Hello everyone,

For some quick background, my ex wife initiated a separation in January this year. Within the first week of separation I found her messaging and sleeping with a coworker, and was informed later by another coworker that they were close for two months before the separation. And a month later she moved the affair partner in with her.

Anyways, despite the massive betrayal, I still tried to be a good coparent with her. At first things seemed fine, we did exchanges at each other’s homes, called to talk to the kids, talked to each other about the kids, etc. but recently that’s all changed.

We decided to do a quick, amicable divorce without going to court. We agreed on most things and agreed upon 50/50 custody. The divorce finalized over a month ago now, and ever since she’s turned into an awful coparent. She won’t answer the phone to allow me to talk to the kids, and the few times she does answer she always says they’re napping. Despite 50/50 custody, I still have to pay her some child support each month. Initially she told me she would use this money to pay for daycare, but a week after paying her, she contacted me telling me she needed more money because she hadn’t used that money to pay for daycare… She has made and cancelled doctor’s appointments without informing me, even though I could’ve taken the kids to their appointments. But worst of all, my almost 4 year old son has referred to her partner as “dad” and “daddy”, and he’s called me a few times by my name and told me that “I’m not daddy”, which is something he has never done before. To make matters worse, I knew this was a possibility because one of my ex-wife’s AP’s exes had told me to prepare for this because he would encourage her daughter to call him “dad” and discredit her active bio-dad.

Lastly, my son will start public school next year, and I’ve tried to have a conversation with my ex about reaching a joint decision on which school to enroll him in, but she ignores the conversation. And I fear she’s ignoring it because I have a gut feeling they’re planning to move closer to AP’s family in the near future who live over an hour away.

Is it worth to receive legal counsel about this and try to pursue more custody? Some of her actions break our initial custody agreement, and while I would like more custody, I don’t want to take the kids away from their mother either.