Infidelity has the power to shatter entire families, leaving emotional scars that extend far beyond the immediate betrayal. When a partner cheats, it’s not just the person who was betrayed who suffers—children within the family often feel the ripple effects as well. If the unfaithful partner had children outside the marriage, the situation becomes even more complicated, often turning every interaction into a battlefield of resentment, guilt, and unresolved pain. However, it’s important to remember that no child is ever to blame for the circumstances of their birth.
Recently, a mother of three turned to Reddit for advice about a deeply personal and sensitive issue that had been weighing on her for weeks. She shared how her ex-husband attempted to manipulate her into buying gifts for the child he fathered during an affair, using emotional pressure and financial struggle as leverage. When she refused, he became hostile, further escalating the tension into a situation that left her questioning whether she was being cruel—or simply protecting her boundaries.
A woman turned to Reddit with her very emotional and complicated story, one that quickly drew attention for how painfully tangled co-parenting can become when betrayal is at the center of it. Co-parenting with an ex who betrayed your trust can be incredibly challenging, especially when resentment never fully fades. Establishing and maintaining clear boundaries is crucial to navigating this difficult dynamic while protecting your own well-being. An anonymous woman, who came under a nickname NovelDot112, has recently shared her story on Reddit, and it seemed to touch every chord in people’s souls as readers debated where compassion ends and obligation begins.
The woman opened her post, saying, [edited], “My ex cheated on me and had a kid with another woman. I have only seen this child 5 times and I don’t have any relationship with her. My kids don’t think of her as a sister. My ex has no money, which is only his problem. But now he demands that I must buy his daughter a gift and treat her with warmth and attention, I can’t accept it.” Her words carried a mix of exhaustion and firm resistance, as if she had already been pushed too far and was refusing to be pulled back into his chaos.
The woman shared, “I never interacted with her and while I know she’s innocent of what my ex did, I prefer to keep us distant. My kids don’t think of her as a sister. I never tried to change that. For me, them being close to her is not something I care about. If they are, then they are, and I’d have to deal. But if not, then I don’t feel the need to encourage or promote it. My ex knows this.” There was a quiet finality in her tone, as though she had already drawn every line she was willing to draw, even if others refused to respect them.
“And he knows our kids don’t care for his daughter. They don’t have the best relationship with him either. He’s not absent exactly, but he’s been all over the place since the divorce, and he works a lot of long hours and lives almost two hours from us, which is partly why he’s not a 50-50 dad.” The instability in his presence, she implied, had already created enough distance without adding further emotional demands.
The OP’s ex has been raising his daughter as a single dad in increasingly difficult circumstances, and the strain of that responsibility has clearly begun to spill into his interactions with his former family. The woman mentioned in her post that her ex-husband has full custody of his daughter and is going for child support, but her mom isn’t paying, leaving him to shoulder nearly everything alone.
She also added, “I have primary custody of our three children (11m, 9f, 9m). He gets our kids every other weekend.” Despite the imbalance, she made it clear that custody arrangements were already legally settled, even if emotionally unresolved.
The OP shared, “My ex lost his job in January. He notified the courts and his child support payment was reduced for our kids while he’s not earning as much. The change in job and pay has meant he struggled far more, and the kids have noticed the difference in quality of life when they’re with him. He also warned them months ago that they would get a small Christmas gift each from him because he cannot afford more.” What unsettled her most, however, was not the financial struggle itself—but how it was beginning to reshape expectations and pressure within the family.
The OP’s ex is struggling financially, and he expected the OP to help him, blurring the already fragile boundaries between their separate households. The woman shared, “This leads onto his daughter. His parents died some years before our kids were born, his sister doesn’t talk to him, his brother stopped talking to him after the affair and the child’s mother’s family is not involved in her life either.” The isolation in his life, while unfortunate, also became part of the emotional argument he later used against her.
“So it’s just him for her, and he can’t afford to get her much. He mentioned this in our co-parenting app and when we went to meet with our twins’ teacher he asked if I would get her something or somethings so she can have some presents to open for Christmas. I told him no.” That single refusal, she said, was where the situation began to quietly shift into something far more hostile.
The situation escalated very quickly from then on. The woman wrote, “He didn’t ask me again until yesterday. He had the kids at the weekend and dropped them off at my house afterward. He saw the gifts under the tree, and he was angry at me.” The tension in that moment, she implied, was immediate—like something long simmering had finally boiled over.
“He asked if I got his daughter anything, and I said no. He asked me what our kids got, and I wouldn’t tell him. I reminded him it was none of his business what I buy. Then he took out this dollar store doll, and he told me that was all he could afford for his daughter, and she’s just four years old.” The image of that single small gift seemed to hang heavily over the confrontation, turning it into something far more emotionally charged.
Now, the OP’s ex-husband insists that she’s a bad person and that she’s guilty of ignoring an innocent child caught in circumstances she did not choose. The OP wrote, “He told me he knows he’s to blame, but she wasn’t, and he told me I could have helped, just a little, or could have helped the kids get close to her, and maybe they would have wanted to give her something. He said instead I was just a cruel and selfish person to an innocent child, and he said she only knows being abandoned by her mom and her mom’s family, she’s unwanted by her own siblings and her siblings’ mom can’t even be compassionate enough to get her one more thing so she doesn’t just get one tiny doll for Christmas.”
“He also put it on me that if he got our kids nothing because he knew I’d get them something, and spent that money on his daughter instead, that it would make them pull away from him more. He left angry, and I went back inside and carried on as normal.” But behind her calm words, there was an unspoken question lingering—whether standing firm in boundaries can still coexist with compassion, or whether one inevitably cancels out the other.
“I know I’m not a saint for this, and I don’t pretend to be. But am I a bad person for not getting the child something for Christmas when I know my ex can’t afford anything else?”
Redditors came to the comments to express a variety of opinions, with the discussion quickly splitting between those who saw manipulation and those who saw moral responsibility toward an innocent child caught in the fallout.
One person wrote, “The cheater could have found even a temporary job if he needed money for gifts. To pin his kids lack of gifts on you is childish and petty. You’re not guilty.”
One more user added, “This is something I’ll never understand. I’ve been out of work and needed something quick to pay the bills, and got a job in fast food until I got something in my industry again. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that.”
Another user commented, “Being that the child is only 4 and all grandparents are out of the picture as well as her mom, he’d probably have to figure out childcare if he was working the temporary job that probably has weird hours. I don’t feel for him, but I do feel for the innocent child.”
Some Redditor shared, “The only selfish person here is your ex. The audacity to get mad at you is just beyond. Tell him next time he wants to curse at you for not doing his job for him, to do so on the parenting app so you’ll have it documented. The biggest plus of being divorced is that you don’t have to subject yourself to his cruelty and selfishness.”
And one more user said it all, suggesting this, “It was his responsibility to reach out to charities in the area who help children living in poverty during the Christmas period.”
