Kudos to you for standing up for yourself and your kids and postponing the Skype call for the following day. It would have not been a good time to take the call from your ex, and I'm sure it could have just made everything worse.

I do agree with you about letting others have power over you. I do let that happen, to some degree, with my own mother. She is very opinionated in my life and lets me know it. I ignore more of what she says now than I used to, but it's still hard sometimes not to let her get to me.