Reddit Stories - Making a PAYMENT of $600 each month for PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY, while sharing custody

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #parenting #custody #financialresponsibility #coparenting #childsupportSummary: Making a payment of $600 each month for parental responsibility, while sharing custody, can be a challenging financial commitment. It requires careful budgeting and communication with the co-parent to ensure the child's needs are met.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, parenting, custody, financialresponsibility, coparenting, childsupport, familylaw, sharedcustody, budgeting, communication, childneeds, financialcommitment, monthlypayment, parentingchallenges, co-parenting, childcustodyBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Making a payment of $600 each month for parental responsibility, while sharing custody equally. When I requested a reduction in the financial obligations, my former partner labeled me as irresponsible and implied taking legal action. Me to court. As a quick overview, my ex-wife got pregnant on accident after our marriage was already on the rocks. We had been married for about three years at that point, and things hadn't been good, for a while. We were using protection but somehow it failed. I'm not saying she did it on purpose,

but the timing was weird as hell. We had already been talking about separating for a few months at that point. Our relationship had gotten really toxic, constant arguments over the smallest things, sleeping in different rooms, the whole miserable package. She would get mad at me for working late, I would get frustrated with her spending habits, and we'd fight about whose turn it was to do the dishes or take out the trash. Normal marriage stuff that became huge issues because we just couldn't communicate anymore. I think we both knew it was over, but neither of us wanted to be the one to say it. When she told me she was pregnant, I was shocked.

We had actually been using condoms because she had stopped taking birth control a few months earlier, it was giving her mood swings or something. So when she came to me with the positive test, my first reaction wasn't exactly joy. I asked her if she was sure it was mine, which was a dick move in retrospect, but I was panicking. That started a huge fight and she threw a coffee mug at the wall. Not at me, but still. Things were bad. We tried to make it work for a bit, but it was obvious neither of us was happy.

I suggested counseling, she went once and refused to go back because she didn't like the therapist's vibe. I went a few more times by myself just to have someone to talk to about the whole. mess. Before our son was even born, we decided to divorce, but agreed to live together for the first few months of his life in separate rooms for logistics and baby bonding. I took the guest room, she kept our bedroom, and we converted the office into a nursery. It was awkward as fuck, but we both wanted to be there for him in those early days. Living in the same house while separated was a nightmare. We would pass each other in the hallway without speaking. We had a schedule for the kitchen so we wouldn't have to eat together.

She would have her friends over and they would talk shit about me loudly enough that I could hear through the walls. I just stayed in my room most of the time when I wasn't at work or helping with the baby. The only time we really communicated was about our son. When he was born, it was actually kind of nice for a few days. We had this unspoken truce, and for a little while, it felt like maybe we could co-parent effectively. That lasted about two weeks before we were back to barely speaking. We were divorced and living separately before he was even one. Here are the basics of our custody agreement that are

relevant. Our custody schedule was up to us to determine and could be flexible. There was no court-ordered schedule slash division of time and I pay $600 a month in child support, based on the fact that I likely would not have him 50 to 50 due to work schedule and lack of local family support. When we were setting up the divorce, neither of us could afford fancy lawyers, so we used a mediator. They helped us come up with this agreement that was supposed to be flexible enough to change as our son got older and our situations changed. At the time, it seemed like a good idea. The mediator said it would save us court costs down the road if we could just work things out between us. What a joke that turned out to be. My parents live on the

other side of the country and my sister was overseas at the time, so I didn't have anyone to help with child care when things came up at work. Her parents live about an hour away, and her sister is in the same town, so she had a support system that I didn't. When we first separated, I found an apartment about 15 minutes from the house. It was a shitty one-bedroom place, but it was all I could afford after giving her the house. I had him on weekends only until he was two, because my job at the time had me working 10-hour days and I couldn't handle a toddler after those shifts. I was working in sales and the hours were brutal. I'd leave for work at 7 a.m. and often wouldn't get home until seven or eight at night. There was no way I could pick him up from daycare or have enough energy

to take care of him properly during the week. I still made sure to see him during the week sometimes for dinner when I could get off early enough. I'd drive over to their house and we'd go to the park or get ice cream or something. My ex would usually use that time to go to the gym or meet up with friends, which was fine with me. It gave me one-on-one time with my son. Those first couple years were rough. I missed a lot of his firsts, first steps, first words, all that stuff. My ex would sometimes send me videos, but it wasn't the same as being there. I felt like I was failing as a dad, but I also didn't see how I could do more with my work situation. I eventually found a new job that gave me more flexibility with my schedule so I could be more involved in his

life. It paid less, but being a dad was more important to me than the extra money. I took a position at a smaller company where I could work from home two days a week and set my own hours the other days. The pay cut was significant, about 20% less than I was making before, but the trade-off was worth it. After switching jobs, I would have him every weekend plus some weekdays, so we were about 60 to 40 with her having him more. I was still trying to figure out how to balance work and being a single dad, but I was making it work. Around this time, I moved to a slightly better apartment with two bedrooms so my son

could have his own room. It stretched my budget even thinner, but it was important to me that he felt like he had his own space at my place. My ex would sometimes give me shit about not having him more, but then would complain when I asked to have him for extra days. It was like I couldn't win. One time I asked to take him to visit my parents for a week during the summer, and she acted like I was trying to kidnap him or something. But then a month later, she'd text me saying I needed to step up more as a father. The mixed messages were constant. Then I met my current wife. She lived in a city about an hour away, so we did the long-distance thing for a while.

Every other weekend when I didn't have my son, I'd drive to see her, or she'd come to me. She was patient with the whole situation, which I appreciated. A lot of women wouldn't want to deal with a guy who has a kid and a complicated ex. After about eight months of dating, she got a job offer in my city and moved closer. She found a place about 10 minutes from mine. We continued dating, and she slowly started spending more time with my son. They hit it off right away, she's great with kids and has two nieces that she's close with, so she knew how to talk to him and play with him.

She never tried to replace his mom or anything, just made an effort to be a positive person in his life. Once I had been with my now wife for over a year, we moved in together and changed the custody arrangement again to be exactly 50 to 50. My wife is amazing with my son and having her support made it possible to take him more. Her apartment about was bigger than mine, with a spare bedroom that became my son's room. It's been like this for about two years now. We have him Monday through Wednesday morning one week, then Thursday through Sunday the next. It's been working out great for our son, and he seems happy and well adjusted despite the divorce. My wife and I got married in a small ceremony last year. My son was the ring-bearer and he took his job

very seriously. It was cute as hell. My ex was surprisingly cool about the whole thing. She even helped get him dressed and ready on the morning of the wedding since he was with her the night before. Our son is six now and getting into sports and more paid activities. He's doing soccer and wants to start karate too. His soccer team practices twice a week, and his games on Saturdays. The league fees weren't too bad, but then there's all the equipment, cleats, shin guards, uniform, etc. And he outgrows that stuff constantly. The karate place near us once like $120 a month plus uniform fees and testing fees every few months when they move up belts. While we're getting by financially, my pay went down when I switched careers to be more involved,

and my wife is a teacher so it doesn't pay much. Her school district is a district is a one of the lower paying ones in our area, and they've been on a pay freeze for a couple years now. She loves her job and the kids, but the money is garbage for the amount of work she puts in. She's always bringing home papers to grade and spending her own money on classroom supplies. When we sat down to review our budget last month, I took a look at what a different $600 could make. That's our electric and water bills combined, with enough left over to cover groceries for a week. It would help with our food budget, which has gone up a ton lately, and free up some more money for my son's activities he really wants to do. We've been trying to save for a house-down payment too, but it's slow going with our current expenses.

I should mention that I also pay for his health insurance through my work, and a larger portion of his school tuition because he goes to a private school that my ex insisted on. The school is like $8,000 a year, and we agreed I'd pay 60% and she'd pay for. 40% based on our incomes at the time of the divorce. The health insurance for him is another $200 a month that comes out of my paycheck. These are expenses I never complain about because I want the best for him. My son had some issues at the public school kindergarten, he's really bright but gets bored easily and was having trouble focusing. The private school has smaller class sizes and more individualized attention.

I was skeptical at first because of the cost, but he's doing really well there, so it's worth it. Still, between the tuition, the health insurance, and the $600 child support, a huge chunk of my income goes to these expenses. So I brought up the idea with my ex-wife about eliminating child support or lowering it to $250 a month, which I knew would cover a good amount of monthly costs centered around him. I tried to be reasonable about it, we met for coffee after a drop-off and I calmly explained the situation, showing her our budget and how tight things were getting. I thought it was a fair conversation to have since our circumstances had changed from the original agreement. Well, she didn't see it that way.

She was so pissed about me even suggesting it she stormed out of the coffee shop, knocking over her chair in the process. People were staring, and I just sat there like an idiot for a minute. before paying the bill and leaving. I figured she needed some time to cool off, so I didn't text or call right away. Then later that day she called me, screamed that I'm taking food out of his mouth and it's not fair that I have a two-income household and I'm asking to support him less than her as a single mom. She said no way and if I tried again she'd take me to court for full custody. She said I was being selfish and that I should get a second job if money was tight

rather than making my son suffer. She went on this whole rant about how I was trying to weasel out of my responsibilities as a father and that she always knew I would do this eventually. She brought up stuff from years ago, like the time I missed his preschool graduation because of a work emergency, or how I forgot to bring his favorite stuffed animal back to her house once and he couldn't sleep. Just dragging up old shit to make me feel like a bad dad. I tried to explain that I wasn't trying to avoid supporting him, just that I was.

I thought the support should be more equitable now that we have him equal time. But she wasn't having it. She hung up on me mid-sentence. Later that day even her mom was texting me and calling me a deadbeat dad. I have no idea why her mom is even involved in this. I've always had a decent relationship with her, but apparently my ex went straight to her after our conversation and gave her some twisted version of what happened. Her mom sent me like eight text messages in a row calling me selfish and saying she always knew I would try to weasel out of my responsibilities. It was ridiculous. One of the texts from her mom said, a real man would work two jobs before taking money away from his child. Like, what? I already changed careers and took a pay cut

specifically so I could be more involved in my son's life, not less. Working a second job would mean less time with him, which seems counterproductive. I really didn't think I was an asshole for asking to at least lower it, considering it would go directly to supporting him, just at our house instead. I get that we have a two-income household, but she does have a partner who lives with her, so I would hope they're helping out with household things at least. They've been together for about a year and a half, and this person moved in a few months ago. Her boyfriend seems nice enough the few times I've met him during drop-offs. He works at some tech startup doing something with coding or websites, I'm not really sure. He drives a nice car though, so he must make

decent money. My son likes him well enough, though he says the guy spends a lot of time on his computer and doesn't play with him much. I don't think they're contributing much financially though, because apparently he works part-time at this startup thing that doesn't seem too stable. When we divorced, I gave her the house that I had already paid a large chunk of by myself so her mortgage is less than average rent in our area. We bought the house a year before our son was born, and I had put down most of the down payment for money I'd been saving since college. I didn't fight her on it because I wanted my son to have stability and not have to move. The house is nothing fancy but it's in a decent neighborhood with good schools. Three bedroom, two bath, with a fenced backyard.

We had just finished renovating the kitchen before we split up, which was another point of contention during our marriage. She wanted high-end everything, and I thought we should be more budget conscious. I don't know the full breakdown of their finances, but I do know that our son has a massive amount of toys at her house and an iPad, and eats out regularly. She posts pictures all the time of them at restaurants or getting takeout. Just last week there were Instagram photos of them at this fancy sushi place where rolls are like $18 each. She also went on vacation to the beach a couple months ago with her partner and our son. They stayed at some resort right on the water for a long weekend. Meanwhile, we've been cutting back on things like eating out and haven't taken a real vacation in over a year.

So I'm wondering what his $600 a month goes to. It obviously isn't all going to his basic needs. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad my son has nice things and gets to do fun activities. I'm not saying she should be living in poverty or anything. But it's frustrating to be struggling financially while she seems to be doing fine, and then getting called a deadbeat for suggesting a reduction in child support that would more accurately reflect our current situation. I was confident in my ask and my wife says it was a reasonable suggestion to at least lower it,

but she did say maybe I should have just asked to lower, not totally eliminate. I can see that, but if I'm being honest, I'm struggling to see a side where I'm in the wrong and deserve to be called a deadbeat dad. Yesterday my ex texted me saying we need to revisit our entire custody agreement if I'm going to be difficult about supporting our son. That feels like a threat, and I don't want this to turn into a big legal battle. But I also don't think it's fair that I'm paying the same amount in child support now that I have him 50 to 50 as I was when I only had him on weekends.

My buddy who went through a divorce a few years ago said I should just shut up and pay because courts usually favor mothers anyway, and I could end up with less custody if I rocked the boat. He had a really nasty divorce and ended up only getting his kids every other weekend, so he's pretty bitter about the whole system. But another friend said I'm being taken advantage of and should talk to a lawyer. He thinks I should document everything and be prepared for her to try to take me to court. I'm worried about how a legal battle would affect my son. He's a sensitive kid, and I don't want him to feel like he's in the middle of our issues.

He already picks up on tension between his mom and me, even though we try to keep things civil in front of him. After one of our arguments, he asked me if I was mad at mommy, and it broke my heart. I told him grown-up sometimes disagree but that we both love him very much. But I worry about what would happen if things got really ugly. between us. I don't know what to do at this point. Part of me wants to just give in and keep paying to avoid conflict, but another part feels like I'm being taken advantage of and it's not fair. And honestly, we could really use that money for things for our son on our side. My wife thinks I should at least consult with a lawyer to know my rights, even if I decide not to pursue anything.

But lawyers are expensive, and I'm already stretched thin financially. It feels like a catch 22, I need legal advice because I can't afford the child support, but I can't afford the legal advice because of the child support. Am I actually being an asshole here? Update, April 11th I honestly didn't expect this to blow up the way it did. Woke up to hundreds of comments and messages. Holy shit, you all have a lot of opinions. I stopped reading comments after a while because some of you are brutal, damn. I responded to a lot of comments in my last post, so I won't spend much time clearing things up here or making my case.

I also was downvoted quite a bit on most of my comments, so, not I'm sure how this update will go over. But whatever, here's what happened. I will clarify that we do have a custody and support agreement. It's not a super common one, but it set my child's support and essentially said we have shared custody and we can decide what the schedule is. The mediator who helped us with our divorce suggested this approach

since we were being relatively amicable at the time and it would save us money on legal fees if we could work things out ourselves. Looking back, that was probably a mistake. We should have had everything spelled out more clearly from the beginning. But hindsight is 20 to 20, and at the time, we both thought we could be reasonable adults about the whole thing. Ha! I brought it up with my ex first instead of court because for one, I didn't want to blindside her. And two, we have talked through and agreed on the custody time changes together each time

before and agreed it was nice to keep it out of court. Every time we've changed the schedule in the past, we've been able to work it out over coffee or a phone call without involving lawyers or mediators. I figured this would be the same, but I guess money is a more sensitive topic than scheduling. After several people here called me a dumbass, thanks for that, I realized I probably should have talked to a lawyer before bringing this up with her directly. But honestly, we've been able to work out our issues directly before, so I thought this would be the same. And lawyer consultations aren't cheap. The one I called wanted $300 for an hour of their time. That's half a month of child support right there. I let things be for a couple days after asking her.

I figured we both needed to cool off. During that time, she sent me a few passive-aggressive texts about other things, complaining that I sent our son to her house in a shirt that was too small, or that I forgot to put his homework folder in his backpack. Normal co-parenting annoyances that suddenly became bigger issues because of our argument. The day after I posted, I decided to be the bigger person and apologize to her for how I brought up the child support issue. I didn't apologize for asking about it, but for how the conversation went down. I told her I still felt we needed to discuss it, but that I understood her concerns and

wanted to find a solution that worked for both of us. I asked if she would be willing to go to mediation to at least discuss the topic. At first she said no, but after thinking about it overnight, she agreed. My area has a community dispute resolution center that is accepted by the courts and takes cases either same day or pretty quickly, so we went there the next day. It was awkward as hell sitting in that waiting room together. She brought her mom with her, which was annoying, but the mediator asked her mom to wait outside during our session, so at least there was that. I came with documents for my income and budget, medical records to show my proof of payments,

school pickup and drop off data, we have to check in and out, to show my involvement, receipts for extracurricular fees and materials, and communications between her and I on extra things I have paid for in any changes in custody. I might have gone overboard with the documentation but after reading comments here I was paranoid as fuck that I'd get screwed over. She didn't bring any documentation at all, which I think hurt her case with the mediator. She just kept saying she knew what things cost and didn't need to prove it. The mediator was this older guy who had a very no-nonsense approach, which I appreciated. He didn't let either of us get too emotional or go off on tangents. I was asking for an official 50-to-50 agreement and an evaluation of my

child support. I explained how our situation had changed since the original agreement, with me now having our son exactly half the time rather than just weekends. I showed the mediator my work schedule, our son's activity calendar that I take him to, and all the expenses I cover beyond child's support. My ex still said that it would be killing her budget and she wouldn't be able to provide for him without the 600. She claimed her rent, it's a mortgage, but whatever, and utilities took up most of her income, and that the child support was essential for food, clothing, and activities for our son. When the mediator asked about her boyfriend contributing to household expenses, she got really defensive and said that wasn't relevant. So the mediator walked us through

the formula that the court uses in our state to calculate child support. He plugged in our incomes, the percentage of time we each have our son, and the various expenses we both cover. Turns out, she should owe me. Not much, around $100 a month, but I could go after back support from when I was technically overpaying. She was pretty shocked. Her face when the mediator showed us the calculations was priceless. She just kept saying, that can't be right over and over. Then she started crying and saying she couldn't afford bills without my support payment. I felt bad, but also kind of pissed that she'd been making me feel like a deadbeat when apparently I've been overpaying this whole time. The mediator asked her about her

expenses, and it turns out a lot of what she was counting as necessities were things like her monthly massage membership, her hair and nail appointments, and the payments on the new car she bought last year. None of which are my responsibility. After about two hours of going back and forth, we agreed to formalize the 50 to 50 and put some standard holiday guidelines in place. We also agreed I would pay $200 a month and not go after back support. I'm not trying to screw her over financially, I just wanted something more fair. $200 seemed like a reasonable compromise, it helps my budget a lot while still giving her some support for our son's expenses at her house. The mediator did say they will be suggesting the courts open a folk,

friend of the court, investigation to see that financial responsibility to the child is being met in both homes. Which I didn't know was a thing but apparently it was a big red flag to her that I was paying that much support in addition to the custody and other things I pay for, or the majority of. So we'll see what happens after that. I'm not sure what comes of those considering I just found out about them. The mediator explained that the folk will look at both our homes, talk to our son, and review our finances to make sure our son's needs are being met and that the support is being used appropriately. He said it was standard procedure in cases where there's a significant discrepancy between the support being paid and what the formula suggests. I'm not worried about it on my end, our house is clean, our son has everything he needs, and I can document where every person.

penny goes. But my ex seemed nervous about it, which makes me wonder if there's something she's hiding. We left the mediation with a formal agreement that we both signed, which will be filed with the court. The new child support amount will go into effect next month. We also set up a more detailed holiday and vacation schedule, which is good because that's been a point of contention in the past. Christmas, Thanksgiving, spring break, etc. are all clearly defined now, which should provide prevent future arguments. My ex hasn't really talked to me since the mediation except for necessary kid-related communication. Pick up and drop off have been tense, with her barely making eye contact. Her mom sent me a half-assed apology text, which was surprising. It was something like,

I'm sorry if I overreacted, but you need to understand how this looked from our perspective. Not a real apology, but I guess it's something. My son seems fine and hasn't noticed. noticed anything weird between us, which is what matters most to me. And my wife and I have started putting a little money aside each month for a family vacation this summer, nothing fancy, probably just a cabin at a lake a few hours away, but it'll be nice to have something to look forward to. Some people asked about my ex's boyfriend in the comments. As far as I know, they're still together. He wasn't at the mediation and she didn't mention him much, except to say his finances weren't relevant to our situation. I don't know much

about their relationship and try not to ask my son too many questions about what goes on at his mom's house. That doesn't seem fair to put him in the middle like that. I appreciate the constructive comments on my original post and I'm just thankful that I have a more formal agreement. I don't think there was anything wrong with our first one for the time being, but situations change and we're figuring this out as we go. I might update again after the folk investigation if anything interesting comes from that, but for now I'm just trying to focus on being a good dad and moving forward. Also, to the person who'd be saying I should try to go for full custody and destroy her.

That's not what this is about at all. I just wanted a fair arrangement. My son loves his mom and she's a good mother, despite our disagreements. Taking him away from her would hurt him more than anyone, and I would never do that to him. Some of you need serious help with your revenge fantasies. Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far. If anyone else is in a similar situation,

my advice would be to get everything in writing from the beginning, and don't be afraid to revisit agreements when circumstances change. And maybe talk to a lawyer first instead of doing what I did.