My issue is with the way my ex husband is treating me. When I call about our son for important reason, like he was in the hospital etc..I always get the answering machine and leave a message. But my ex never calls me back, he constantly avoids talking to me at all. And it's easier for him to do since he is in another state. It really bothers/hurts me when he avoids having any contact with me even if it is about our son.

I sent him an email and told him that the way he was treating the situation and me really hurt. Maybe it was really stupid for me to let him know that he's able to hurt me? He constantly does this and I wish there was a way that I would never have to talk to him again. When I have had a conversation with him he is very cold and treats it like a business matter. Is this common with divorce for one spouse to not really care how much he acts like a jerk and shows lack of respect or any kind of kindness and the other spouse to be to nice like I continue to be??..I send him pictures of our baby and keep him updated but not once has he thanked me it's as if he takes what i do for granted. How can I change this how can I go about getting the respect I deserve?..Should I just forget about it and play his game and treat him the exact same way??..I guess it just hurts that he doesn't care and I do care does that make sense??..I really want to hate my ex but I can't..

Hi

I would not treat him the same way, you don't want to stoop to his level, he is not worth demeaning yourself.

If it was me, I would tell him, since you have very little interest in our son, I will no longer send you pictures or update you on how he is doing. If you are interested, you will have to contact me for any information or pictures.

His attitude could be a way to protrect himself because it might hurt him because he is away from his child. And then again I could be wrong. Either way, it is inappropriate and you do not have to subject yourself to it.

I'm sure there are others who might disagree with me and they may even have better suggestions.

I'm more the type who will tell my H off, which might explain why I am here. The last year or two, I have been having to keep my tongue in cheek more, and for me that is very difficult for me to do.

Hi,

I would just like to say that we have no control over others and how they treat us. Sometimes others, including oneself, can be manipulated into acting different but that doesn't mean they or we are different. Even tho we have no control over how others threat us, we do have control over how we will react to it. It may not seem fair at times, but the only person we have control over is ourself. If you think about it, it would be a huge responsibility to try and control how others treat us. Work on your reaction to his lack of concern for son. I know it's hard to do, but when you get to the point that he cannot upset you with his lack of caring, you will be removing a form of control he has on you, out of your life. It's hard when that's not the way we want things to turn out, but it is reality.

It may or may not be the right thing to do, but when I am in a situation that really bothers me, and I have no control over that situation, I try to change how I react to it and how I let it affect me.

Hope this helps,
Free

First of all, you will never be able to demand and receive more respect. Respect comes from how the person perceives you, and if he doesn't respect you, then trying to tell him to respect you will not work. I do not respect my wife, however, I will treat her with dignity because of my children. Anything that I could do or not do to my wife would only come back and hurt my children. So in that way, I continue to do my utmost to treat her well. She seems to be doing essentially the same things for me. Which I appreciate.

She once said that she cared and respected me. I could not say the same in return. I simply have no respect for the woman that she has become and the things that she has and continues to do. They are not deserving of respect, so regardless of what she would 'demand' (she doesn't however) I could not change the way I feel about her. The only way to gain respect is to have behaviors and meaning in which the other person values and deems worthy of respect. The simple fact that you are the mother of his child has nothing to do with 'deserving' respect.

Now, please understand, I am not saying that you do not deserve to be respected, but what I am saying is that for some reason, your ex does not feel that you are someone that he respects. And there will be nothing that you can do about that. All that you will be able to do is to live your life in the way that you want, doing those things that you feel are right. If he does not respect the effort and attempts that you go through, then he will just have to live his life in that manner. Perhaps, he will come to see that you should be respected, and what type of behaviors that entails on his part.

I would love to regain respect for my wife, but it is not a simple thing of saying that I respect and care for her. I love her, and that is the crux of the situation. She still is someone that I love for some reason. But she is not someone that I respect in the least. She has gained some respect in the last few months in that she has settled down and decreased her attacks on me at every turn. She has treated me with more respect and therefore, it has allowed me to treat her with more respect. But demanding it would have done nothing.

Now as to what I think I would do in your situation. I think that I agree, I would say, "Since you do not appear to respect my efforts to remain in contact about our son and to do what I can in an effort to keep you involved, I will no longer do this. Not out of spite, but because it apparently has no meaning to you, therefor is a waste of my time. You refuse to return my calls and emails, which is your choice. I will be happy to inform you of anything that you would like to know about if you contact me, but I will not be initiating the contact any longer. I will notify you of any dire emergencies, even if you do not contact me, but otherwise, I have decided that since I get no feedback and support from you about our son, I will not waste my time any longer. You can call to speak to him if you desire. You can email or call to speak to me about him if you desire. But it will have to be at your behest that any further contact occurs. Should things change in the future, and we can come to an agreement about what is expected between us, I might once again be willing to initiate some of the contact on issues that I think you would want to know about, or that I would like your input on. I hope that this eventually will be the case."

Then stick to it. Do not contact him at all unless there is a real emergency. I understand that there was one and he did nothing, but that is OK. That is his problem, and you let him know, he just chose to not follow up. Keep these emails. Print them out and save them. I would wonder if your ex might not eventually say that you wouldn't tell him anything, to your son. At least you could show him these and they might help him to understand the situation.

But I think most of all, you must stop trying to maintain some contact with him. Your expectations of your relationship are different than his. He is obviously getting what he wants out of it, but you certainly are not. I agree, that I would hope that you would have a better relationship with him and that he would be more involved. I can't imagine not being involved with my children. I can barely stand only having them half the time. I would take all the time and allow her to have unlimited visitation if I could. I don't care about the money, in fact I would pay her more if I could keep them more. I love my boys, and I absolutely can't imagine what your ex is thinking. But we are different people, with different histories.

I don't know all of yours, but I hope that it works out. Just try to lower what you expect out of him. You will only be hurt when he doesn't reach what you want him to be like.

Thanks for the advice!!..I guess it does hurt a lot because he has such a lack of concern or interest in our baby's life. My mother went through the same thing and she didn't try to maintain any kind of contact with my father for my sake. What eventually happened is he disapeared forever. I don't want that to happen to my son because I know how much pain it will cause him. I feel the rejection by what my father has done and continues to do and I wanted to try and give my son the chance I never had.

I've even thought about relocating to the state that he lives in just to try and give my son that very chance to have both of his parents in his life. My ex husband has no idea what it means to be a father because he hasn't been here with our son seeing him grow or helping me raise him from the start. Since he left right before our son was born. My ex husband did the same thing after he left and moved to another state back home to his parents he ignored me and wouldn't speak to me no matter what. I feel as though he thinks if he ignores me and our son or the situation everything is going to go away and he won't have to deal with it. God he makes me hate him so much and wish I could hate him enough to not allow this to bother me ever.

This has all been such a struggle for me and I'm trying to deal with it. But I guess I will never know or understand why my ex husband treats me the way he does. He's not a horrible person and I know he would never treat anyone this way but me for some reason. I think his lack of concern or his avoiding contact with me shows he never ever really cared about me or our family our son together does this sound like the right thing to feel or think??..Does his lack of involvement show his lack of heart in this whole situation??..Has anyone gone through this??

I

<small>[ March 21, 2003, 04:49 PM: Message edited by: broken heart and arm ]</small>