AITAH for being “high conflict” with my ex-husband and his wife over our kids?

So to start my (33f) ex Harry (35m) and I have been divorced for 6 years. We dated a bit in high school when I visited a relative in his hometown (which is a major city) for the summers but I would break up with him when I went back to my city for school which is about 2.5 hours away (not the most mature I know but even my parents were like, you don’t need a LDR before you can vote!). We kind of kept in touch on facebook (lol) at the time but my sophomore year of college he ended up transferring to my school. We got back together and got married basically right after I graduated and moved to my hometown/ city. Our kids Matt (11) and Elise (8) came pretty quickly and we had a few good years before (stop me if you heard this one) I just felt as if I was already a single mom of three kids and was sick of working, doing all the childcare, and all of the cleaning/ cooking/ planning. We tried therapy but ultimately decided that it wasn’t going to work.

For three plus years it was fantastic. We had a wonderful 50/50 coparenting relationship, he was such a better father when he had them all to himself, and I had the breaks that I had been begging for. We agreed to never badmouth the other in front of the kids or make them responsible for our feelings or anything like that. We didn’t have to spend a fortune on a divorce because we were able to amicably work everything out, which only benefitted our kiddos. In later 2022 he let me know he had gotten back together with Amy (35f). He said her name a bunch like I should know who she was, and I finally asked and apparently she was the girl he had dated when i was not in town/ before we reconnected. I was honestly happy for him. I’m not interested in dating tbh, my kids are too young and I work a lot and have a ton of friends and family.

Amy lived in his hometown and I know he visited her a lot when he didn’t have the kids (we were week on week off) but he always was there for his parenting time. The kids met Amy and said they liked her a lot so I was happy. My parents were also divorced but found other people while still being amazing parents so I was really hopeful. But in 2023 he let me know he had proposed and would be moving back to his hometown to be with Amy.

I was pretty stunned because he was such a dedicated and present father and asked how he expected that to work. He was insistent that he wanted to keep 50/50 custody but admitted he could only do every other weekend parenting time. Before he moved we didn’t have any sort of alimony or child support or anything since we were 50/50 and split big expenses evenly. He said he would keep splitting big expenses evenly and offered me child support since my expenses for the kids would be going up having them so much more (not that I was complaining about that!). Again, we wanted to work this out ourselves mostly, why spend money on lawyers when we have two kids who could use it!

I make a bit more than him, not that that really matters, but the first amount her offered ($400 for two kids a month) was laughable. I didn’t laugh at him or anything but told him that would not be acceptable. He said he was willing to continue paying half of big expenses (which?? Duh?) plus he’d be driving a five hour round trip since he was the one moving every other weekend. I thought about it a LOT and figured that I am fine financially (as much as anyone is these days) and didn’t want to bankrupt him for child support. The most important thing to me was that he continued to be a present and amazing father and said I would be ok with $600 a month plus the shared big expenses. I thought he would be happy with this, but he kept grumbling that he thought $400 was more than fair. Ultimately he agreed to $600.

Again, I really wanted to make this work for my kids so please don’t tell me I was an idiot for some of these things. I really went out of my way to be helpful, like I said I am single and have a ton of family and friends so I had more free time! If they had things going on I never minded keeping the kids for their weekend, always encouraged the kids to be excited to go there, bought gifts from them for things like fathers/ stepmothers day/ Xmas/ birthdays (idk if I believe in love languages but if my kids have them, it is absolutely gift giving and it’s not like their asses have jobs 🤣), and even worked it out for my relative in their city to pick our kids up from their wedding ceremony since they had an adults only reception.

These kind gestures were never reciprocated. I tried to brush it off and thought maybe I was just doing too much and tried to take a step back when the kids told me that some of the weekends they stayed with me Harry and Amy had gone on vacations to places like Europe and Disney! I don’t follow them on social media obviously so I had no idea. I go on vacations too, but the idea of going on such an expensive vacation and not taking my kids sounds nuts. They’re great travellers, we actually went to Japan last summer and had a blast. Maybe I’m an annoying parent but I couldn’t believe he’d leave the country or go to freaking Disney and not only not take the kids but not even let me know.

I wanted to remain amicable but after I found that out the favors stopped and for the past few months anytime he asked me to keep them for a weekend because they had plans I’d say oh sorry same good luck. Yes even if it was far in advance. I wasn’t trying to be petty but it wasn’t as if they were asking to switch weekends ever. It was always just SKIPPING them. I know his family is useless, no idea about hers but he should be able to make time for his children four days a month. Then a few months ago I found out he’d been asking MY RELATIVES in his city for help (sometimes they did if they could but not always). I didn’t want to keep bothering them so I ended up saying yes to keeping the kids more (plus I obviously love them) BUT I started keeping track of everytime he asked me to keep them. Over a five month period it was 5 times.

And around that time Matt had told me some pretty upsetting things and confided that he was ok staying here more. I was clear that he could tell me anything and that nothing was his fault at all. But he told me when he was at his dads:

• both he and his sister needed to be in their rooms at 8pm (keep in mind this is weekends!). Not in bed but they weren’t allowed to be in the living room or anything or have friends over.
• I asked if his dad and Amy were home during these times and he said yeah, but Amy’s dog is aggressive and they keep it in their room during the day so when he and Elise go to their rooms they let the dog out so he’s not cooped up all day (I love dogs, we have two, and what the fuck?)
• Elise got a bad flu a few visits ago and apparently she had asked Harry to sleep with her in her room and he refused and said he needed to sleep with Amy. Our kids do NOT cosleep but we always let them sleep with us if they were sick and asked. I don’t expect Harry and Amy to let her sleep with them or anything (both kids are not ever allowed in their room bc of the dog) but why couldn’t he have stayed with her even if it was just until she fell asleep? I did NOT say this to them, but told Matt and Elise that their dad had just gotten over the flu and probably just didn’t want to get her sick again which makes no sense I know I shouldn’t have lied but they were upset.
• The worst IMO is that when Matt randomly told his dad he wanted to see him more he yelled at him and told him that he was seeing him a lot already and he should want his dad to be happy and not miserable and alone like his mom. (I would like to again reiterate that I am very happy being single and have turned a lot of guys down. I prefer to spend my time with my friends and kids and can date when they’re older. I don’t like the stats on unrelated men being around kids and don’t feel the need to risk it anyways)

So between all this and the missed visits I decided that I needed to stand up for myself and my kids more. If Harry could go on European vacations he could afford more child support, and I was done keeping up the appearance of “50/50” custody when he only had the kids about 45 nights in 2024.

So I told Harry I was going to file for updated child support and primary custody, and get everything in writing and signed off by a judge. He said he was ok raising child support, he had apparently gotten a few raises since we settled it and said he would be fine with upping it to $750. First of all you got all these raises and didn’t even think to raise it yourself despite skipping almost half your agreed visitation? And that low of an amount - I told him it was insulting and we could just let the court figure it out. He reminded me that I made much more than he did and I was like yeah that’s why I’m able to take them on vacations when apparently you couldn’t scourge up enough money to take your children to Disney world. I know that was immature but I was pissed. He tried fighting more but I told him I didn’t intend on fighting with him outside of court and filed.

Obviously because im writing this, the judge agreed to almost all of my requests. Child support was increased, I have primary custody and decision making, and it can be adjusted more if he continues skipping weekends. TBH this has all helped me with the kids and their increasing expenses and neeeds tremendously. We only communicate ambit text or email and it’s only about the kids. But a mutual friend of ours told me that at a wedding recently Amy and Harry spent a bunch of time complaining about me, calling me high conflict and a parasite. And much worse things when they drank more but I won’t repeat them. I got upset. My only goal is for my kids to have a great childhood and a present dad and I feel like I fucked that up. My friends told me that Harry’s the one who fucked it up but I’m really doubting myself. So AITAH for pushing my ex to do more?