I have two kids with my ex. She has four kids in total, two that are mine and two older ones from a previous relationship. We’re not together anymore and co-parenting has been difficult for a while.
All this week through texts she has brought up food. Not just food for the kids we share, but food for herself and her other two kids as well. This isn’t the first time this has come up but, I told her I obviously take care of our two kids when they’re with me (meals, snacks, whatever they need) and that I’m not really comfortable being expected to cover food for her and her other kids too. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I was blunt about it. (I set a boundary, personal and otherwise to avoid emotional responses and to try and avoid back and forth texting, as it often gets toxic and just generally unproductive) She got upset and said I was being petty and unsupportive, and that everything involving the kids is connected. (In the past she has made an argument that I have to pay a portion of her rent because it involves the kids) From her point of view, I guess it felt like I was refusing to help the family as a whole.
From my side, it feels like a boundary issue. I’m responsible for my kids, but I don’t think it’s fair to expect me to financially support her household or kids that aren’t mine, especially during my visitation time.
I don’t feel like I did anything wrong by saying no. I didn’t insult her, I didn’t refuse to take care of my kids, and I wasn’t trying to punish anyone. I just said I wasn’t comfortable with that expectation.
Now things are tense again, communication feels worse, and I’m stuck wondering if I should’ve just gone along with it to avoid conflict, or if setting that boundary was reasonable.
AITA?
You need a formal custody and child support agreement. Additionally, if your children are being under provided for while in her care, you need to get full custody.
NTA
Don’t you have a child support agreement? That would spell out what you owe her. And if she isn’t fully caring for your kids, you might want to reconsider the custody arrangements.
INFO: Where is the older kid’s other parent? You were with their mom long enough to have two of your own kids. How long were you in the older kid’s lives? Did you provide for them then?
You need to formalize your child support agreement.
Go to court, pay what the courts tell you to and nothing more. Problem solved
You need to go to court and get a custody order and child support set. You then stick to the court order and do not vary from it.
Pay your child support and let her decide how to feed her family and take care of expenses. Don’t give her money that is not court mandated if you don’t want to. That’s it. It’s none of your business who eats what and which dollar in her budget paid for it as long as your kids are cared for.
Edit: YTA
I edited this after reading a comment below. I’m putting pieces together, but between you implying that the kids are not with you very often, and saying that you make sure they’re fed when they’re “with you”, you may be the asshole here. If you’re not helping out financially other than feeding the kids when they’re with you, you are way under paying for support, and she can definitely come after you for child support.
Unfortunately, when you have children, you don’t have the opportunity to put things on pause and “fill your cup“ before you take care of them. You simply do what you need to take care of them now.
She should seek formal child support.
Depending on the level of income disparity between the two of you, and the fact that is seems she has the vast majority of custody, you definitely will end up paying a portion of her mortgage and utilities (not that the court would phrase it that way).
You will also pay to make sure they have clothes, for the gas money she spends driving them around, any child care (or to compensate her if she works less hours in order to provide child care), etc. Kids are expensive. And if she’s raising them, the least you can do is contribute substantially to the expense.
OP also apparently was incarcerated six months ago. Could play a part in why the mom hadn’t gone after child support before.
Can’t get blood from a stone and a that.
A lot of single moms are faced with this. Lawyers are expensive as fuck. And the mom has the kids 90% -100% of the time. They don’t want to lose time with their kids by giving up 3-4 days a week with their kids.
INFO: Have you used a child support estimation calculator online? If so, are you paying less or more than that?
Your kids do have expenses beyond food, and being able to rent a place big enough to house them for example is part of child support. Whether you need to help cover her rent or not comes down to how much time the kids are with each of you and how much you each make. It may in fact be very reasonable to expect you to contribute towards that housing cost.
You should not have to pay for her and the other kids’ food.
At the same time, you should recognize that she’s not going to feed 2 kids a lot more if the other 2 are going hungry. So even if it’s not your responsibility, you may need to consider what the trade-off point is depending on how cash strapped she is.
I noticed that you let a little phrase like “post incarceration” drop. Was she supporting the kids 100% while you were incarcerated?
She was supporting them while he was incarcerated and before, because, as he says, he was selfish and in active addiction
You really buried the lede by not mentioning that you have no custody and pay no child support. Yes you are the asshole, the absolute least you can do is send money for your ex to buy groceries. It really doesn’t matter that other kids will also eat the food, you owe your kids so much more than some grocery money