🦚That thing your ex never cared about (until now)

Let me guess: Your ex spent years not giving a crap about which pediatrician saw the kids, what brand of shoes they wore (or what state the kids’ shoes were in), or whether their after-school snack was organic. While you were with him, your ex couldn’t be bothered to show up for parent-teacher conferences or remember the kids’ clothing sizes.

And now you’re no longer together, and that ex sends you seventeen texts about minor stuff, like the time you forgot to put fruit in your kids’ school lunch once.

You’re not crazy. And you’re not alone. This is a well-worn playbook.

There was always control: It just changed uniforms

Here’s what happened: You left. You got out. You filed papers, or packed bags, or finally said “I’ve had enough.” And in that moment, every lever of control your ex had over you—what you wore, where you went, who you talked to, how you spent money—all of it evaporated.

Except one thing. The kids.

The children are the remaining tether, the last place where he can still get to you, still demand your attention, still make you say, “How high?” when they say jump. And he knows it. Oh boy, does he know it.

So suddenly, miraculously, he’s developed passionate opinions about matters that didn’t generate a passing thought from him for the whole duration of your relationship. The same person who forgot three birthdays in a row now has detailed concerns about the educational philosophy of your school choice. The one who never helped with homework has suddenly become an expert on learning disabilities.

To an outsider, that looks like personal growth. “Oh, isn’t it sweet! He’s showing how much he cares about his kids.” But you know what it really is—control and strategy.

The manufactured crisis, and the next one, and the next one…

Every week, there’s something new. The winter coat isn’t warm enough. You’re not sending enough water in the water bottle. The kids mentioned they watched a show, and now you’re getting a lecture about screen time guidelines from someone who used to park the children in front of YouTube for six-hour stretches.

You handle that issue. You send the documentation, make the change, accommodate the demand. And what happens? The goalposts move. Now it's something else. Always something else.

That’s because resolution (or the actual welfare of your kids) was never the goal. Engagement is the goal. Conflict is the goal. Keeping you on the hook, scrambling, defending, explaining. That’s the goal.

People tell you he’s trying to be a more involved parent. The only thing they got right in that sentence is the word “involved.” He’s trying to be involved in your life in the only way you’ll still allow: through the children.

The genius of the trivial

There’s a diabolical brilliance in his focus on small things: plausible deniability.

You can’t go to court and say “Your Honor, he complained about juice boxes” without sounding like you're the unreasonable one. It’s hard to explain to your lawyer that the real issue isn't the dentist appointment without it sounding like an exaggeration.

To the outside world, it looks like normal co-parenting disagreements. Two adults who just can't get along. Communication issues. Different parenting styles.

Your ex knows this. He’s counting on it.

Meanwhile, you’re drowning in a sea of petty disputes, your nervous system is shot, and you’re spending your precious time with your kids worrying about whether letting them take some of their leftover Halloween chocolate to dad’s is going to trigger another avalanche of messages.

You’re exhausted, worn down. And that’s exactly what he wants.

The paper trail con

Every single one of those emails and texts also serves another purpose: building a narrative.

Look at all these concerns he’s raised. Look how he’s trying to communicate while you’re being difficult and uncooperative. Look at this extensive documentation of your questionable parenting choices.

Never mind that the concerns are fabricated or absurd. Never mind that he’s playing prosecutor, judge, and jury over whether you should have used sunscreen with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. The record shows conflict. It shows him appearing engaged and concerned.

And if you don't respond, you're uncooperative and intransigent. If you push back, you're hostile. But if you respond to every ridiculous demand? You’re enabling the pattern.

It feels like a trap with no good exit.

Your kids are now surveillance equipment

The kids are suddenly getting interrogated when they go to him. Questions they never heard before about what happened at your house, what you fed them, who was there, what time they went to bed.

The children aren’t being asked because your ex cares about the answers. They’re being asked because your ex is fishing for ammunition. Something. Anything. Any small detail that can be twisted into a concern, magnified into a crisis, and weaponized as leverage against you.

And the kids feel it. They know something’s wrong, even if they can’t articulate it. They start editing what they tell each parent. They develop anxiety about mentioning normal things. They learn to keep secrets, not because anything is actually wrong, but because they’ve figured out that honest answers create problems.

Your ex is teaching your children that love comes with surveillance and that they have to choose sides.

What you do about it

First, stop playing the game. I mean it. Stop.

Stop sending paragraph-long explanations about your parenting choices. Stop defending yourself against asinine accusations. Stop treating manufactured conflicts like genuine concerns that deserve thoughtful engagement. Stop hoping for validation from your ex.

The only person who needs to know you’re a good parent is you. And your kids, when they’re old enough to look back and see clearly.

First: take a deep breath when you get those accusatory messages. Resist your natural urge to justify and explain.

Write like a professional: brief, factual, documented. “Thank you for your concern. The children are healthy and well cared for.” No justification, no arguing, no defensiveness, no detailed breakdown of your decision-making process or of what happened that one time you forgot to drop off your kid with gloves on a mild winter’s day. (Especially when his home is a Bermuda triangle for gloves, lunchboxes, swimsuits and other things your kid wears or uses regularly.)

Get everything in writing. Use a co-parenting app that creates records. Save everything. Because when you eventually need to show a judge the pattern, and there’s a chance you will, you’ll need proof that this isn’t a few disagreements, it’s an ongoing campaign, weaponizing your children.

Get your custody agreement so watertight it could be used as instruction manual. Who makes which decisions. How. When. What constitutes an emergency. What doesn’t require consultation. The less gray area, the less room for manufactured conflict.

Take note of the fact that in most jurisdictions, each parent is responsible for day-to-day parenting decisions. Check your laws to see if this is the case in your jurisdiction, and find court judgments that reference this. Then work on letting go of any need you might have to have your ex validate your own day-to-day parenting decisions or accept minor slipups.

Find a lawyer who’s seen this movie before. Not someone who thinks every custody case is just about two people who need to communicate better. Someone who understands that post-separation abuse is real, calculated, and devastatingly common.

Document these messages to see if you can show a pattern (e.g., do they suddenly start coming just before a court date and then dry up afterwards? Do they happen around the time you get child support payments? Your birthday or special holidays?)

Stop expecting fairness. Stop expecting reason. Stop expecting that if you just explain clearly enough and accommodate his concerns generously enough, he’ll suddenly become reasonable.

He won’t. Because that was never the point.

Make him lose interest

Your ex doesn't actually care about the grape jelly, the fact that you forgot to pack a spoon with the yogurt in your kid’s lunch last Tuesday, the bedtime, or the dentist. He cares about control. He cares about access to you. He cares about making sure that even though you left, you’re never really free.

There’s something he’s banking on you not figuring out: You don’t need his approval. You don’t need to win these arguments or prove anything to someone whose whole mission in life seems to be to undermine and control you.

You need to parent your kids, build your life, and stop giving his chaos oxygen.

The manufactured conflicts will continue as long as he gets the reaction they’re designed to provoke. So stop reacting. Stop explaining. Stop defending.

Be boring. Be factual. Be consistent.

And watch how quickly he loses interest when the game stops being fun.

Your kids will remember who created the peace and who created the chaos. Eventually, everyone does.

You don’t have to deal with this alone

If your ex has turned co-parenting into a full-time job of manufactured conflicts, constant criticism, and battles over things that were never issues before, I can help.

I’ve been exactly where you are. I know what it’s like when every decision becomes a crisis, when you’re drowning in trivial disputes designed to keep you off balance, and when the person who’s supposed to be co-parenting is actually continuing the abuse through the children.

Book a 30-minute consultation, free of charge, with me. We’ll talk about what you’re dealing with, explore what you’d like your life to look like, and identify patterns that are keeping you trapped in this cycle. You'll leave our conversation with clarity on your priorities and maybe even some practical next steps, whether or not you decide to work with me going forward.

Want to know more about what I do?

Resources

Aimee Says has a new, exciting update: a feature that makes transforming your chats into documentation easier and creates a timeline from your inputs. Here’s how it works:

If you want to try out the paid version of AimeeSays for two months, I’ve got two free codes to give away. Reply to this email with “Code for Aimee Says” and I’ll send it to you.