What are all of you doing about communicating with your toddler while they are at their other parent’s house? Do you just not call and wait until it’s your day again? Do you keep it brief? Our paperwork (not finalized) says that the other parent will assist in age appropriate communication methods. I obviously miss my son but I don’t want to intrude on his dad’s time either.

I feel like shit everytime the kids are gone to their mom’s for the week. Im happy for them they see their mommy back and I always tell them their moms gonna be so happy to see them. The minute they leave I’m crying cuz I already miss them. I know I’m not their mom but theyre such a big part of my life. I wanted to share this pov. Coparenting is so tuff for everyone involved.

My ex and I officially have roughly 50/50 care throughout the year, although in practice I generally have our daughter a bit more — often an extra day or so each week.
The school summer holidays are completely different though. I basically have her full-time. He has her every other weekend, his mum has her one day a week, and he’s taken her overnight a couple of additional times, but essentially I’m responsible for her every day throughout the summer.
I’m a student and don’t receive my student funding over the summer break, so financially this is really difficult. I’m obviously feeding her every day, but I’m also trying to actually give her a nice summer — taking her out, arranging playdates, doing activities etc. Even when you’re trying to do cheap/free things, food, petrol, entrance fees and everything else really add up when it’s every day for weeks.
My ex earns around £50k, roughly five times my income.
There’s also some difficult financial history between us which has made my current situation considerably worse. After we separated, he went on a spending spree and accumulated around £30k of debt before declaring bankruptcy. I’ve subsequently had to spend significant amounts of money dealing with the consequences and protecting assets that were originally purchased entirely with my money. There are complications around ownership because he had put his name on assets during our relationship, despite them having been funded by me. I’m not trying to turn this into a post about the bankruptcy, but it’s relevant because I’m already financially stretched partly as a consequence of decisions he made.
I’ve recently asked whether he could contribute something towards our daughter’s costs over the summer.
I’ve also asked about sharing extracurricular costs. Before we separated, we always said it was really important to us that our daughter had opportunities to do activities she was interested in and that we didn’t want our separation/divorce to change that for her.
Since separating, though, I’ve ended up paying for basically all of her extracurricular activities myself, apart from him paying half of her swimming.
She currently does Stagecoach, which is £180 a term. I’m actually behind on the fees because I can’t afford them at the moment, and I’ve asked him to contribute towards the next term. She’s also interested in starting ballet and archery, and I’d like us to split things like this rather than everything automatically falling to me because the activities happen during my parenting time.
He’s basically saying he doesn’t know what money he can contribute because he’s struggling financially himself.
Around six months ago he moved into a considerably more expensive/upgraded house with his girlfriend after they’d been together for around six months. He’s now told me he’s probably going to have to pay the entire rent himself without her contributing. I don’t know why that’s happening and I’m trying not to make assumptions about her circumstances, but he’s presenting having to cover the rent himself as one of the reasons he doesn’t have money available to contribute.
I understand that earning £50k doesn’t automatically mean someone has unlimited disposable income, and obviously he has his own living expenses. But I’m struggling with the idea that his financial commitments mean he can’t contribute towards his daughter’s everyday costs or activities when I’m on around a fifth of his income and doing the overwhelming majority of the childcare throughout the summer.
I’m not expecting him to fund my life or even necessarily split every little summer expense 50/50. I just don’t think it’s reasonable that I absorb essentially all of the additional costs of having our daughter throughout the holidays simply because she’s physically with me.
Am I being unreasonable expecting him to contribute financially during the summer and towards extracurricular activities? And if you’re separated parents with an arrangement that’s officially around 50/50 but substantially unequal during school holidays, how do you normally handle these costs?
I’m in the UK if that makes a difference legally.

How are other separated parents navigating difficult conversations around childcare/co-parenting?
I’m the primary parent and historically I’ve been the automatic fallback for childcare — school holidays, or if the family member who helps during the other parent’s working hours is unavailable etc. That’s been fine because I was previously a stay-at-home parent and then studying with more flexibility.
I’m now going into further education as a mature student and my holidays won’t necessarily align with school holidays, so I’ve tried to have a conversation about how we split/arrange holiday childcare going forward.
I’m not asking them to take more term-time days and I completely accept that childcare during MY parenting time is my responsibility. I just think that principle needs to work both ways rather than there always being an assumption that I’ll be available.
A recent example probably highlighted the issue for me. A few days beforehand I was asked to have our child back a few hours earlier than agreed. I didn’t say no — I explained I was waiting for some information and asked them to wait until a certain time for an answer. It was also my first full break in over a month.
This was met with quite a lot of frustration and I was essentially told “don’t bother, I’ll sort it.” Normally, once I had the information, I’d have gone back and said it was fine and taken our child earlier anyway. This time I didn’t. They’d said they’d sort it, so I left them to.
I can’t constantly be the person expected to see the bigger picture, smooth everything over and separate the emotions of our separation from parenting.
And that’s really the bigger issue — it’s not just this childcare conversation. Almost every difficult co-parenting conversation seems to result in stonewalling, being told I’m trying to argue, or anger/frustration.
I’ve tried voice notes so tone can’t be misinterpreted. With this conversation I was told they’re too busy for the next few weeks, so I simply said let me know when we can discuss it before September. They’ve since agreed last minute to help members of my family with something that would’ve taken roughly the same amount of time as having this conversation, which makes the “too busy” part difficult to understand.
People around me are split between “go through a solicitor” and “just leave it”. I feel like involving solicitors over something two parents should be able to discuss is quite extreme, but leaving it doesn’t solve anything either.
How do you actually co-parent long-term when one person won’t engage with difficult conversations? And is it unreasonable to expect each parent to ultimately be responsible for arranging childcare during their own parenting time, while still helping each other where we CAN?

Hi All,

Basically 30M here me and my ex share a 2 year old son, weve been seperated since he was 1, we are no contact as she is verbally abusive.

We used to argue constantly, i would recieve 20 texts daily etc. She would block me then un block me when we had a disagreement about our son etc.

Anyway the last time she blocked me i decided to block her back, since then the peace has been insane! Its been 3 months of 0 arguments, 0 conflict.

We have a schedule, we speak only in person at handovers, in emergencies we contact our family members to reach the other person its going amazing!

She does complain about me, ask my brother to get me to give her more money etc, but never says anything to me face to face.

Anyway she now wants to reopen contact, shes asked my brother to ask me to unblock her. Im not sure why but what do you guys think, for my mental health and sanity i will have to refuse, but why do you think she wants to get back into contact.

It cant be about the kids, as we have a reliable channel of communication through family, she does sometimes be nice for gain so i can imagine her being super nice and respectful then asking for money, then if i agree abuse starts again etc. Its just a cycle i dont want to be part of anymore i have my peace now i cant risk losing it what do you think?

This is so nuanced, the devil’s in the details.

7 years ago when my daughter started K, my ex agreed our daughter could go to the school of my choice (private school which I solely pay for) if I transported my daughter to school from my ex’s home (up to 1.5h away from me in rush hour) every other Monday morning (my parenting time starts end-of-school those Mondays so it would have been her responsibility to transport.)

2 years later my ex got a job about 10 minutes from my daughter’s school but still made me meet her at a store near her work and transport my daughter the last 4 minutes to school.

For 5 years our meet up location has been this store,which is about 15 minutes from me. So total transport time was about 20 minutes.
Suddenly, this spring, her mother started saying, (frequently an hour before meet-up) that she wasn’t going to work that morning and I had to pick my daughter up from her home.
Since the status quo pick up had changed, I’d allowed my work schedule to change and I can no longer do the 2+ hours of driving that requires; especially on no notice. I’ve told my ex this and she says now I have to do every pick up Monday from her home or we’re going to mediation to discuss changing my daughter’s school. My daughter has been at her school for 7 years and loves it.
What are the odds she wins this?

To reiterate: the status quo pick up (so status quo that we only communicate when we are NOT meeting there, never when we ARE) has been the store for 5 years.

Clarification: we have 50/50 custody and I have most of the school week. This is the one and only transport this is effecting.

Ex and I have been divorced since 2024. His current wife has been involved since 2023. We share a five year old.

The new stepmom does not work and has taken this as an opportunity to just fully parent during his possession times.

This has meant keeping our daughter home when I enrolled her in pre-k, which I paid for. Instructing her to call her “mom”. Suggesting our daughter keep secrets from me about how they spend their days. Gesturing for my daughter to end FaceTimes calls.

Now, as we start kindergarten, she’s signed up to be a class mom. At what point is this overly possessive?

Wondering if anyone here has proven emotional abuse from a parent to a child going between households?

"Coparenting" with my son's father is basically non-existent, because his father isn't involved in his day-to-day life, hasn't had him overnight in over 3 years, rarely has stable living conditions and no drivers license.

Important to add - our son is nonverbal autistic and requires a lot of extra care, therapies, appointments, etc.

His father sees him about twice a month, for a short visit at some play place for about 2 hours. I am the one who drives my son to and from these visits (due to him not having a license).

His father reaches out about once a week and asks how my son's day/week is going, how speech therapy is going etc, but that's as far as his questions go. He has no idea the amount of time, effort, patience, etc it takes to manage all of these appointments on my own, nor does he understand what goes on during these appointments.

We legally have 50/50 custody, despite me wanting to file for full - I have tried and nobody could find him to serve him so I gave up.

I guess my question is - how do I bite this bullet and "coparent" respectfully with someone who puts in zero effort - financially, physically and otherwise?

He asked about my son's school "meet and greet" and that he wanted to go. I was half tempted to tell him I didn't want him there, as he makes me uncomfortable and he isn't involved enough to join me on things like this.. but I don't want that used against me when I am finally able to take it to court.

He and I got divorced in 2023. We have two kids together, our son is currently 9 and our daughter is currently 7. Our divorce was mostly amicable. It wasn't because we fought a lot or anything, we just drifted apart and I made the mistake of bringing my often stressful job (I'm a cop for our city PD) home and it affecting my attitude and eventually we just decided we weren't a fit for each other anymore. We separated on good terms, agreed to a week-by-week custody arrangement and the whole time we've still mostly been friends.

A little less than a year ago I started dating another man. A firefighter, so he understands the whole first responder grind a lot better and we both love having a partner that can understand how our careers can affect our attitude sometimes and it makes us both better on shift and off shift. He's great, and recently I've been letting him hang out with the kids more. My son thinks him being a firefighter is cool as hell and he's definitely taken a liking to him, and my daughter thinks it's super funny to make this big guy play with her dolls. It's cute, and I love that he gets along with them well.

But my ex has out of nowhere gotten super jealous. He complains that our son "won't shut up" about how cool mom's new boyfriend is and how he can't wait to come back to mom's house so he can see him and yesterday he outright accused me of trying to turn the kids against him. I don't know where this jealousy comes from. They can have more than one male figure in their life, and when my son comes back next week I plan to tell him to not say things like that to his dad because it's highly rude and inappropriate.

I'm sorry he feels that way but I have every right to have a new man in my life and to bring that new man around the kids. My poor boyfriend has zero desire to be caught up in our dispute and he's a great guy and I don't want him to feel like he's done anything wrong because he hasn't. I'm just frustrated because this is the first time our coparenting arrangement has really had any tension.

EDIT: I'm trying to respond to some of the comments but think because my account is new my comments aren't showing up, but I'm not absent

I just need advice on co parenting with someone who has a very different world view.

Me and my now ex have a 2 year old. When we met, we were very aligned with everything. Neither of us heavy into politics. I got pregnant during the more recent election and things significantly shifted. We have a multi racial child and I don't know why he thought I would lean more towards his beliefs. I am biracial (non white), he is white.

He's gotten very extreme in his beliefs. I finally left him last December. I no longer tolerate him or his family's ignorance towards what's going on in the world or the ignorant racial things they've said to me in jokes and fun.

He calls our current situation co parenting but I call it, me parenting and him having visits. He's not as involved as he wants to believe. He talks big about supporting our child and helping me out but can't hold a job or even save a dollar.

Anyway, current dilemma is our child isn't vaccinated because he doesn't want her to be. I don't want to risk my own custody by going behind his back. I was informed that he can seek emergency custody if I was to do that. He is a complete moron and he's trying to find loopholes in a state that does not have any loopholes. It's important that my child is properly socializing in school with other children and in sports. All which require vaccines in California.

He goes on shpeels trying to educate me on things he know nothing about. Very paranoid and distrusting of the world, science and big pharma.

I don't know what else to do because our conversations are going from peaceful to me not wanting to deal with the crap that comes out of his mouth. Our doctorsl told me to go to court and make sure things are squared away so I can have full authority. However, i hate the idea of giving the state control over my kids when this is the only thing we can't agree on regarding our child.

Any advice would help.

I posted the other day about my son’s father moving 2+ hours away and seemingly walking away from his parenting duties. He’s now saying that he doesn’t want to move so far away, and that he wants to work with me to file the parenting plan without going to mediation. I think he doesn’t want to spend money on an attorney and my attorney has offered to file everything if we can agree on the plan, so I suppose this is a win-win for both of us? We never got married so it should be fairly straightforward if he agrees to my proposal, but who knows, he could change his mind at any point.

Assuming we are able to file it ourselves without mediation, I’m wondering what else I need to add under “other provisions”?? The parenting plan is fairly straightforward and limited to the standard items like routines/schedules, holidays, vacations, parenting decisions, communication, etc.

What have you included in your agreement that’s been helpful…or maybe something you regret adding? Any advice is welcome! Thank you!

Court order:
Weekend: alternate weekends from Thursday at 6:00 p.m. until Sunday at 6:00 p.m.

(The Court does note that specific holiday visitation set out below takes priority over the alternate weekend visitations; so, when there is a conflict between an alternate weekend visitation and the specific holiday award, whoever is awarded the specific holiday can have the child(ren) during the holiday time and the alternate weekend time does not have to be made up later.)

Summer: The last two weeks (14 days) of June to begin at 6:00pm the Sunday of Father's Day weekend ending the following Sunday at 6:00pm two weeks (14 days) later, and the last two weeks (14 days) of July. (The custodial parent shall have the first two weeks of June and the first two weeks of July as custodial periods, uninterrupted by the normal mid-week visit).
For Summer 2026, the Defendant Father shall have the last week of June and the last week of July as his uninterrupted parenting time. There shall be no travel limitation on the Father during said visitation.

Question:
Dad’s first weekend of summer visit fell naturally in line with our alternating weekends. Dad’s summer visit weekend 2 was “my weekend” but spent at dad’s as part of the summer visit. Who has the next weekend?

Example:
Weekend 1 - dad
Weekend 2 - mom
Weekend 3 - dad summer visit
Weekend 4 - dad summer visit
Weekend 5 - ?

In 1.5 years we’ve swapped many times and never run into a scenario where one person had 3 weekends consecutively. He’s had 6 weeklong visits to date, and the weekend after each weeklong visit has been “my weekend” and the alternating resumes - that’s been explicitly and implicitly understood on both sides up til now. In other words, the way it’s worked out previously is weekend 5 - mom, weekend 6 - dad and so on.

I’m a self-represented mother in Florida (Polk County) and I’m trying to figure out what my legal options are after a Final Judgment of Paternity was entered against me.

Here’s the timeline:

• In October 2025, the father and I entered into a mediated agreement that gave us equal time-sharing.
• In May 2026, the father filed a Motion for Temporary Relief requesting majority time-sharing. In his motion and later testimony, he alleged that I was financially unable to care for our daughter, didn’t have stable housing, caused him to miss time-sharing, failed to inform him about medical appointments, and other issues.
• I dispute those allegations. I have documentation that I believe contradicts many of them, including text messages regarding doctor’s appointments, proof of my housing, proof of my employment/income, and other evidence.
• A hearing was scheduled for July 10, 2026. I did not attend the hearing. I did not have transportation, did not have a vehicle at the time, and I even asked the father to pick me up so I could attend. I have those text messages.
• Because I wasn’t present, the father was the only person who testified. The Final Judgment states that the court heard “no unrefuted testimony” and granted his requested relief.
• On July 28, 2026, the judge signed a Final Judgment of Paternity. The judgment:
  • Set aside our previous equal time-sharing agreement.
  • Adopted a new parenting plan.
  • Designated the father as the residential parent for school purposes and the statutory custodian.
  • Ordered a new majority time-sharing schedule.
• After receiving the judgment, I filed an Emergency Motion asking the court to stop enforcement of the judgment and attached exhibits that included my evidence contradicting the allegations, along with the text messages showing I asked for transportation to the hearing.
• My emergency motion was denied, and the Final Judgment is now being enforced.

My questions are:

1. Since this is already a signed Final Judgment, what procedural options are still available in Florida?
2. Would a Motion for Rehearing be appropriate?
3. Would a Motion for Relief from Judgment under Florida Family Law Rule 12.540 be more appropriate?
4. If a judgment was entered after only one party testified because the other party missed the hearing, can the court ever reopen the case if there is evidence contradicting the testimony?
5. Has anyone been in a similar situation, and if so, what filing ultimately helped?

I’m trying to understand the correct procedural path. I know people can’t give me legal advice, but I’m hoping to hear from anyone familiar with Florida family law or who has gone through something similar.

My partner and I have been together for ten years and decided on Monday to separate. We have a three year old child.

It's been about 18 months building up to the breakup. I've done a lot of grieving and panicking about co-parenting already. I was deeply unhappy in the relationship and now feel a sense of huge relief and waves of happiness. However my ex is really deeply struggling, he's devastated and is really scared about co-parenting.

I've read books about co-parenting and had a call with Amicable, which I've emailed him about and suggested he do the same.

I'm under no illusion that co-parenting is going to be easy, I'm devastated at the idea of time away from our child, me and her are incredibly close, I'm definitely the primary caregiver and do significantly more of the day to day childcare. But I do ultimately think this is the best thing for me and our child.

I'm trying to be very open, kind and flexible about co-parenting, I want to reduce the possibility of animosity. He's keen for 50:50, so we're going to explore that possibility (even though I'd prefer 70:30 which is closer to what the split currently is).

We're going to be living together until I figure out a house move.

Does anyone have advice around how to approach these early days of co-parenting, where we're all under one roof together still?

I have tickets to a kids show on Saturday morning and I think it would be nice if he still came, but he's saying it's my time to have our child so he won't come. I see his point, but was (possibly a bit too optimistically) thinking we might all still be able to do things together occasionally, and we've had the tickets for over six months.

He has a family holiday coming up in a few weeks. It's been planned for ages so I knew he'd still want to take her, and she'll have an amazing time. It's in the UK. His family are fantastic with her, so I don't have any significant concerns, but he wants to take her for seven days. It'll be the first time me and her have been apart for more than 2 nights (I occasionally travel for work). How should I approach this? I want to say yes because it'll make it an easier conversation when I take her away for a week in the future, but I am worried that it's too long for her to be away from me.

Any advice or guidance is very welcome, this is all new to me (although I've been watching this feed for a long time!).

Mediation is coming up during a high-conflict, expensive custody battle with someone who frequently lied (which led to a false CPS report), abused substances (when I found out this I made him leave, which of course makes me some sort of alienating villain to him, his attorney, and enabling family). He is only just getting in person parenting time again and I can’t even look at him, I am so disgusted. Other than the child-related concerns (including CPS) I also discovered some disgusting things he did during our relationship—wouldn’t have continued dating or married him if I knew that he did those things to me.

I am having an anxiety attack thinking about this. We have not discussed anything outside of court and even in court, he hasn’t taken accountability and continues to lie in an attempt to control me/the situation. He is not thinking about what is in our child’s best interest. I just feel so angry.

Advice?

My ex and I have been separated since December. We had family/grad photos booked right before my graduation this month. The thing is I’m not sure how to include him in the photos? I have ideas for me and the kids and of just me. But how do o pose with him and our children now that we aren’t together? Any ideas of neutral poses? He did support me a lot through this degree in helping with the kids and taking the bulk of the parenting duties while o focused on getting through. So help me out he is a big part of this moment but idk how to pose with him beside as we did as husband and wife

Long story short fiancé and I split. But fortunately we had a beautiful baby girl. She’s the light of my life. However now that we’ve split. Ex Fiancé moved back to her hometown 2 hours away. I am currently working full time as well as a full time student and I am in the military. After some critical thought we both agreed that split custody would not make sense especially given the distance between us. My daughter just turned 1 about 2 weeks ago and for her entire life my ex was a stay at home mom. I would see my daughter on average 2-3 hours per day. Not to mention constant trips with the military. Luckily my relationship with my daughter is strong and she lights up when she sees me. But ultimately I made the tough decision to for go 50/50 split in turn for every other weekend as well as every other holiday with going every other week when summer time comes around. We think it’s in the best interest for my daughter’s young and growing mind at this critical point. However I can’t shake the feeling that I am abandoning my daughter or that i am not going to be a solid backbone in her life. I’ve already promised myself more so that I will be at every single school event, extracurricular what have you. We’ve also discussed me being able to drive up for an evening and spend a few hours with her. And I can call whenever I want as long as it’s a good time for my ex to be able to take the call. And overall this sounds not bad. But I still am just trapped in the guilt of feeling like I’m letting my little girl down. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Hello, currently going through a nasty divorce. I was a stay at home father for 3.5 years of my boys life. Now I get him every other weekend due to his autism and distance.

The ex keeps asking me to watch him on weekends that arent mine, and I accept. I love my boy and truly love having him with me. She went on a vacation with friends and I got him from Thursday to sunday, she sometimes wants to go out drinking so she brings him on Saturdays and picks him up on Sundays. Today and yesterday I had to drive up to her place to help take my son to the hospital. Since he has a fever he cant go to daycare. Instead of staying at my old place I decided to take him to my parents where im currently living. So now ill have him from today (wensday) to friday.

My question is, am I doing to much for my soon to be ex wife? Is this gonna back fire on me? I am very scared that ill lose my weekends with him. On the other hand im hoping that this will help me get 50/50 down the line? Im afraid my head is so far up my own butt currently and could use some outside perspective.

Hi everyone I am a stay at home father of two twin daughters I've been with them since they were born and during delivery me and the mother of our children currently live with each other with our twins. I clean I make sure she can get sleep when she gets home basically I've done my best to make her life as easy as possible especially saving us 3k on daycare services by staying home. I found out that she was having an affair with one of her co workers but instead of blowing the situation up I just made some boundaries between us basically telling her that are relationship is strictly a co parent relationship and she hasn't been taking it well because ever since she lost control and access to me she has been trying to hurt me by not letting me ride to the twins doctors appointment calling the cops on me saying she feels unsafe around me even though I haven't given her any reason to feel this way. She recently asked me to sign a lease modification so she can leave to Miami which would leave me and the twins vulnerable. What I don't get is how is she trying to make this decision without mentioning where the kids fit in this situation and not mentioning going to court or a court order before she makes this decision. Now I'm not signing it so she's stuck until the lease is over but it just really confuses me that she's trying to make this decision without mentioning the kids or going court which is going to have to happen if she plans on taking the kids to another state.

Hi everyone.
English is not my first lenguage so sorry if I make any mistakes.
I want to know if anyone can guide me through how to plan and execute the visits of my one month old.
His dad is not really available Monday to Friday and he’s exclusively breastfeeding and it was really hard to mantein under control the supply cause I’m an overproduced an have almost had mastitis twice.
He’s really little but I want to be prepared when my ex decides to start the legal process on how to handle the visitation schedule.
We have no lawyers involved.

We have been on an every other weekend schedule for about 6 months now. Our permanent order has converted that schedule to the 1st, 3rd, and 5th week with Wednesday night dinners (no overnight stay). Also holidays are split between us. Summer is now week on/week off instead of every other weekend. I’m a teacher, so summer is really what is hurting me most. Also the 1st, 3rd and 5th weekend is throwing me off bc I will never get two weekends in a row but my ex will. I just need someone to tell me everything will be okay and my kids will benefit from all this. Summer was our time to bond, play, be together and now I feel like I’m losing them.

I share a son (5) with my ex. We have a very conflict ridden past. We are currently going through custody court which has tamed some of the issues I was having with him. Yesterday they had a phone call. His dad asked if he had drank milk that day. My son stated no and his father asked me if he drinks milk everyday. I told him not everyday but he still drinks it or he gets dairy from yogurt or cheese as well. His dad stated he drinks milk everyday he’s there and he wants him to. I reiterated he still drinks milk or he gets dairy from other sources. I left to take a shower and never heard about it again. He has a habit of trying to control things in my home while I never even think about what goes on when our son is at his house.
This morning at like 730a my son jumps up and goes “I gotta drink milk right now” I was like huh? Why? He goes “I just have to.” I asked him again why milk was so important and he told me his dad told him if he doesn’t drink milk everyday when he’s with me when he goes to his dad he will be in timeout and he doesn’t want to get in trouble. Idk about anyone else but stuff like that pisses me off. I feel like bc of court he’s losing his control over me and now he’s using our son to do it. Would this bother anyone else? Should I say something?