What you’re describing isn’t just a scheduling problem. It’s a trust problem. And when you share children with someone who won’t follow through on agreements, that lands in your body as a threat. To your kids, to your stability, to whatever peace you were trying to build after the relationship ended.
So before we talk about what to do, I want to ask you: how are you holding up? Because co-parenting with someone who isn’t playing by the rules is one of the most exhausting relational situations there is. You’re no longer partners, but you’re still bound. That’s a particular kind of pain.
Here’s what I know from working with people in your position:
Document everything. Every missed pickup, every schedule change they made unilaterally, every text. Not because you want to be at war, but because your children deserve a parent who keeps receipts when things go sideways.
The legal channel exists for a reason. If there’s a court-ordered custody schedule and it’s being violated, that’s not a conversation you have to resolve through goodwill alone. A family law attorney or mediator is the appropriate next step. That’s not escalation. That’s protection.
Your job is not to manage their chaos. You cannot control what your ex does. You can only control what you document, how you respond, and how you protect your kids from being caught in the middle.
I see this pattern a lot: one parent tries so hard to be accommodating that they enable the other parent’s disrespect. You think you’re being flexible for the kids’ sake. But what you’re actually teaching your children is that agreements don’t matter and that one person’s convenience trumps everyone else’s stability.
Sometimes an ex disrupts the schedule as a way of staying connected, or expressing anger they have no other outlet for. Maybe they’re not ready to accept that the relationship is over. Maybe they’re testing to see if you’ll still bend to their will. That doesn’t make it okay. But understanding the function of the behavior can help you stop taking it personally and start treating it as information about what they still need to process.
Your kids are watching how you handle this. They’re learning whether promises matter, whether their time with each parent has value, whether chaos or consistency wins. You didn’t sign up to parent alone. And you deserve a structure that holds.
Where Does Your Relationship Stand?
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Co-Parenting After Divorce: What to Expect from Counseling
