To those who are separated from your child's other parent: How much contact do you have with your ex (your child's other parent)?

Oh wow…I could write LOTS of things on this one.
I’m not a parent….but I was the child in the thick of such a thing.
My Father was a soldier, for 22 years. When he learned that my Mother was pregnant, he wanted a divorce there and then, because he simply wasn’t ready for the responsibility of raising a child. Yet strangely, he didn’t mind the responsibility of dodging bullets to stay alive yet still be able to shoot back at the nme. There’s a thing.
Still…he changed his mind, but whilst soldiers are away, they are known to play. And so he did. He was found out to be cheating on my Mother, so they got a divorce eventually because of that and not because he was too chickenshit to raise a child.
You’d think a soldier would have a bigger set of balls on him wouldn’t you?
Anyway, contact initially was once every so often. Not just between myself and my Dad, but between my Mom and my Dad. Understandably he was in the army, so he was tied to his career more than anything else. I did get to see him once in a while, but at one point, he was sent off to Germany for eight years – during which time, I didn’t see him , and I think I only spoke to him once or twice throughout that time. I still recall the time he visited before he was sent off. He looked at me from out the living room doorway, gave me a wink, said “See you later kiddo” and that was it. Gone.
Contact between my parents (that is to say, Mother talking to Father, vice versa) seemed to be civil enough. That was when she actually could get hold of him after he was posted abroad.
She did a lot of chasing around on my part so that I could get to speak to him or even see him when I was a child. Unfortunately the Ministry of Defense isn’t too keen on talking to the ex-wives of soldiers who have kids they are actually supposed to be responsible for.
I will hand it to my Dad that granted, he did a great job as a soldier, but as a Dad, and I have no qualms in saying this, he was utterly shite. To me at least. To his other kids from his other marriage he did a much better job. He was more mature and more able to accept his responsibilities as a father and not just as a soldier.
Eventually, the contact between my parents got from being civil to having a full blown ‘war’ of sorts. I was coming up to my final exams at school, and my father had been re-married for some time, had got another child in that marriage – and my Mother was chasing him up for Child Support. Tensions ran pretty high at that time. When I went to see my Dad, his bitch of a wife really gave me some stick because of it, and I was strangely also getting stick from my Mom for my Dad’s shortcomings.
They all thought they were the ones in the middle, but in actual fact, in any divorce where a child is involved, it’s the child that is in the thick of it. Not Mommy, not Daddy..and I defy anyone with cajones enough to try and deny it.
As you can probably tell, despite being in my thirties and being all grown up and all, I still feel very strongly about the subject.
I don’t think my Mother really bothers talking to Dad anymore, since I’m an adult, I don’t need the two of them to keep talking to each other or whatever. They ask after each other to me, but that’s about it.

As for Dad and his re-marriage, yeah well would you believe it, he was found cheating on her too. This time his kids from that marriage were much older than I was when he and my Mom got divorced. They actually seemed to do a lot more talking and hooking up with their kids and were pretty civil. They’d see each other every weekend – mostly for the younger kid’s sake I think (he’s not a kid anymore either).

I’d like to say that was a pretty therapeutic session, but I’d be lying. I’m well over that stuff and I’m glad it’s behind me to be honest. I know it bothers the youngest a little, it bothered me immensely when I was a child of a much younger age. But his ex-wife is a real battleaxe.
I do remember one time, when Dad came walking in to my former stepmother’s kitchen, and it was like the bloody ex-wives club. He said something, I can’t remember what, and the two of them decided to poke fun at him. He didn’t like that much, ha.

Although I never ever denied a visit, my oldest child’s (now 32) father chose not to be in her life. There were a few mile stones when she contacted him, the death of her step father when she was 10, those tough times in adolescence, and the birth of her first child. I am so happy that I was determined to never say a negative word about him to her. She was able to form her own opinion about him. She discovered that he was pretty self absorbed and wanted to spend more time manipulating her to think like him than listen and learn who she was.
Once she asked me, ‘Why didn’t you warn me?”
I told her that 1, there would be times that I didn’t think she would believe me, and 2, he was a part of her and I didn’t think it would be good for HER self esteem to put down half of what created her.

Kudos @Judi. I wish my Mom had taken a similar approach with me, but then..I’m kinda glad I still learned what I did when I did.

I rarely interact with the father of my children. I see him when we exchange the kids (at a neutral location) but we only talk if we absolutely have to. I try to keep all of my communication limited to essential subjects specifically regarding the children. We see each other when he decides to attend our children’s sporting or school events (which is infrequently) and we do not sit together or talk at all. He has done so many damaging things at this point that I am not the least bit interested in any conversation with him.

My ex and I separated when or son was 4½. He would visit his dad on weekends. His dad was off from work on Sunday and Monday, so he’d pick him up after Sunday School, and bring him to Child Care Tuesday morning. It worked out pretty well, but then my ex became more erratic… he was drinking more, he lost his job, I think he started taking other drugs, too.

After he got a ticket for driving while intoxicated, I had the courts remove his visitation rights until he went through detox. I would still bring our son to his dad’s place for a few hours on Sunday, but I was told that the if it was discovered that I allowed that, the courts would overturn the visitation revocation, so I stopped.

My son and I moved, and I didn’t tell my ex where we were living, because at that point, he had become so unstable, I worried about him trying to abduct our son, and possibly doing harm. When my son was 7 and had just started that 2nd grade, his father died from alcohol and drug abuse. Last week was the 14 year anniversary of his death. In all honesty, I felt relief that I could stop looking over my shoulder.

This had a profound impact on my son, of course. He had a lot of anger towards me for not allowing him to see his dad, so I told him that it was a judge that said he couldn’t. “we’ll, that’s a mean judge,” my 5-year-old replied. So I told him that the judge wants him to be safe, so he told Daddy that he had to stop drinking before he could see his son again. “Why won’t Daddy stop drinking so he can see me?” Witnessing my son’s heart break then, and again when I told him that his father was dead, and he realized the there was no hope to ever see him again has been the hardest thing to experience.

I do believe that I handled the situation as best I could, and that any other course of action would have been more dangerous and/or emotionally messy in the long run. But I know that his heart still aches, even though he doesn’t remember much now that he’s 21.

I totally forgot to include that my kids are 13, 12, and 10 and we divorced three years ago.

My ex-husband and I amicably separated in 2004, and our kids are 14, almost 17, and 18 years old now. We’re usually very effective co-parents. He and I talk on the phone once or twice a week or every other week, usually (but not always) about the kids. We see each other semi-regularly… at school functions, family events, and in each others’ homes (when visiting with the kids, or at birthday parties and such). We usually sit together at school functions, alone or with our respective SOs, and frequently with ex-in-laws, too. Everyone is friendly. Obviously, we get along reasonably well, but we still have huge fights sometimes. (After all, there is a reason we’re not married anymore!) There have been times when we limited our contact to emails because of it, but it’s not often.

My ex-husband left when our son was 10-months-old. He decided that he no longer wanted to be a husband or father. For the first 3 months, I tried really hard to keep him involved in our son’s life. I called to get him to come see him and pushed for him to take his visitation. I stopped pushing it though and the last time he saw our son was when he was 13-months-old. He called to check on him a few times after that, but never asked to see him. We haven’t talked in years at this point (as my son is almost 11-years-old now). My ex doesn’t want anything to do with our son.

My parents split up when I was 18. They only talk now when necessary for big events (such as my brother’s wedding a few years ago).

The sad thing here is, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who notices this, there are no fathers who have anything to say on this subject. Yet (...maybe).
This raises all kinds of questions for me as not only a child from a marriage that didn’t work out, but also as a man. As a man in my country, the law always – or at least almost always – sides with the woman – doesn’t matter what it is, be it assault, mugging, worse. If you’re a guy in this country, and even if you didn’t do something you’re accused of, the balance weighs so heavily against you as a man, that you might as well just bury yourself alive now and be done with it.
Whilst I can easily identify that a mother most often gets custody of the child, I wonder how often it is that the father actually gets custody.

@lightsourcetrickster when my current husband and his ex divorced she was given custody of the kids. She had some serious personal issues to the point that the children were taken from her twice by child protective services. She was arrested more than once and caught driving under the influence with the children in the car. Even with all of that it took my husband six years, hundreds of hours in court, guardian ad litems, supervised visits, and lots and lots of case workers to finally get custody. He managed to get it done, but it was way too long coming – very much to the detriment of his children.

My own ex-husband has done nothing but try to sabotage my life since I left him. We’re talking pretty serious stuff like costing me my house and my car, making false police reports and false calls to CPS, harassing me, and costing me thousands and thousands of dollars. While we were married he never had much to do with our kids and when we broke up he willingly gave me primary physical custody. It is rare that he contacts them between visitations, and he never attends school conferences, sporting events, doctors appointments, recitals etc. In the face of all this though he will tell anyone who will listen that his evil ex-wife screwed him over in the divorce and he doesn’t get to be part of his kids’ lives.

I have a pretty clear picture of both sides of that coin and I really wish the courts would see both sides as well. There are great fathers who deserve primary custody and not so great fathers that don’t, and it is the same with mothers.

@SuperMouse A great answer from yet another female user, I was being very literal about any men actually answering the question. All the same, have a GA.

@lightsourcetrickster you’re right and the fact that we haven’t heard much from men really bums me out. I am always interested to hear their perspectives on custody after divorce, especially in light of my situation.

In my case, we mutually decided that my ex-husband should have primary physical custody of our children… I’m the one who has visitation and pays child support. It was what was best for our kids, and I really wish more divorcing/divorced parents would think from that perspective.

I’m female, but I’ll answer from a man (my husband’s) perspective on the subject. I do not have biological children, but my husband does.
He sees his ex girlfriend weekly, they speak on the phone once or twice a week. At the moment the conversation is civil, they co-parent, along with including both stepparents in the parenting conversations. Everyone is getting along fine.
For at least 8+ before that, my husband felt cut off, controlled, alienated, pushed away from his children. He and I were both falsely accused of neglect and child abuse, investigated and cleared, and his ex was volatile. I would often hear her on the other end of the phone screaming at him.
My husband fought for custody, and was in court for over 6 months. No history of physical, emotional, verbal, or substance abuse and has never been arrested. He lost, because he ran out of money. The reason for not granting shared parenting was that his ex “simply did not want to call your parenting shared.” That’s not made up, we have multiple letters from my husband’s attorney and her attorney stating the same thing.
I know plenty of guys who can tell similar stories. Lots of men who love their children and want to be with their children end up feeling so beat down by either their ex, or the system, or both, that they either run out of emotional stamina or money and have to stop fighting.

So, before that, he spoke to her very rarely. A few times a month. Now that things are going well, they speak at least once a week, sometimes more.

I never see my children’s father and neither do they. My children are now adults but they have barely seen him for 10 years. They might have seen him for a couple of weekends during that time. He moved to another part of the country. I have paid for one of them to visit. I have offered to pay for them to visit on other occasions. They said no, they don’t want to visit him.

The contact between us was mixed over the years but usually contentious so we avoided interacting when around the children. Contact, when he chose to have contact, was about them seeing him, not us seeing each other.

Rarely. My kids are teenagers now so it matters much less. Plus, I paid off my child support- a huge amount, which he never did for his wife before me. I am so over it all. I am moving back to their town. Should be interesting. I hold no grievances toward him, whatsoever, anymore. What he does or thinks towards me I don’t care.