So I have not talked to the ex since Halloween when he called me a B.

I was just thinking about how happy I feel, how I do not feel stressed anymore.

I come home. He had left messages. He wants the kids Tues. For a 'little while'. The next message.. He wants to get along, so we can raise the kids together... then NEXT message... He wants to tell the girls goodnight. The NEXT message... he has not seen the girls in 5 days, he wants to talk to them.....

Then my cell phone starts ringing. It is HIM. I do not answer.

He calls again. And again. Finally I answer the phone and give it to my oldest. She talks to him. Then my youngest. I tell him that he talked to them, now, goodnight.

He gets all [email]cr@ppy[/email] with me. He is 'just trying to get alone with me, but I am too much of a B."

I hang up the phone. He calls my close friend and tells her that he cannot get a hold of me or the kids. She calls, all worried. I tell her that he is being an [email]a@@.[/email]

He calls the house. Again, and again. I finally answer. He tells me that he wants to get along. I tell him that we will not be able to get along unless there is mutual respect for each other. He tells me that he is not going to be my doormat. I tell him that NO, I am sick of being his doormat.

I then tell him that either he can respect me, and not purposely try to anger me, or he can get along with me. It is his choice. And I hang up.
He calls. And again. And again. He finally leaves a message that he will pick up the kids at 5 on Friday.

I am so much happier when he does not exist in my life... it is too bad.

Sadmo,

Do you guys have a custody agreement? One that says your kids are with you on these days and with your XH on these days?

I find it funny that all he wants to do is get along but then can't help calling you a B.

I think your best bet is to have a detailed visitation schedule and stick to it. That way, he has no excuse to constantly call you about when he wants to see your kids. Also, coming up with a time at night for the kids to call him and say good night and sticking to that would also give him no reason to constantly call at night.

Sadmo,

It's called plan B. Try it. You don't even have to go back to him if he agrees to your conditions, but he should at least apologize for his affair, agree to some other ground rules you lay out before you ever agree to speak with him again. Get an intermediary to handle exchanges and information. That way he is out of your life.

I don't know how many more times I can tell you this. I'm starting to think you like the drama.

sadmo,

You are STILL in that vicious cycle. You are allowing these conversations to happen. When I was in Plan B, I had a specific time that my DS and his dad talked every night. Also, we had a schedule set in stone, which was only changed if someone was sick or there was an emergency, or something suddenly came up (rare).

If you guys have a custody agreement, stick to it.

I don't care if he calls OBSESSIVELY, there is no need to answer that phone. HE can leave a message.

Believe me (and many others here) we know how difficult it is to detach from your situation, but it's only you that is holding you back.

Ruby- we have 'joint custody with liberal visitation' for him. This is what we decided, which was OK, until he reverted....

Jim- Actually I do NOT like the drama. Seriously. To be honest, I do not have anyone who could even act as a 'go-between'. The people that I would like to do this either are too busy, or do not want to get involved. He is just unreasonable.
I like the quiet of when he is not calling, when I do not see him, when he is being respectful of our plans with the kids. I do NOT like the games he plays, the nonsense he pulls... It is frustrating.

SL- The custody agreement was 'liberal' and if we cannot manage that, it would revert to IN custody agreements. Which is what I told him we should do. But now he wants to change the times to whenever he feels like it to satisfy the 4 hours a week. We had a plan in place (every Wed. 4-8) that he does not want to follow since he is with his GF.

Honestly, if he were to disappear, and just get the kids every Wed., and every second weekend, I would be thrilled. But then he keep throwing around the 'I thought we were going to co-parent! You need to keep me informed!' And I get torn. That I should try to 'work' with him more, that I should tell him more about their daily things...

He is on this kick that he is not going to be 'controlled' by me, he is not going to 'stick' to a schedule, blah, blah, blah. When I tell him how we will BOTH benefit from it, he says, "well, plans change, that is why I do not want it set in stone". Which is frustrating to me, because it would be SO MUCH better, for both of us.

But, I am having to deal with him, and how he thinks, which is precisely WHY we could not make it in our M.

I cannot do a full plan B. I just want to limit my contact with him as much as I can. I find my peace that way.

DO NOT ACCOMODATE HIM! Get a schedule and stick to it. Go ahead and "control" him (his words not mine). Don't answer his phone calls and emails. Check the message to see if it is an emergency. You can usually tell if it is an emergency in the first few seconds, so you don't even have to listen to most of the message. When you have schedule drop offs and pick ups. You stay in the car or the house and have no contact with your WH. DO NOT ACCOMODATE HIM! Your pissed because you are still allowing him to control you. Take back the control.

Jim-
You know what it is? I WANT to be able to treat him like any normal person.... I WANT to be able to believe that he will bring me the kids when he says that he will.

The thing is, is that HE is NOT a person that I CAN do that with, and I weaken and keep thinking that he will start acting in a responsible, reasonable manner.

And, I KNOW that he won't, but I keep getting myself in the cycle of WANTING to believe that HE HAS CHANGED....

As of now, I have restricted his visitation to just what we had agreed on- 4 hours on Wed. and every second weekend. I just call his phone the second night that he has the kids, to tell them goodnight.Before I would let him visit them for an hour or two if he wanted- which was rare, but sometimes he would come over after work and take them to the park. But now, he has not returned the kids on time the last two times he had them, and he did not bring me the kids the one day that we had traded a few weeks back... It is hard to 'control' the situation if he is uncooperative. It is hard to be civil when he thumbs his nose at our 'agreements'. That is why I have restricted his seeing the kids, and I think that he is incredulous that I am being such a 'B'.. he did not realize that there would be repercussions to his behaviors...

So until we get this back on track, and settled, I am going to be 'evil Mo' (in his eyes), and he will treat me poorly. He does not like living with 'rules and regulations'.... Too bad for him.

I just wish that I had a magic wand, and I could wave it, and we could be civil, and work together raising the kids. But, until that wand exists, the situation will just have to work itself out.

Why do you care if he thinks your a "B" ? He is the one that cheated left the marriage and the kids, he should just be grateful, that you are still nice to him, but YOU! keep expecting a four course meal while in the drive thu lane at McDees. Sadmo this guy has shown you again and again what he is made of.

You said " It is hard to 'control' the situation if he is uncooperative."

But you do have control if you stop expecting him to do what he says he will, your time with the kids is as just as valuable maybe even more so being that YOU are thinking of the kids and are the sane parent.

You are not being evil by sticking to your guns and sticking to the facts of your divorce degree......... he cheats he lies and brings his kids to have a sleepover with his girlfriend , why in the he!! would you value what he thinks of you when he does not even likes or respect his own kids or him self.

I will say what has been said to me many a time...

Accept him for who he is right this minute, today. Deal with him on this level alone, no expectations.

Who gives a crap if everyone around you thinks you are the bad guy, as long as your kids are safe and happy, well cared for and loved. You are responsible for that alone now, Sadmo; NOT your WXH. Stop putting him into your equation, only include the children.

You cannot control the situation on his side, ONLY yours. Good job in tightening things up. Those kids need structure, not their flim flam dad, drifting in and out. HE can schedule around the ONE NIGHT A WEEK. Don't listen to him--when he talks, just hear BLAH BLAH BLAH, unless some REAL emergency arises, then you listen.

SS-
What I am saying is that I find it HARD to be civil when he is now calling me a B, and he is not holding up his end of things- like bringing them back on time. HOW do I shore up everything, if HE is not following OUR agreements? HOW do I get him to finally start respecting the agreements that were made? I FEEL like a doormat when he does not return them on time... And I do not like it. It makes me bristle that he is calling me names, when everything would be fine if he honored our arrangements.

SL-
He really has no one on his side. I just do not know how to go about having no expectations of him, when I think that I should be able to expect him to bring the kids back on time, or if we had switched days, that he show up with them.

I just get annoyed every time I am reminded that I HAVE to deal with him.

He left me a message today, which, annoyed me. This is it:

"well, I am going to be late getting the girls, I am going to be held up at work. Listen, WE are having a party for DD on Sat. at 7, and WE would like it if you came. WE are also getting together with some of OUR friends at Chuck-e-Cheese at 4, if you would like to join US. You are more than welcome to attend. I just thought I would throw that out there."

Grrrrr. I do NOT want to hang out with him and his woman!!! How annoying!!!

I am not going to mention the message to him, if he mentions it tonight while dropping off the kids, I am going to tell him, ever so sweetly, "Thanks for inviting me, but I have a prior engagement." And leave it at that. I will admit, the temptation to invite a HOT guy friend of mine and go was there! LOL! But, I will pass. He is such an [email]A@@.[/email]

Start reading about detachment (The Language of Letting Go, Melody Beattie is a good book/daily affirmations) and take your power back. Every lash that you give in to and allow to arouse anger in you is giving your power away. You will not be able to problem solve in a healthy manner if you are constantly irked or angry.

You have contact EVERY DAY with this man. You LISTEN to his calls, even if they start out as drivel. Unless his first few words are distressed or crazed about he kids or a family member, HIT ERASE.

You do have the power to control the MAJORITY of those kids' structure, so take it and do it. Do not expect ANYTHING of him, for you will continually be disappointed. He's proven that; so when are you going to listen to him and work with him as if he IS AN A$$, instead of EXPECTING someone different.

Look, these things take time and distance. You two still have this attachment, this dance that you do. You can change your steps, and move in another direction. You will be affected by him until your moves change. No one is faulting you for feeling as you do, we're just telling you to truly separate and detach, and work on yourself so that you won't give a hoot about showing up with any other man at any function, because you will have nothing to prove.

He will have to change how he deals with YOU if he wants a co-parenting relationship. You have that power.

Tools for Handling Control Issues
Developing Detachment

Content:

* What is detachment?
* What are the negative effects not detaching?
* How is detachment a control issue?
* What irrational thinking leads to an inability to detach?
* How to develop detachment
* Steps in developing detachment


What is detachment?

Detachment is the:

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Ability to allow people, places, or things the freedom to be themselves.
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Holding back from the need to rescue, save, or fix another person from being sick, dysfunctional, or irrational.
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Giving another person "the space'' to be him or herself.
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Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with people.
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Willingness to accept that you cannot change or control a person, place, or thing.
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Developing and maintaining of a safe, emotional distance from someone whom you have previously given a lot of power to affect your emotional outlook on life.
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Establishing of emotional boundaries between you and those people you have become overly enmeshed or dependent with in order that all of you might be able to develop your own sense of autonomy and independence.
*

Process by which you are free to feel your own feelings when you see another person falter and fail and not be led by guilt to feel responsible for their failure or faltering.
*

Ability to maintain an emotional bond of love, concern, and caring without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing, or controlling.
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Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective and recognizing that there is a need to back away from the uncontrollable and unchangeable realities of life.
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Ability to exercise emotional self-protection and prevention so as not to experience greater emotional devastation from having hung on beyond a reasonable and rational point.
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Ability to let people you love and care for accept personal responsibility for their own actions and to practice tough love and not give in when they come to you to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.
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Ability to allow people to be who they "really are'' rather than who you "want them to be.''
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Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people who in the past have been overly dependent or enmeshed with you.

What are the negative effects not detaching?

If you are unable to detach from people, places, or things, then you:

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Will have people, places, or things which become over-dependent on you.
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Run the risk of being manipulated to do things for people, at places, or with things, which you do not really want to do.
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Can become an obsessive ``fix it'' who needs to fix everything you perceive to be imperfect.
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Run the risk of performing tasks because of the intimidation you experience from people, places, or things.
*

Will most probably become powerless in the face of the demands of the people, places, or things whom you have given the power to control you.
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Will be blind to the reality that the people, places, or things which control you are the uncontrollables and unchangeables you need to let go of if you are to become a fully healthy, coping individual.
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Will be easily influenced by the perception of helplessness which these people, places, or things project.
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Might become caught up with your idealistic need to make everything perfect for people, places, or things important to you even if it means your own life becomes unhealthy.
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Run the risk of becoming out of control of yourself and experience greater low self-esteem as a result.
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Will most probably put off making a decision and following through on it, if you rationally recognize your relationship with a person, place, or thing is unhealthy and the only recourse left is to get out of the relationship.
*

Will be so driven by guilt and emotional dependence that the sickness in the relationship will worsen.
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Run the risk of losing your autonomy and independence and derive your value or worth solely from the unhealthy relationship you continue in with the unhealthy person, place, or thing.

How is detachment a control issue?

Detachment is a control issue because:

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It is a way of de-powering the external "locus of control'' issues in your life and a way to strengthen your internal "locus of control.''
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If you are not able to detach emotionally or physically from a person, place, or thing, then you are either profoundly under its control or it is under your control.
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The ability to "keep distance'' emotionally or physically requires self-control and the inability to do so is a sign that you are "out of control.''
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If you are not able to detach from another person, place, or thing, you might be powerless over this behavior which is beyond your personal control.
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You might be mesmerized, brainwashed, or psychically in a trance when you are in the presence of someone from whom you cannot detach.
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You might feel intimidated or coerced to stay deeply attached with someone for fear of great harm to yourself or that person if you don't remain so deeply involved.
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You might be an addicted "caretaker,'' "fixer,'' or ``rescuer'' who cannot "let go'' of a person, place or thing you believe cannot care for itself.
*

You might be so manipulated by another's con, "helplessness,'' overdependency, or "hooks'' that you cannot leave them to solve their own problems.
*

If you do not detach from people, places, or things, you could be so busy trying to "control'' them that you completely divert your attention from yourself and your own needs.
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By being "selfless'' and "centered'' on other people, you are really a controller trying to "fix'' them to meet the image of your "ideal'' for them.
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Although you will still have feelings for those persons, places, and things from which you have become detached, you will have given them the "freedom'' to become what they will be on their own merit, power, control, and responsibility.
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It allows every person, place, or thing with which you become involved to feel the sense of personal responsibility to become a unique, independent, and autonomous being with no fear of retribution or rebuke if they don't please you by what they become.

What irrational thinking leads to an inability to detach?

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If you should stop being involved, what will they do without you?
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They need you and that is enough to justify your continued involvement.
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What if they commit suicide because of your detachment? You must stay involved to avoid this.
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You would feel so guilty if anything bad should happen to them after you reduced your involvement with them.
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They are absolutely dependent on you at this point and to back off now would be a crime.
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You need them as much as they need you.
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You can't control yourself because everyday you promise yourself "today is the day'' you will detach your feelings but you feel driven to them and their needs.
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They have so many problems, they need you.
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Being detached seems so cold and aloof. You can't be that way when you love and care for a person. It's either 100% all the way or no way at all.
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If you should let go of this relationship too soon, the other might change to be like the fantasy or dream you want them to be.
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How can being detached from them help them? It seems like you should do more to help them.
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Detachment sounds so final. It sounds so distant and non-reachable. You could never allow yourself to have a relationship where there is so much emotional distance between you and others. It seems so unnatural.
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You never want anybody in a relationship to be emotionally detached from you so why would you think it a good thing to do for others?
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The family that plays together stays together. It's all for one and one for all. Never do anything without including the significant others in your life.
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If one hurts in the system, we all hurt. You do not have a good relationship with others unless you share in their pain, hurt, suffering, problems, and troubles.
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When they are in "trouble'' how can you ignore their "pleas'' for help? It seems cruel and inhuman.
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When you see people in trouble, confused, and hurting, you must always get involved and try to help them solve the problems.
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When you meet people who are "helpless,'' you must step in to give them assistance, advice, support, and direction.
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You should never question the costs, be they material, emotional, or physical, when another is in dire need of help.
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You would rather forgo all the pleasures of this world in order to assist others to be happy and successful.
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You can never "give too much'' when it comes to providing emotional support, comforting, and care of those whom you love and cherish.
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No matter how badly your loved ones hurt and abuse you, you must always be forgiving and continue to extend your hand in help and support.
*

Tough love is a cruel, inhuman, and anti-loving philosophy of dealing with the troubled people in our lives and you should instead love them more when they are in trouble since "love'' is the answer to all problems.

How to develop detachment

In order to become detached from a person, place, or thing you need to:

First: Establish emotional boundaries between you and the person, place, or thing with whom you have become overly enmeshed or dependent on.

Second: Take back power over your feelings from persons, places, or things which in the past you have given power to affect your emotional well-being.

Third: "Hand over'' to your Higher Power the persons, places, and things which you would like to see changed but which you cannot change on your own.

Fourth: Make a commitment to your personal recovery and self-health by admitting to yourself and your Higher Power that there is only one person you can change and that is yourself and that for your serenity you need to let go of the "need'' to fix, change, rescue, or heal other persons, places, and things.

Fifth: Recognize that it is "sick'' and "unhealthy'' to believe that you have the power or control enough to fix, correct, change, heal, or rescue another person, place, or thing if they do not want to get better nor see a need to change.

Sixth: Recognize that you need to be healthy yourself and be "squeaky clean'' and a "role model'' of health in order for another to recognize that there is something ``wrong'' with them that needs changing.

Seventh: Continue to own your feelings as your responsibility and not blame others for the way you feel.

Eighth: Accept personal responsibility for your own unhealthy actions, feelings, and thinking and cease looking for the persons, places, or things you can blame for your unhealthiness.

Ninth: Accept that addicted fixing, rescuing, enabling are ``sick'' behaviors and strive to extinguish these behaviors in your relationship to persons, places, and things.

Tenth: Accept that many people, places, and things in your past and current life are "irrational,'' "unhealthy,'' and "toxic'' influences in your life, label them honestly for what they truly are, and stop minimizing their negative impact in your life.

Eleventh: Reduce the impact of guilt and other irrational beliefs which impede your ability to develop detachment in your life.

Twelfth: Practice "letting go'' of the need to correct, fix, or make better the persons, places and things in life over which you have no control or power to change.

.
Steps in developing detachment

Step 1: It is important to first identify those people, places, and things in your life from which you would be best to develop emotional detachment in order to retain your personal, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. To do this you need to review the following types of toxic relationships and identify in your journal if any of the people, places, or things in your life fit any of the following twenty categories.

Types of Toxic Relationships

( 1) You find it hard to let go of because it is addictive.

( 2) The other is emotionally unavailable to you.

( 3) Coercive, threatening, intimidating to you.

( 4) Punitive or abusive to you.

( 5) Non-productive and non-reinforcing for you.

( 6) Smothering you.

( 7) Other is overly dependent on you.

( 8) You are overly dependent on the other.

( 9) Other has the power to impact your feelings about yourself.

(10) Relationship in which you are a chronic fixer, rescuer, or enabler.

(11) Relationship in which your obligation and loyalty won't allow you to let go.

(12) Other appears helpless, lost, and out of control.

(13) Other is self-destructive or suicidal.

(14) Other has an addictive disease.

(15) Relationship in which you are being manipulated and conned.

(16) When guilt is a major motivating factor preventing your letting go and detaching.

(17) Relationship in which you have a fantasy or dream that the other will come around and change to be what you want.

(18) Relationship in which you and the other are competitive for control.

(19) Relationship in which there is no forgiveness or forgetting and all past hurts are still brought up to hurt one another.

(20) Relationship in which your needs and wants are ignored.

Step 2: Once you have identified the persons, places, and things you have a toxic relationship with, then you need to take each one individually and work through the following steps.

Step 3: Identify the irrational beliefs in the toxic relationship which prevent you from becoming detached. Address these beliefs and replace them with healthy, more rational ones.

Step 4: Identify all of the reasons why you are being hurt and your physical, emotional, and spiritual health is being threatened by the relationship.

Step 5: Accept and admit to yourself that the other person, place, or thing is "sick", dysfunctional, or irrational and that no matter what you say, do, or demand you will not be able to control or change this reality. Accept that there is only one thing you can change in life and that is you. All others are the unchangeables in your life. Change your expectations that things will be better than what they really are. Hand these people, places, or things over to your Higher Power and let go of the need to change them.

Step 6: Work out reasons why there is no need to feel guilt over letting go and being emotionally detached from this relationship and free yourself from guilt as you let go of the emotional "hooks'' in the relationship.

Step 7: Affirm yourself as being a person who "deserves'' healthy, wholesome, health engendering relationships in your life. You are a GOOD PERSON and deserve healthy relationships, at home, work, and in the community.

Step 8: Gain support for yourself as you begin to let go of your emotional enmeshment with these relationships.

Step 9: Continue to call upon your Higher Power for the strength to continue to let go and detach.

Step 10: Continue to give no person, place, or thing the power to affect or impact your feelings about yourself.

Step 11: Continue to detach and let go and work at self-recovery and self-healing as this poem implies.

``Letting Go''

*

To ``let go'' does not mean to stop caring.
*

It means I can't do it for someone else.
*

To ``let go'' is not to cut myself off.
*

It's the realization I can't control another.
*

To ``let go'' is not to enable,
*

but to allow learning from natural consequences.
*

To ``let go'' is to admit powerlessness
*

which means the outcome is not in my hands.
*

To ``let go'' is not to try to change or blame another.
*

It's to make the most of myself.
*

To ``let go'' is not to care for, but to care about.
*

To ``let go'' is not to fix, but to be supportive.
*

To ``let go'' is not to judge,
*

but to allow another to be a human being.
*

To ``let go'' is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
*

but to allow others to affect their own destinies.
*

To ``let go'' is not to be protective.
*

It's to permit another to face reality.
*

To ``let go'' is not to deny, but to accept.
*

To ``let go'' is not to nag, scold, or argue,
*

but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.
*

To ``let go'' is not to criticize and regulate anybody,
*

but to try to become what I dream I can be.
*

To ``let go'' is not to adjust everything to my desires
*

but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.
*

To ``let go'' is to not regret the past,
*

but to grow and live for the future.
*

To ``let go'' is to fear less and LOVE MYSELF MORE.

Step 12: If you still have problems detaching, then return to Step 1 and begin all over again.

EXACTLY what I'm getting at, swan's song. Thanks for taking the time to post this; really great stuff.

Stop allowing him to call you names. If he starts this crap simply pull out a voice activated recorder, one time, and ask him if he would like to repeat that. I bet he doesn't do it again.

SS-
Thanks...
SL-
No, I do not talk to him everyday. In fact, I do not call him. It had been 5 days since I had heard from him, and then I was annoyed again.

What I am saying is this: I am able to detach from him, on a day to day basis. I could care less what he does in his free time now.

I DO care what he is doing with my kids, when he has them. I DO care if he is subjecting them to his way of thinking.

Do you suggest I just let him bring back the kids whenever when he has them? Or that I not make a fuss if he has them spend the night at his GF's house? WHAT SHOULD I DO???? Just let him do whatever? That is what I am not understanding...
I want to know what I should do to make sure that he honors our agreements. So since he is not honoring them, he is restricted. But there are the other issues.... HOW in the heck do you detach from THAT???? I honestly would have NO CONTACT with him if I had no kids with him. I DO NOT want to deal with him, but I have to, since we have kids together.

I am just frustrated. I feel like I am being told to just let it go, with what he does, and ignore his bad behavior. And I do not think that I should when it comes to the kid arrangements. Am I wrong on this?????

H&P-
That is a good idea!!
LOL!

Maybe you need to implement an intermediary for kid exchanges.
Have a nuetral 3rd party. He has to drop kids off at XXX place at XXX time. I think he would be FAR less likely to inconvienence someone else. He likes to do this to push your buttons.

I am just frustrated. I feel like I am being told to just let it go, with what he does, and ignore his bad behavior. And I do not think that I should when it comes to the kid arrangements. Am I wrong on this?????


I'm not telling you to NOT document the REAL problems; the coming back late with the kids, the skipping visitation days LAST MINUTE, his lack of attention to detail.

What I AM suggesting is that you STOP hoping for some different outcome. If you believe that he is a bad father, document it, and then take him back to court to put more strict boundaries around visitation.

I'm telling you to let go of the notion that he is going to change at all FOR YOU or FOR YOUR KIDS. Honestly, he won't, not anytime soon. You only post about your emotional response to him, you do not post about how you are going to remedy the situation, as much as you can control it.

That does not mean that you attempt in any way to change himi, but to go the legal route and MAKE things solid. If he then does not comply, you can report it and he'll have to deal with the law.

Don't take it upon yourself to teach him anything; he's not listening.

Listen to HAP--record interactions such as those that you've posted about him calling you derogatory names and addressing you in a disrespectful manner. STOP babying him; it's time he knows he messin with a grown woman.

I HEAR that you can do this, but I also hear you falling back into the same emotional cycle with him. I just wish for you a more detached life from him.

You post regularly about how he annoys you this way or that, and doesn't comply with your visitation agreement; I just don't see you posting that you have made any movements on your end to try and change the sitch.

You say that you cannot do plan B, but I don't see why not. You can set up how you do exchanges. Even if you have to see face to face, you don't have to discuss ANYTHING beyond the children at that time, and even if he asks you a question, you can say "I'll get back to you later with an answer". You do not have to interact in the way that you do with him.

Take control.

P.S. I know I was exxagerating about how often you have contact, but it was for effect, to show you how often we hear about contact. I know you RARELY contact him, but if you choose to pick up the phone when he calls you, you are making contact.

Well, it is almost 2 months since the D, and all I know is this:
That life does go on, that there is still fun to be had, and that I have survived.

As of now, I have no relationship with the EX. I just arrange for swap the kids times.

Surprisingly, my oldest DD told my Ex that she does not want to spend so much time at 'her friends house'. (Which is his girlfriends daughters house). He has actually lessened the amount of time that they spend there. The funny thing is, I was actually worried that she would be so thrilled with being around her new friend, that she would never want to be with me. But... in a short amount of time, she became tired of it.

My Ex gave my oldest DD his phone number, and she has been calling him for a variety of reasons: I am mean to her, because I make her comb her hair. She doesn't like me: I make her pick up. I am no fun: it is not even 6 in the morning, and I am still sleeping.

Which has been a little funny. I know he is getting exasperated, but it is his D, not me. I do not even know when she calls him.

Me and the Ex actually spoke tonight about some behavioral issues that are coming up now that DD is older (she does not want to be around me as much anymore... she wants him, and she will act out...) and I asked him to try to make more of an effort to see/call the kids. I told him that I would not bother him when he is with the kids. He said he would. We will see. I am not holding my breath, but the whole thing OK.

We are on a different page. We really do not talk, unless it is about the kids. I do not call him, unless it is absolutely necessary. I am moving on with my life, and it is ok. The hardest thing is the kids. But, hopefully WE will be able to work it out so that they will be ok.

I just want my kids to know that they are loved and cared for, and I know that they know that. So that is good.

I just thought that I would throw an update out there....

Hey Sadmo,

Good to hear that the tidal wave has passed to some degree. It's probably because you've learned better ways of coping with all of this, and for that, you should be congratulated. I'm sure it has not been easy getting to this place.

I hear ya about the kids. It's really a top priority of mine to lend stability to my son's life, so that he can thrive.