My ex and I have had a great relationship for the most part over the years. But the last year has been rough with him. I think that part of it may be jealousy on his part because he knows that me and my dh are in a happy marriage. When we bought our home last summer he made several comments on how we must be doing really well financially, etc.

Over the last year he has been inconsistant on paying child support and on using his visitation. He was supposed to have our son overnite one night per week and EOW from Friday night to Monday morning. With his work schedule for a while he was dropping my son off at 5 or 6 am on school mornings and I told him it was too rough on our son to be up that early and that it would be better to drop him off at bedtime the night before (we lived 15 min. from eachother so not a big deal). So he began doing that.

Since summer he has not taken our son for a full weekend, most of the time it is one night. He constantly has excuses for not taking him during the week. I don't complain or give him a hard time when he calls with his excuses, I just say ok I will let our son know. Well our son has gotton bummed over it a lot and it has gotton to the point where he is counting on his dad not showing up.

Earlier this week my ex calls me to ask me how much $ he owes in child support for the last year. He did this 2 months ago and then never paid anything. So I told him the new total and he freaked! Not sure what he expected. He told me I should give him a break. I asked why and told him that our son has not costed any less and has in fact costed more over the last year than previous years.

He started saying the he is not working a lot but he tries unlike me who now stays home. He said he should not even have to pay child support because its not like me and dh are struggling to pay bills (how would he know??). He also said that he buys our son the same stuff we do and keeps it at his house. I doubt this since our son was layering his clothes before going there and when I noticed one day my son said he had no clothes there and was wearing the outfit he went in the whole time. So I told my son to pack his backpack with extra clothes each time and just make sure to bring them home with him.

I pointed out how much school registration costed the last 2 years, how much hot lunch is, how much activities our son is in costs, how much our health insurance and co-pays are, how much I spent in school and summer clothes, etc.

His defense is he sees our son so much its just as much as me! Not sure how the 5 days he saw our son in August compares to me having him the rest of the month?? And he said he could put our son on his health insurance if I would let him. I said no that he is on dh's for a very low price and my dh has no plans to switch jobs (where as my ex constantly switches and then we would be in a bind).

My ex ended the call saying he wants to have our son half the time and not pay support. I would not allow this because he has lived in 5 places in the last year and none of them are his own. He always has roomates who drink too much and smoke and that is not a suitable environment for our son IMHO.

The real kicker is he was supposed to pick up our son Tuesday and spend a few hours with him. He called and said he had "errands" to run and could not, but he would pick him up Wed instead. Wed comes and he is "sick". Today he calls and cancels because he supposidly worked a double shift and has not slept.

I'm so aggrevated with him! Instead of arguing I have just been marking his excuses on a calendar so if needed I can show just how much he really exercises visitation should he try to take me to court for more visitation in lieu of paying child support.

I am just ready to explode though!!