I'm so fed up with BM's constant demands for extra money for things that should be covered by CS or for things that DH has no information about before receiving a vague demand for more money.

BM complains incessantly that DH does not communicate with her, but 99% of her texts to him are demands for extra money. For example, two recent texts she's sent him - "Are you planning to contribute anything for school clothes and school supplies?" followed an hour later by "I sent you a text and you never responded. I need to know if you'll be contributing." Yesterday, she sent him a text saying "are you going to contribute to 6th grade camp this year?" No information on what 6th grade camp is (I think it's an environmental learning trip for the 6th grade, but there is no info on the school website), no information on whether the kids want to go (one wets the bed regularly and the other has meltdowns at bedtime, but by all means, send them to a sleepover field trip), no information on how much camp might cost. A couple of hours later, she sent him another text saying "I sent you a question about school camp and you never responded. If you want communication to be better between us, you need to respond when I text you."

A little background on the communication issue - DH and BM do not get along (according to what he's told me, they never really did). Nearly every conversation they have devolves into a fight. Therefore, DH has started avoiding having conversations with BM at all and has told her several times that he avoids conversations with her because they always fight and he's sick of that. This has led BM to tell my SSs "your father hates me." "Your father ignores me." "Your father never responds to me." In response, DH has told her that he's sick of her putting the kids in the middle (there are more egregious examples of her putting the kids in the middle, including her telling one (this year, four years after their divorce was final) that DH "caused the divorce"). DH has already told her that he's happy to provide for his children, but he does not appreciate constant demands for money from her.

When I met DH he was always giving BM whatever money she asked for. She would send him an email with her list of demands, never with receipts and he would give the money - usually in cash. She even demanded he pay for a broken window in her house (not a house she and DH had owned together, but one she was renting with her boyfriend) because she said one of their sons had broken it (this year, he found out from his child that BM's boyfriend's son actually broke the window). She also sends all of her requests at the absolute last minute without any discussion, usually the same day she needs the money or after she's paid. He showed me an email that she sent before we met where she threatened to report him to child support enforcement because she said he owed her $32 for school pictures.

DH always pays his child support on time. When we met, he was even paying her $20 extra every month because he had the amount wrong in his mind and she didn't correct him. We buy all the clothes the children wear at our house (she sends nothing with them and then makes a stink if they don't come home in the exact same clothes they wore on Friday evening, but of course, never sends home clothes from our house that end up at hers). We buy all clothes they need to go outside in the snow (DH's family has a family cabin in the mountains), because BM says "it's not my responsibility to buy clothes for them to play in the snow." DH pays full price for every extra that comes up when they are with us - sports pictures, Santa pictures (which BM requested he get), glasses, dentist appointments, haircuts (I think we are the only ones who take them for haircuts even though they are only with us EOWE) - never asking BM for a dime for any of those. We also pay $80 a month to cover their cell phones under our family plan (cell phones which BM uses to contact them more than DH does). BM makes at least twice what DH does, she was the breadwinner when they were married and he managed a lot of the child care. She now has a boyfriend (whom she left DH for), who according to her is a "stay at home dad", so she doesn't have to pay for child care.

The biggest expense was sports. She would send DH a handwritten note of all of the money she had spent on sports and sports gear, giving him an amount of what she felt he owed her. No receipts, no proof that she actually spent, nothing. She was asking him to give her several hundred dollars extra each month to cover these "expenses". When DH and I were engaged, I told him that I was not ok with him just giving her extra money, especially because I'm not convinced she is actually spending what she says she is. She has had financial problems in the past, including a business partner who severed ties with her because he was skeptical of her spending and realized she was not paying income taxes for herself; an outstanding tax debt owed to the IRS of over $50k; and spends at least $25k per year (by her own calculations) at the casino. Did I mention she's an accountant who specializes in business fraud? She makes a six figure income and they don't live in a costly area (they also live in a home that her parents bought for them), but she is still always out of money. Two years after the divorce she "borrowed" $5000 from my MIL because she "needed it" (she even convinced DH to ask his mother, instead of asking herself) and then never paid it back. She also has at least one existing judgment against her from a credit card company. I told DH that he needed to get receipts for what she was spending because she wasn't trustworthy. She screamed and cried about this, as if it was totally out of line for someone to ask for proof of the payment when you are asking them to give you money. She then sent him pictures of checks she had supposedly written, even though some were written out for the wrong amounts and to the wrong names. She claimed they were pictures of "cancelled checks", but they were just pictures of the front of the check, not the back and did not have any printed marks on them from a bank. All checks were also written from her business account, not her personal account.

I told DH that when we were married, we couldn't have surprise demands for an extra $100-$200 every month to cover expenses that were never discussed. I encouraged the two of them to develop a budget together of what they were willing to spend on sports for the year. He and I came up with a total that was well over the average for what is spent on elementary school students, figured out what his portion would be and listed what costs he expected on a spreadsheet. He presented that spreadsheet to her as a tool to start their discussion and said if she disputed his numbers, he was happy to discuss alternatives. He said he wanted to meet with at the beginning of the summer to discuss the sports budget for the upcoming year. DH went with what he was prepared to spend and approached it as a discussion. He originally suggested that they sit down with the kids and discuss what they wanted to do and BM said "they are children, they shouldn't be part of this conversation" and refused to allow them to attend. BM came with no information, no thoughts on what she thought was a reasonable budget. She just used the meeting as her chance to veto or approve what DH wanted. For example, DH wanted to sign them up for ski lessons (we had taken them once the previous year and they both begged to go again). BM said "they've never mentioned skiing to me, so I won't pay for it." DH said "that's fine, but I plan to take them skiing, so I'll pay the full amount and take that out of my budget for the year". The ski lessons were nearly $1000, so that ate up the remaining budget for the year. Then she scheduled another sporting event on DH's weekend that meant that one child didn't even go to the final ski lesson, which we had carefully scheduled only on our weekends. She told DH "SS11 doesn't even like skiing" (funny, since SS11 asks us all the time when we are going skiing again). I was proud of DH because he held the line with her saying "we discussed our budget. I told you what I was comfortable spending and also told you that if I covered skiing on my own, I would subtract that from my budget. I exceeded my budget in paying for the skiing, so I won't pay for anything else this year." She told him that she was just being nice by not asking for receipts from skiing to prove he had spent his entire budget.

She also has a tendency of expecting DH to reimburse her for the full amount of any money she spends, rather than his 30% contribution designated in their parenting plan (because she makes so much more than him, they split extra expenses 30/70). Last fall she had a fit over football cleats (SS11 had football cleats that DH had purchased for flag football, but apparently, he needed high top cleats), demanding that DH buy them. He told her, he would buy them, but couldn't buy them the weekend she wanted him to buy them because we were going away with the kids. He said he would buy them on the next visitation weekend. She told him that was way too late and she'd just buy them herself. She then wanted to know if he would pay. He replied and said, yes, he would pay his share. She just needed to give him a receipt. She then didn't buy the cleats until our next visitation weekend (when DH has originally offered to buy them and which she said was "way too late"), but didn't tell DH until the day of the game, saying he'd have to stop by her house and get the cleats. When he got the cleats, she gave him a receipt that included the cleats, a water bottle, and a bag of fruit chews that her husband had bought when he bought the cleats. DH wrote her a check for his portion of the cleats and gave it to her. She told him he was "wasting her time" by only paying for part of the cleats and not paying for the other items and that she was going to rip up the check. This year, she made a big stink about how she had to buy new cleats. Meanwhile, she sold the old ones online for only $5 less than she paid for them new. She was only paying $10-$15 for new cleats, but if she could have gotten away with it, she certainly would have demanded DH pay the entire amount for the new cleats.

My view is that when you are a divorced parent and you are putting in a good faith effort to co-parent with your ex, that you need to put in the extra effort to plan things out and agree to them. Not decide on your own and then demand your ex go along with it. You also need to approach spending discussions as collaborative discussions, not efforts to extort as much money from your ex as you can and then play the victim when he questions some of the spending. Married parents typically discuss how much they are willing to spend on sports, so why do those discussions go out the window when parents are divorced. Aren't those discussions even more necessary when parents are divorced because they are now living separate lives and likely have different views on how those lives should play out?

I also don't understand what divorced parents think they are going to gain by treating the other parent as a piggy bank. It cheapens the parental relationship in general if the only thing the non-custodial parent is good for is money. DH's ex wife gives him zero information about school, about medical issues, about how the kids are doing, about what they are up to, but she certainly lets him know when she feels like he owes her money. If the custodial parent creates a fight over money by demanding the other parent pay for things they had no idea about or pay for things that are supposed to be covered by child support, what do they hope to gain? How are you "putting your kids first" if you are constantly making an enemy out of your ex and causing resentment because you insist on making all the decisions and acting as the nag who is reprimanding your ex at every turn and implying that he doesn't pay his fair share (even when he does according to the legal agreement you both signed when you got divorced). I know the answer in my case is that BM hopes to gain control and also to blame DH for her money troubles. But seriously, we pay for a lot of things for the children and DH's mother pays for a lot of things for the children, so to hear from BM that he's a deadbeat dad and doesn't care about his kids because he refuses to give her whatever money she demands just makes me want to scream. I've told DH that if she thinks she's not getting enough child support and wants more, she can go back to court and ask for it. She shouldn't use the fact that she thinks she's not getting enough and she could go back to court if she wanted to (as she tells DH anytime she demands more money), as a threat to extort money from him. We pay for a lot for the children and we always provide them for what they need, but seriously, her demands make me not want to pay for anything extra. Also, I can't live with constant unexpected expenses coming at me just because BM can't plan ahead.

All of this is coming from a BM who says she "always puts the children's needs first" and "never puts herself first." I'm sure in her mind, demanding extra money from their dad and telling the kids that their dad is terrible because he doesn't give in to her demands feel to her like she is "putting them first", but she's not. She's putting them last by perpetuating conflict, by pulling the kids into the conflict, and by in general, staying angry over the divorce that she demanded.

I know in my case, this has nothing to do with money. This is all about control for BM and maintaining a connection with DH, even if that connection is through fighting with him. I wish there was more honesty out there about how divorced mothers are not always the victims, but oftentimes are the abusers in relationships. DH is always seen as the villain, even if he says nothing, because BM presents herself as this martyr who has to do it all for her kids. DH has asked several times for more of a joint custody arrangement and any time he asks, he is shot down. Yet, even DH's mother talks about how difficult BM's life is and how DH should be more appreciative of all she does for the children.