When parents split up, co-parenting can be a balancing act of shuffling kids back and forth between houses.

In today’s story, one dad fought to keep his son in his life, but then multiple activities came up that interfered with the scheduled visitation times.

Not wanting his son to miss out on those activities, the dad told the mom that their son could simply visit him when he wants to.

Now, he’s not sure if that was the right decision.

Let’s see how the story unfolds…

AITA for no longer being concerned that my son refuses to deal with me?

Let me start this off with I love my child, I’ve fought and fought for many years with his mother to be in his life.

Only to be met with resistance consistently.

She honestly didn’t care if I was there or not as long as the child support was paid I heard nothing from her.

I truly believe she did not want me his life.

Planning things on my scheduled visitations & not letting it be made up the following weekend got aggravating.

When it came to things he wanted to, I was not going to stop him from doing them.

I did not mind sacrificing the time.

I understand he’s gonna want to hang out with friends, gf & go to family events.

He feels like he made a huge mistake.

I made the biggest mistake telling her one day that he could come when he wanted.

He has friends, a gf & is a teen.

I understand I was that age once. Let him have fun.

This ultimately backfired.

He is now estranged from his son.

After that phone call I saw him once more & that was it.

To this day I do not know what was said to him & that was 7 years ago.

I couldn’t have his phone number or email.

To be clear he’s now an adult & I still don’t know his phone #.

He refuses to see or speak to me or anyone on my side of the family.

She let him talk to my mother before she passed so she could say goodbye, only to turn & say I kept it from him.

Knowing I told her long before.

He has accepted his fate.

I ended up having a conversation with a friend about this as she had asked me about it.

I told her I’ve yet to hear from him & am not worried about it.

I’ve stopped worrying about things I can’t control long ago.

She asked me a question “HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF HE NEVER bothered with you for the rest of your life, never let you know if you were a grandparent & just never let you know anything about his life?”

I told her I had thought about that before & to be honest it wouldn’t bother me.

I’ve been estranged for 7 years now.

I’ve missed all the major milestones, missed seeing him become an adult, at this point I have no idea who he is & he is basically a stranger to me.

At some point you accept that this your situation and there’s not much you can do.

After a while you stop caring because you realize you’ll drive yourself crazy & keep yourself depressed for something you have 0 control over.

His friend thinks he should keep fighting for his son.

This answer did not go over well.

Let me state this first; she’s married & has children.

I believe this will add context to why she responded the way she did.

Which I understood & respected as we all have our views, but I do not agree with.

She said that I am have become heartless, cold & can’t believe I’d think that way after all the years of fighting I did.

She said she never in a million years would think I would have thought like that.

You are a parent, you are supposed to never stop fighting no matter how many walls you have to climb.

I’m truly shocked & disappointed that you’d think like this.

I love you, we’ve been good friends for many years, but I can’t agree with your line of thought on this.

So Reddit, what do you think 🤔 AITA for my view of this situation with my son?

It might’ve been a mistake years ago to say his son only had to see him when he wanted to.

The mother may have twisted those words to make the son feel like his dad didn’t want to spend time with him.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

This reader thinks he should’ve fought harder for his son.

Another reader thinks his lack of relationship with his son is all his fault.

Another person thinks he is just telling himself he’s okay with being estranged from his son as a way to cope.

This person states the facts bluntly.

He should at least try to get his son’s address or phone number so he can send him a card on his birthday.

It might not be enough, though.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.