Hello all! I'm new to the forum and this is my first post. I'm about four years post divorce (4 separated, about two divorced) and have three children with my ex. Son 12, Son 7 and Daughter 4. I was the working class bread winner and she was the SAHM. I'll let you fill in the blanks from then until now. Upon parting, I took the time to get my life back together as I was terribly defeated and needed to deal with my demons. Got EOW custody of the kids for several years and just recently took over 50/50 emergency custody due to Mom's instability and foolish decisions.

I've come to find out that Mom was revealing more to my children about her disgust of me than one would hope and that she was befriending my 12 year old more than a parent should. This has led to some serious issues with the relationship between myself and he. Obviously my arguments had some merit and validity as the court awarded me more custody with her essentially on a probationary period with the consequence of losing custody. BUT, with all of this, there is still the challenge of my 12 y.o. being a Mommas boy and seeing me as the bad guy cuz I "bailed on the family" and recently took Mom back to court.

So, with gag orders in place about how one parent should not bad mouth the other to the children and just simply being "the bigger person", I speak nothing even remotely ill to my children about their Mother. However, many times I think and feel this is to my detriment as they get all of the projection and propaganda from their Mother and I feel unable to argue it. Where does one draw the line between being the bigger person and being able to voice their opinions or perspectives and why some decisions have to be made that make Dad look like the bad guy?

Thanks!