A little background - I'm 32, have 3 kids with my ex-wife (married 7 years). My girlfriend and I have been dating a hair over 3 years.
Legally my ex and I have 50/50 custody, however I have the kids a bit more than she does. She's not the most responsible person, and by her own admission, she isn't the most maternal person either. She enjoys going out and drinking, partying, etc. We have a good relationship, even though it often times feels like she's another child as opposed to the mother of my kids. Regardless, we have a custody agreement that we both agree on. I make about 3x as much as she does so I'm legally obligated to pay her child support even though we officially have 50/50 custody. I'm totally and 100% ok with that.
Enter my girlfriend. Everything is going good, we have a great relationship, and the kids love her. She's not a huge fan of my ex, simply because of her lack of parenting skills, but keeps it to herself (and me).
My biggest irritation in the entire world is how, anytime I do anything for my kids, she has to make some snarky comment(s) about my ex.
Got my daughter a phone for her 10th birthday. "Is their mom going to help pay for that?"
Get a call from school, leave work to pick up a sick kid. "It just pisses me off how much you do for your kids and how little she does for them"
My son calls me when he's at his mom's to get help with his homework. "Can his mom not even handle helping him? Is she that dumb?"
I love helping him with his homework - it's one of our things!
She constantly makes snide comments about how I have them more than she does yet I have to pay child support.
I do the things I do for my kids because I'm their dad, it's my job to take care of them. Why does everything I do always have to be compared to what she doesn't do for them? What am I gonna do, tell the school "sorry, their mom needs to take more responsibility so I will not be picking my son up from school" like wtf?
I've brought this up before, about how I don't appreciate her turning everything I do for my kids into an attack on their mom, and if she feels the need to comment on it, maybe shift her thinking to a more positive mindset and tell me how cool it is that I do what I do for my kids. It doesn't seem to sink in.
TL;DR My girlfriend compares everything I do for my kids to how little their mom does and I don't see why it matters. They're my kids FFS.
How should I approach this and let her know it's starting to chip away at our relationship? Am I overreacting? Do I need to look at things through her point of view? Any and all advice is welcome and greatly appreciated.
Edit: I don't necessarily think it's unfair that I have to pay child support. It's not much, and it's meant to supplement the income difference between our households. A part of me thinks it's dumb that I have to pay, but considering I'm a divorced dad in the Midwest I think I have it pretty good. It's 2019 but the courts are still mainly (around here at least) anti-father. In my case my divorce lawyer even warned me that the judge handling our case was notoriously against fathers, for whatever reason. With that, my ex and I came to an agreed upon custody schedule. If we couldn't have done to an agreement, it would've been up to the court to decide, and that could have potentially ended very badly for me.
Submitted March 28, 2019 at 07:57AM by My_Name_Is_Your_Dad https://ift.tt/2CFA7zE
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