Reply to How to respond (if at all) to bf's high conflict baby mama

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You don't owe this lady anything. If you don't want to meet her you don't have to if the court doesn't say so. It's not like she's going to be able to know if you're a safe person to be around her daughter based on a 5 minute meet and greet so that's not what it's actually about. She just wants to maintain as much control as she can. The dad is just as much a parent as she is and assessed you to be fit, and that would be good enough for any judge if you were wondering.

That said, you might think about extending some kind of goodwill [b]so the narrative can't be spun that you're not being cooperative. [/b]You can have firm boundaries but also do some of the inconsequential things that she wants with a smile (like saying hi at pickup). Don't be stubborn for the principle of the thing. You're not losing any self-respect by doing that. [/quote]

That's not so much a narrative, as exactly what OP is describing about her own behavior.  Refusing to open and read text messages, refusing to say hello at drop off - OP is not being cooperative at all.  That's not a narrative, it's reality and very childish.[/quote]

Why should she open the messages? It's extremely inappropriate for the ex to message her ex's new girlfriend at all, much less multiple times and try to manipulate her and drag her into the coparenting conflict which is between the boyfriend and the ex. If the ex didn't trust the guy's judgment about who would be around her daughter she shouldn't have had a kid with him to begin with and it sounds like they weren't married either.  This lady made bad decision after bad decision and lost control over her child's life as a result. She can be upset about it but it's not OP's problem.

From what OP said she's just living her life and being neither cooperative or uncooperative. She does not need to be and SHOULD NOT BE involved in the squabble between mom and dad over who dad is allowing around the kid.  Any judge would laugh in the ex's face if she tried to complain that OP doesn't want to meet her and would absolutely not like that the ex was harassing her about coparenting issues on facebook. Have any of you actually been in family court?

It's utterly ridiculous how ex wives feel entitled to control their ex's parenting, relationships, and new girlfriends after divorce/separation. You can't. Very few judges would entertain including some kind of "morality" clause that forbids overnight guests or cohabitation, or demands that new partners must be introduced in a parenting order, and it's largely unenforceable anyway.

The only thing here that the ex might be able to go after is the right of first refusal to prevent OP from picking her daughter up from school and babysitting. But if that hasn't been informally established up to this point, and she's been okay with any other of his relatives (grandma, etc) or other people babysitting since the separation, it will look extremely petty that she's fussing about it only with the new girlfriend's arrival on the scene. She won't have ground to stand on and a judge will probably maintain the status quo without the right of first refusal.

Don't have a kid with someone who you wouldn't trust completely to be on the same page as you parenting if you were suddenly out of the picture some or all of the time for whatever reason. And if you don't trust them, don't get divorced.[/quote]

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