Co-parenting is a challenge for many reasons.

In this woman’s case, she and her ex-husband still have communication issues even after the divorce, and during their kid’s orthodontist appointment, she finally snapped at him.

Now she’s wondering if she owes him an apology.

Let’s analyze the situation.

AITA for snapping at my kid’s dad in the clinic?

My ex-husband who is also my daughter’s dad seems to like telling people socially that I’m “a medical professional”.

If I’m there I’ll always set things straight, but I’ve also never actually told him afterwards to stop.

I’m actually a hospital clinic manager, more about the numbers and systems side of things but also some processes.

She’s not a Doctor-doctor, you know?

I started medical school decades ago but dropped out partway and went into research; my career since has been in healthcare but always on the data side of things.

Today we brought our kid to an orthodontist to ask about braces.

Partway through the consult, he mentions that I “know more about this kind of stuff” than he does because I’m “actually a medical professional”.

This makes it sound like she’s a doctor, so she has to explain herself.

The dentist turns to me with interest and she says “Oh, are you a doctor?”.

I start clarifying it, and he cuts in and says “you actually went to medical school though”.

I can see the dentist starting to ask another question about it, so I turn to him and snap “Can we just drop it please”.

So the dentist just moves on with the consult.

An argument erupts and things get tense.

Later he explains that he was trying to make sure I was included in the discussion more as he felt she was directing her conversation more his way than mine.

I hadn’t gotten this impression, but all I said to him was that it’s not worth mentioning in a consult because if they think you’re in the profession they’ll actually explain things less.

So it’s not an advantage.

Communication issues are still an issue between them.

What I didn’t say, was that I was furious that he’d share my personal story with someone that we were in a professional setting with.

It was not his place to bring my career up, and I was there to get professional advice not chat about my personal life.

I try to minimize what I say to him because we now have a purely co-parenting relationship after years of conflict.

She doesn’t feel comfortable discussing things with him.

Also, he has a history of over-reacting and blowing things up so I always try to say as little as possible and only what’s needed for co-parenting.

Because my priority with him is to avoid unnecessary drama, I’m not going to bring this up again.

I know that things would be different if we could have the talk-things-out kind of relationship.

AITA?

She could have tried to establish boundaries with him after the consultation.

Let’s see what Reddit has to say about this.

A reader shares their thoughts.

Yup.

This commenter shares her opinion.

Another reader chimes in.

This person has a different take.

She could have handled the entire situation better.

Arguing in front of others is never a good look.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.