Okay, I may not be key note speaker material but I’m not an incopetent communicator in either spoken or written form.
But I just can’t elaborate the sheer fury and confusion *that woman * instills in me. Yes I’m talking about my ex.
It’s the first day of school for our kids. Our daughter begins grade 4 and our son starts grade 1. It’s his first day in this school. We’re excited. The kids are excited. Everybody is looking forward to this for weeks and days.
The plan was that she would walk them to school and I would pick them up.
She would walk each of them to their class on the first day.
Here is where things go wrong:
My daughter decides she wants to walk to school with her friend who lives down the street and is in her class.
Her friend’s mother naturally goes too.
The two girls walk ahead catching up after being a month apart over the summer holidays.
My son tags along behind them.
The mothers fall behind.
The girls get way ahead with my son trailing.
The kids use the side intrance.
The mothers decide to walk in the front.
They meet up in the hallway but my son is missing.
the girls don’t know where he fell behind.
moments of panic and running around follow.
My son is finally located in the school as he was found wondering around by a teacher. He is not crying but clearly upset by the entire event.
This is where things get worse:
My ex calls and recounts the above to me.
Tells me it’s our daughter’s fault as she was told she is responsible for watching her brother… again, she is 9 and he is 6.
She says that she is furious with my daughter and that she will get a stern talking to this evening.
I listen until she is done and then very plainly and honestly say that it’s not our daughter that needs a stern talking to. I explain that it was her responsibility to walk the kids in as planned on the first day and it was important to our son that she stick to that plan instead of changing it last minute.
She is silent and clearly upset because I don’t share her point of view of blaming out daughter for her fuck up.
She changes subjects and becomes cold and hostile.
When I say she has no right to take her mistake out on me, she claims she is doing nothing of the sort and claims not to know what I’m talking about - Everything is fine. Why am I suddenly I’m coming at her from left field? Why am I being irrational and over-reacting like this? :eek:
I say I’m exhausted by these kinds of games and come very close to saying THIS is the precise reason that lead to our marriage ending. But I bite my tongue.
We end the conversation.
But I’m angry with myself. Furious actually, that I can’t elaborate in any meaningful, clear and precise way that she is batshit insane and needs to learn to accept responsibility for her own fuck ups like a responsible adult.
What the fuck did she think I was going to say anyway?
What’s worse is that indescribable denial in her voice and attitude. Particulalrly when she makes me feel like I’m the insane one for not taking her side.
I went down this road long distance with my brother when he got divorced from his first wife. She was a card carrying nut and often called just to pick a fight with him (which this call borders on). Finally he learned that, when started up, the best thing to do was to say. “I cannot talk with you right now” and hang up. When she stopped getting anything emotional out of him, I guess she turned to her new husband (that she cheated on my brother with) and quit calling my brother.
It is so hard to disconnect. I agree with you: what did she think you were going to say? Clearly this is a boundaries issue and she doesn’t have any.
I feel for your children as both got (and are going to get) “spatter” on the first day of school. Crap.
I hope your feelers for this kind of thing get REAL LONG so you can cut her off before you have more pointless upsetting calls like this.
The thing is, I want (need) to know these things as a parent. I appreciate her including me in these important events in my kid’s lives because I can’t be there as much as I’d like. Even less now because I’m not the custodial parent.
But just FUCKING ADMIT FAULT and APPOLOGIZE!!! :mad:
After 15 years, she knows that I’m going to understand and be reasonable, if for no other reason that she took responsibility for what is clearly her own mistake. I understand that these things happen. What I don’t understand is when she tries to blame someone else (usually me, in the past) for her mistakes.
I also know that she feels incredibly guilty about this herself. She will never admit that she does. In fact, any admital of fault immediately leads to a personal referendum on her own self worth. Therefore, that can not happen. I detest pop psychology and know next to nothing about the real subject myself. but am I completely off base to suggest that she called and told me the story, knowing full well what my reaction would be, only to have me blame her for the incident. Perhaps as a way of mittigating her own guilt by getting angry with me for my reaction?
I don’t know… I’m grasping at straws here… the answer isn’t that important anyway. :smack:
Advice: take a deep breath and chill. I’m not saying your feelings aren’t valid–they completely are, and your ex had no right to act that irresponsibly or carelessly–but a fit of anger isn’t going to help and isn’t good for your health.
When I’m furious or frustrated, I go work off some steam by working out, going for a long bike ride, or even just screaming in my room. Take some time to yourself and let it out–fume, steam, Quicksilver smash, whatever.
No, you’re not off base at all. However, she should not be coming to you for that type of contact, if that makes sense.
If you were unable to help her see her own worth when you were married, you have much less chance now that you are divorced. No matter how much you reflect back to her that she is worthy, until she recognizes this for herself nothing you say or do (or anyone else for that matter), will ever be enough.
You all are used to interacting a certain way, and now you have to redefine the boundaries of your relationship. When you were married, you could say, “You know, this sounds like [name of problem here]. Maybe you can look at it another way?” As an ex-husband, I firmly believe your best bet is to disconnect from these exchanges as soon as possible and not even go there anymore.
I hate being preached to and if this sounds like that to you, I am sorry. I’m just expressing my sincere opinion, and I offer it with kindness.
QuickSilver I would like to inform you that not all women (or men) are incapable of admitting their faults or farkups. Your ex hasn’t grown up yet and you have to suffer along until it happens or grind your teeth waiting for it too happen.
Maybe she is never wrong just to you.
Does she have this problem with her coworkers/job/other people in her life?
A colleague of mine has been divorced from his wife for a few years now, and has a daughter who lives with her mum but visits every other weekend, I think it is. His ex-wife is by all accounts a nutjob (I’ve never met her) - but he and his current girlfriend have had to change telephone numbers, this sort of thing, to prevent her from bothering them.
For the most part, he seems to have as little interaction with the ex-wife as possible - he picks up and drops off his daughter when it’s their weekend. He doesn’t speak to his ex-wife other than anything unavoidable when picking up his daughter. It seems to work for him.
I don’t know if this would perhaps be a bit extreme - you may not want to completely distance yourself from your ex-wife, but if you made sure she realised you were not receptive to her she may not phone you with such stories again - and therefore save you the strife.
Whatever you do, I hope you and your kids get to spend time with each other, and don’t let it get marred by ex-wife strife!
As a divorced dad who has been through these games many times with a non-altogether rational ex, let me tell you here and now, that the way you handled the situation was both perfectly rational, and completely and utterly wrong.
Things happen. It may make you feel better to lecture her on the appropriate assignment of responsibilities in the situation, but in the long run if you piss her off enough by doing this, she can, and will, make your life difficult esp. regarding access to the children. If young children are involved, no matter how justified you may feel about your opinions, it is usually a lot more important to have (to the extent possible) a non-contentious relationship with your ex than it is to be right.
I will repeat again
**If young children are involved, no matter how justified you may feel about your opinions, it is usually a lot more important to have (to the extent possible) a non-contentious relationship with your ex than it is to be right. **
I think the 9-year-old could have been in the wrong on this one. She’s old enough to have the responsibility of keeping track her brother on the walk to school. But even if you don’t agree with that…
I think you need to choose your battles with your ex. There are plenty of more important issues that you will have disagreements on. You don’t need to wear yourself out on something that is relatively trivial. You will always have different parenting styles if you’re not living together as a family. You’ve said in other posts that you consider her a good mother. You need to tap on the brakes a little with this one and concentrate on the heavier stuff.
I can tollerate a little preaching if it has substance. Yeah, boundaries have been difficult to come by. Mine have been a bit too liberal. Shirley Ujest:
I realize not everybody is this fault averse, but she is. And yes, with everyone. Fromage A Trois:
I’m very close with my kids and see them every other day. My ex is not a nuisance so there is little reason to change my contact information. Besides, my kids need to know where they can reach me any time they want to. astro:
I’ve appologized, right or wrong, more than I care to remember throughout our 15 years together. Often because that’s what you do to keep the peace and make relationships work. I’ve had my fill. Sometimes I just need to remind her (and myself) that I’m not putting up with her crap any longer. Kalhoun:
The 9 year old had responsibility and would have honoured it, I’m certain, had the plans not been permited to be changed last minute for somebody else to be involved. In fact she was looking forward to it. But she’s a kid and given the choice of hanging out with her friends or her little brother, it’s hard for me to blame her. Besides, her mother needed to step up given that she saw the way things were being played out.
Yeah, my ex and I have bigger fish to fry. There always seems to be enough time to get into them as well.
