "toe the line" regarding what she wants. It is disgraceful for a parent to use children as weapons against the other parent. I personally would not give in to such a controlling tactic but it would make me very aware and I would take precautionary measures like keeping texts, emails, letters and a diary should this kind of thing happen again as it would be useful if you were denied access to the children and ended up in the family court to gain access. I sincerely hope this will not be the case but her attitude indicates from what you have written, that her behaviour in this instance was totally unacceptable and thoughtless towards you and the children.

I completely agree with what's already been said, this is an attempt to control you and such behaviour from an ex is more common than you'd think.

I think you should write/txt/email and inform her that you don't accept your behaviour is unacceptable, it wasn't your scheduled time to have the children and to expect you to log in with her before you do anything is unreasonable. Tell her that using the girls as some kind of weapon is unfair to them, further suggest that if she stops contact again you have been advised to initiate mediation with a view to court action if contact isn't restarted immediately. Tell her that this isn't what you want and would far rather sort it out between yourselves, but it's important for the children to have you both in their lives.

All the best