We talk a lot about co-parenting boundaries here. Usually it is about who pays for soccer cleats or what time drop-off should be on Christmas morning. But every once in a while a story comes along that is so dripping with entitlement and delusion that you have to read it twice just to make sure you didn’t hallucinate the details. One woman on Reddit just shared her experience with her ex-husband and his new wife and let me tell you, these two are living on a completely different planet from the rest of us.
Let’s set the scene because the backstory is crucial. The narrator’s ex didn’t just leave; he cheated on her while she was pregnant. And he didn’t just cheat; he got his affair partner pregnant at the same time. So our narrator and the mistress had babies just a few months apart. That is a level of trauma that would send most people into witness protection just to avoid dealing with it ever again.
But the ex and his new wife (the affair partner) didn’t just want to move on. Years ago they actually had the nerve to ask the narrator to send over her baby supplies for their daughter because they were struggling financially. When she refused to subsidize the child born from his infidelity he called her a “stuck up b*tch” and claimed they could have raised the kids together if she had just “forgiven him.” I need a moment to process the sheer main character energy it takes to cheat on your pregnant wife and then get mad at her for not wanting to share diapers with your mistress.
Fast forward to the present. The narrator’s son is nine years old. She has successfully maintained a strict boundary where she communicates only through a parenting app and never sees the ex face-to-face. It is a peaceful existence born of necessity. Or at least it was until the ex decided to shatter that peace with a request so unreasonable it borders on satire.
He called her up and asked her to babysit his daughter. You know, the daughter he had with the woman he cheated with. He wants her to watch this child three days a week after school because his wife is going back to work. He essentially wants his ex-wife to be his unpaid nanny.
The narrator obviously said no. She said it would “never happen.” But these two do not understand the word no. The new wife started blowing up her phone with texts accusing her of needing to be a “better mother.” She claimed the narrator should “love and accept” her daughter because they are half-siblings. While it is true the kids are related that does not mean the betrayed ex-wife is obligated to provide free childcare for the symbol of her marriage’s destruction.
It gets worse. The ex tried to guilt-trip her by bringing up his wife’s past miscarriages as if that is somehow the narrator’s responsibility. He even tried to manipulate their nine-year-old son into asking his mom to do it. Using a child as a pawn in your twisted game of manipulation is parenting fail 101. He even threatened to show up at her door to force a meeting which is straight-up harassment.
But the absolute cherry on top of this sundae of stupidity is what happened next. He contacted his attorney. He actually tried to get a lawyer to legally compel his ex-wife to babysit his other child.
I would have paid good money to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. The narrator’s attorney apparently laughed at the attempt which is the only appropriate legal response. You cannot sue someone into babysitting. That is not how the law works. That is not how anything works.
So is she the ahole? Absolutely not. She is a hero of boundaries. She is a saint for not changing her number and moving to a different continent. The ex and his wife are not looking for a village; they are looking for a doormat. And they are furious because they finally realized she isn’t one.