Why do people use children to get what they want after a break up?

My ex use to do that all the time. Of course, now we have my son and don’t try to pull that BS. Kids should never be caught in the middle of a divorce. It isn’t fair to them. They are going through enough with the parents being separated.

I have seen one of the absolute worst cases of this first hand. A friend of mine was married, had a child and then they split. Now, being a mother myself, you would assume that I would be all pro mom and anti dad but that is not the case here. The mom in the situation is absolutely nuts...The dad (my friend) has his own issues too. But their poor child is always put in the middle. The mom has taken it so far as to call child welfare agencies and other organizations like this claiming child abuse. Now I can say with relative certainty that the dad does not hit the child because whenever he gets visitation with the child it is at the dad's parent's house. The child's paternal grandmother and grandfather absolutely adore the child and would never let the dad hit him. I know that there are always two sides to every story, but when one side is a absolute fabrication it seems impossible to comprehend.

When I was a board member at a single parent association I saw it all the time. I saw heart broken fathers, who never go to see their children because the wife wouldn't let them. I saw some parents also getting the children to ask for money for let's say shoes, but it really was for the mother to buy cigerettes with and go out on the town. I do not see that children should be put in the middle. I just feel it is wrong. And as you know I had to raise you all by myself too.

I think it is awful to use children when a relationship goes bad also. I know alot of people use their children to get ahead in life. some use them to get support from their ex and they also use the children against the ex to tie them down or keep them around.

I have never done this and I despise any parent (because I know there have to be fathers that do the same thing) that does this. In the case of your friend, right now he should buy his daughter what she needs, and never send her home with money. In the long run he needs to sue for custody. I kinda started down this road, but I believe that I had good reason. My kids father and I were together for 5 1/2 years. I got to know how he was with his other children, for which he never paid child support. One child never got a support order put in, because she was in the custody of her grandmother, and the grandma didn't want to sue the mother for child support too. The other child had a support order, but he never paid, and never really tried to get a job to pay on it. So when we broke up, I had the feeling that he would do me the same way. I told him that he couldn't see his kids until we got some sort of agreement on support between us. We came up with a tentative one, but I wanted it on paper and notarized. When I brought him a copy of what we agreed on, he balked, saying it was unfair. So I told him, since we had agreed on all of it before on the phone, that it was either this or the court system. He chose court. I filed the papers in June, and let him know a second time he would not see the kids until we got the order in place. He was mad, but I didn't care. I wasn't about to take care of these kids by myself, and I felt that was the only leverage I had. By October, I felt sorry for him and the kids, so I took them over to spend the evening with him on Halloween, while I went to a party at my brother's not too far away. I ended up staying later than I had planned, because my ride was nowhere to be found. I did communicate this to him, but what was supposed to be a treat turned into a trick. When I finally did get to them, he was very angry, and we ended up in an argument. I told him that the deal was back on, and he wouldn't see the kids until the order was in place. I regret what I have done. The kids could have gotten to see him a lot more, if I wouldn't have held them for ransom, as a friend of mine put it. Now the kids can't see him too often. He does pay child support, and we do communicate about the kids a lot better. But he is working three jobs, to uphold the house he is in, and to pay for the child support. He doesn't have much time for the kids, and I can't ask him to cut back, because they need the support. In my case, it wasn't to get what I wanted, but what my kids needed. In the end, they are still hurt.

I do have experience of this, but in very strange way! My ex had a little girl, 3, who was lovely. I got on with her mother as well as could be expected, and always showed respect and love to the little girl. Anyway, every single time the mother broke up with one of her many boyfriends, she would send us a letter saying there was to be no more contact with the little girl and the ex would have to go to court for custody. It was very strange, but we soon realised she was simply in a bad mood and was attention seeking, wanting my partner at the time to lavish the attention she wasn't getting from whatever boyfriend she had. Eventually, after the third or forth time (you can imagine this was very, very stressful) we sought legal advice and came to a legal stand regarding custody so she could no longer send the letters. I think whatever situation you are in it is disgusting to you your own children at pawns, at it WILL end up affecting them.