One more thought. Eight is definitely not too young to teach your son that manners and relationships are his responsibility. Make sure your son has stationary and stamps, has a little book with the birthdays and addresses of his father (and his grandparents and his aunts/uncles) and understands that it is his job, within 24 hours of receiving a gift, to write a note.

It is his job, within the week of a birthday, to write a note or a card acknowledging it.

You would be saving your sons future spouse, if a woman, from the thankless task of doing all the gifts and cards for his family AND you would no longer be responsible for facilitating your Ex husbands Christmas gifts (weird) AND if your ExMiL isn’t a total goblin, I promise she will be appreciative of a timely card from your son.

And please before anyone shrieks that eight is too young, this was an expectation of me and my siblings (brother and sister) from six or legible handwriting, whichever occurred first.

OP, what happened with your request to increase child support money? Was it granted, or is it still pending some court action?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you wanted to know "AITA." I'd say there's not enough info to say for sure. What do you want to get out of this thread?

If you want to quit sending pics, buying cards and providing extra school info that he could get himself, go ahead. The court does not care about that. But you need to facilitate phone calls, visits and other contact - the court does care about that.

I agree with the bolded but would add the caveat that your ex-husband is not the ruler of the communication universe. He can choose not to speak to you, but he doesn’t get to appoint flying monkeys without your participation. I would let him know that if he doesn’t want to communicate, that is his right, but you will be using one of the custody apps.

This is right on. +1

Anonymous wrote:OP, you wanted to know "AITA." I'd say there's not enough info to say for sure. What do you want to get out of this thread?

If you want to quit sending pics, buying cards and providing extra school info that he could get himself, go ahead. The court does not care about that. But you need to facilitate phone calls, visits and other contact - the court does care about that.

I agree with the bolded but would add the caveat that your ex-husband is not the ruler of the communication universe. He can choose not to speak to you, but he doesn’t get to appoint flying monkeys without your participation. I would let him know that if he doesn’t want to communicate, that is his right, but you will be using one of the custody apps.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"I know that DC's relationship with him will suffer ..."

OP, you better think long and hard about this. You are knowingly admitting your son will SUFFER because you don't like the way your ex communicates/doesn't communicate with you.

Your son's relationship with his father (no matter how flawed you may think it is) is fundamental to his healthy development. Why do you want to damage your son that way?

+1 What is your priority, OP? Your post and all of your responses (through page 4) show that you are doing this because of you, not your kid. When you start talking about your kid more and you less then I'll be able to respect you on this topic. Right now I can only feel really badly for your son that you are so immature that you're willing to derail his relationship with his father to feed your own ego. That's a pretty shi77y way to treat your kid.

She's mad that he moved away. Maybe he remarried and she's mad about that too.