Mom Will Pay for a Trip for Her Son to Visit His Friends But Not His Biologial Dad. Who’s Being Punished Here?

Co-parenting with an ex-spouse can be physically exhausting and mentally/emotionally draining, especially if one parent is doing all the work. It’s never easy to raise a child or children in a cohesive way when one parent is not pulling their weight with the upbringing of their children.

One Redditor and her husband have been doing the heavy lifting with their son for 18 years, while the son’s biological father has done the bare minimum. However, this mother feels that needs to change over a recent spring break trip for her son to visit his biological father. 

The Situation

The original poster (OP) says that her 22-year-old son completely depends on her and her husband financially and otherwise. Their son is a full-time college student, has a part-time job, and lives at home. They pay for everything for him, including his college tuition. OP wants her son to save what money he gets from his part-time job so he can use it when he moves out versus paying for things now. OP’s family is originally from the East Coast (US) but currently living in the Pacific Islands for her husband’s job.

OP is divorced from her biological son’s father but remarried her current husband when her son was 6, so OP’s husband is her son’s stepfather. She says her husband views her son as his son as well, and they have a great relationship. She goes on to say they are not rich but manage their finances well and prioritize saving. Which they encourage their son to do as well. OP and her husband want him to have a full life that includes traveling. They take him on all their vacations and tell him they would pay for any trips he wants to take without them, including international travel.

OP also spoke about her son’s biological father, saying he left her and their son when he was 6 months. When the divorce was finalized, he had to pay court-ordered child support and hated every month of it. She says that as a father, he did the bare minimum, only spending time with his son during court-ordered visitations and nothing extra.

She said that her current husband and her kept an open-door policy for him to be as involved as he wanted to be. OP’s ex-husband did not pay for anything extra, not holidays, birthdays, prom, or graduation, and he didn’t contribute to medical expenses like eyeglasses or braces that were required by the child support agreement.

OP said when it was time to buy their son his first car, he refused to contribute, and the same went for college. OP says she cannot remember the last time her ex even gave their son a birthday or Christmas gift.

OP goes on to say that her ex-husband has the money as he makes a substantial amount of income from his job. However, when their son was younger and would get money for birthdays or holidays from his biological father’s relatives and friends, he would take the money from his son to pay for gas, food, toiletries, and activities, and their son was never allowed to keep any monetary gifts he received while with dad.

Travel Arrangements 

Since OP’s occupation has moved them several times, their son has had to leave many friends behind and does not currently have a close group of friends where they currently reside. OP and her husband feel terrible about this and offered to send him on a spring break trip to visit friends on the East Coast, which she says is expensive since he’ll be flying across the entire US from the Pacific Islands.

Since her son’s biological father lives a few states away from where he will be spending spring break, he asked his son to visit him and offered to pay for the extra cost of travel to his state. Unfortunately, the plans recently changed with her son’s friends, and now he only plans to visit his dad and half-brother.

OP feels conflicted about this; because of the change in plans, the cost of the flight has increased significantly. However, her ex-husband did offer to pay for half of the flight, but OP and her husband do not feel that they should have to foot the bill in any way for their son to visit his father. They feel that if he wants to see his son, he should pay for it. However, OP feels if she tells this to her ex, he will not pay for anything, and their son will not have anywhere to go for spring break.

Redditors Weigh In

Redditors gave their opinions on this travel situation and what they think the OP and her husband should do for their son.

One Redditor shared, “I mean, there’s a difference between being an as***le and just being maliciously petty. You’re definitely the latter. You want to punish the father, but you’re only going to be punishing your son. That’s definitely a choice, and most people would say you’re not the as***e. Don’t know if Matt will agree, though.”

A second Redditor said, “OP, you go on and on about how great your son and your husband are. Then you and your husband want to punish your son? Supporting your son is likely to assist him in seeing how crap his bio-dad is. You don’t actually need to descend to his level.”

A third Redditor said, “NTA- Tell your ex that since he didn’t give Matt a x-mas or b-day gift for the past 22 years, he should have enough money saved to fly him on his dime.”

Another user bluntly said, “I may be in the minority here, but I think YTA. You offered to pay for the trip, so obviously, you can afford it. But now the trip doesn’t suit you, so you refuse. You can’t be angry that his dad didn’t spend time with him as a kid and then be unsupportive as an adult, especially when he offered to pay half, which sounds like more than he’s done before. I could understand the fear that he’ll end up not “having time” or that the trip will be a disappointment for your son, but your post makes it obvious that you’re only doing this because of the money. Your son might actually end up having a great time, and he deserves to see his dad, or at least see for himself why he’s not in his life if things go south.”

Another user said, “They offered to pay for a trip to visit friends. Bio dad only offered to have him visit because he’d be there. OP has no obligation to pay for her son to visit bio dad.”

A user also commented, “So you want to withhold money, knowing his biodad won’t fill in the gap? A part of me thinks that you want your son to be hurt by biodad so that he can see how great you guys are. Here’s the thing: he already knows that. YWBTA Please don’t set your son up for hurt after a lifetime of rejection. Also, be prepared for him to come back with some big emotions after seeing the man who would never step up for him, step up for his half-brother.”

A Redditor shared this, “This is a difficult one. Is this trip benefitting your son? Yes. Did you say you’d support his traveling financially? Yes. Are you not wanting to pay now because of your dislike of his father? Yes. I totally get why you wouldn’t want to, but at the end of the day, it comes down to what benefits your son most. I’m going to go ahead and say VERY soft YTA. It would be N A H, but my verdict is swayed by the fact you said you would pay for him to travel but didn’t stipulate unless that means seeing his dad.”

Finally, a user said, “YTA – emphatically. This is petty. All travel seems to be on the table except that which entails his biological father. You don’t think he could learn, grow, become a better person, and generally be enriched by that visit? And you are going to punish Matt because someone else won’t chip in as much as you think he should? Sorry, your son didn’t have a good biological father. Also, sorry you didn’t put down some roots in a place that might have the opportunity to maintain friendships.”

Redditors weighed in on whether the mom and stepfather should pay their half or ask the father to pay it all. What are your thoughts? Is the mom just being petty? 

This article is inspired by the internet and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Motherhood Life Balance.

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