why don’t you just dig that knife in a bit more and twist a little harder, kiddo?

yesterday PP told me she wanted to spend more time at Daddy’s house because she likes his house, it’s a better house and she likes him better too.

I’d like to say I handled it well, but I didn’t. I cried.

I know why: she eats more junk food there, it’s a bigger house, it has a backyard, she has more toys and more space, a built-in playmate, and more time for just play and fun proportionately speaking since it’s half-weekend time. I’m the one who gets to be the disciplinarian, always getting her up and to school and getting her homework done and it’s always go-go-go, and then when we are home together I am so fried weeknights I can’t muster much energy to do anything exciting and fun. I wish it were different, but I don’t have much space to make changes. She needs to eat and sleep and get dressed and walk to school and do her homework and there is very, very little time in and around work with all those things factored in.

When I think that when she was born, and during mat leave, I had planned that by now I’d be working part-time so that we would have more time together–and instead we have less because I’m doing all the pick-ups and drop-offs around a 9-hour workday all week–it kills me, and makes me hate the Ex just a little bit more.

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a cranky update

Wouldn’t you know it, but threatening to take a guy to court has the amazing effect of encouraging him to negotiate something in short order.

Even more amazingly, he’s decided that the option I thought we’d agreed on during the summer is actually just dandy.

Putz.

Not that I am looking forward to this new schedule, as it will give me much less time to myself and much more responsibility. But it’s got to be done.

In other news: I am beating my head against the wall of a vast and senseless bureaucracy. Sadly, I am also part of that vast and senseless bureaucracy.

So I am going to take my grumpy self home to sulk–briefly, after sending PP off to her Dad’s for the weekend and before running/showering/passportphotoing/volunteermeeting–and eat too many chocolate chip cookies. And sew, maybe. Or think about sewing. Fantasize about sewing. Plan a trip to a fabric store on the weekend….

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my mother is talking to me again

Don’t ask me to explain it, because I can’t.

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wait. is this earth? are you sure?

The ex called this morning to apologize.

I think we might actually avoid court.

Do you realize this is the first time he’s apologized for anything, ever, without me having to pull it out of him with a hook?

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still relieved

The other thing that is helping, I think, is just having the burden of trying to convince him off of my shoulders.

It’s impossible to talk to a narcissist. They can’t ever admit they were wrong, and so in any situation where they clearly were, no resolution is possible. The only way to come to an agreement at that point is to go along with whatever they’re saying. It’s his Wounded Ego response: if he does something wrong and I point it out, no matter how mildly, all of the narcissistic defences come into play and it becomes all about how MEAN I am, and how unreasonable I am being, and he doesn’t tell me what I need to know, won’t see reason, and any further effort at communication only leads to an escalation of the problem.

As in:

–You’re right, I’m moving to Bob, we need to get a new schedule.
–That schedules seems reasonable, let’s do it.
–Dead silence
–I’m going to get my lawyer to yell at you because you weren’t friendly to me in an email. Of course we can continue negotiating, just because I stopped talking to you doesn’t mean I don’t want to negotiate, but I think we should come to an agreement in December.
–I will deny having any knowledge of this amended agreement. You made it up! And in fact driving her from Bob every Friday will give us “quality time” and I want to wait until December to see whether or not this is a problem. It’ll be good for her! How selfish of you to want to deprive PP of this fabulous opportunity!
–What do you mean, I’m breaking the SA? I thought you wanted me to! You told me to! It’s all your fault! In fact I called your cell phone to tell you so and you didn’t pick up! [there was no call to the cell–I checked the missed calls]

The plus about the various options outlined in the last letter, including court, is that I no longer have to convince him. I have to convince an independent third party. And then they’ll tell him what to do and he won’t have any choice in the matter. (Neither will I, but right now it seems like an acceptable risk to take if I no longer have to try to convince him of anything.)

This isn’t to say that things are destined to go my way; they’re not. I suppose it’s possible that someone might actually agree that an hour-long commute each way from Bob to school once a week, longer and more dangerous in winter, is actually quality time and things should stay as they are. But that is the worst case scenario and it is no worse than what is happening right now; by going forward I will lose nothing (except money) and stand to gain quite a bit for PP.

Whereas the Ex has nothing to gain whatsoever. As far as I can tell.

(Which isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate those of you who are tactfully playing the role of devil’s advocate. Constructive criticism is always good.)

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counter-intuitive

There is a weird momentary sense of great relief that comes from committing to a course of action. I know that one way or the other, something will be set in motion at the end of September, and given what’s been going on I am not much worried–not now–that the current schedule is in any danger of lasting for long.

But mostly I am relieved just to know that I was not the crazy one.

I never trust my own perceptions. After growing up with my parents I don’t think I will ever really believe that I know the difference between reality and crazy-town. I may think I know, I may be able to marshall all the evidence for myself, but until I hear someone else tell me that I am not crazy, I don’t really believe it. Even then I don’t really believe it necessarily but at least I can believe that someone else might believe it. If that makes sense.

Now I know that it’s not just a gap in my reasoning skills that this makes no sense and his actions add up to no pattern. My lawyer confirms it, his lawyer indirectly confirms it. I am not the crazy one.

Amazingly this is still true even after just receiving a voicemail at home that he broke the SA again, after being told not to by his lawyer. I’m (very very) angry but not scared.

I’ll just keep giving him rope, I guess.

I’m sure that whenever whatever is coming next actually gets here–whether it be court or an alternative–that the anxiety will kick back in full-force and I will once again be petrified of the outcome (not to mention resentful of the money I’ll be spending). But right now? Relieved.

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legal mumbo-jumbo

A new letter has been written, signed, and sent to the putz via his lawyer. Who, incidentally, had no idea we’d negotiated anything (I got to listen in to their phone conversation while I was there; she had no clue that we’d spoken by email for a couple of months and had something worked out).

The putz’s lawyer is also going to put the fear of god into him about adhering to the SA (he has broken several clauses recently while simultaneously having his lawyer send me threatening letters about sticking to a strict interpretation of the existing agreement while I have not actually broached it in any way. You can see why I’m so freaking confused).

I’m not sure but I think it’s probably a bad sign when your own lawyer reads you the riot act about the existing SA that you yourself have been so keen to enforce on your ex-spouse.

I’m very leary of putting the details on the internet on this one, even a pseudonymous blog, but thought I should post some kind of update. However I think I can say that his position now is that we never had an agreement, that I made the whole amendment up, and that the drive from Bob to PP’s school is “quality time.” Also, that I am being a big fat meanie by drawing attention to his having not given me enough notice, because it’s actually all his landlord’s fault, though this is the first I’ve heard of that.

He’s got until the end of the month on this one and then the court countdown will begin.

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Incidentally…

Whoever it is who’s been arriving here every day on a google search of “struck by lightning 2.0,” why don’t you introduce yourself?

And then maybe bookmark it.

(we’ll file this in a temporary category called “paranoia”)

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in through the front door

The stuff with the Ex and my parents has knocked me for more of a loop than I want to admit.

Why should I be upset or surprised? Aren’t they all acting exactly like they have all along? Am I surprised that the Ex continues to act as if it is my job to give him what he wants, and is trying to control me into doing so? No, I’m not. But I am upset–deeply so–that all my efforts to try to erect some boundaries are ignored and trampled. I’m upset that I have to try to force my daughter’s father to put her interests first. I’m upset that this whole thing has now become so unpredictable, and PP is indeed commuting 70km each way to school on Fridays. I’m afraid that if it does go to court that I will lose some of my very limited and precious PP-weekend time. I’m afraid that I will be painted as in the wrong; that, despite everything, I may be overlooking something I should have done, some way I should have acted, and it will be all my fault. My mother thinks she was a great parent. How much am I overlooking?

I’m afraid that this will drag out and cost a lot of money, and there’s nothing I can do about that because I have to advocate for PP’s best interests and apparently this now means involving lawyers.

There was another letter last week, this time from PP’s teacher; the Ex wrote her and asked that she communicate directly with him. I don’t know what he is aiming for or planning, but something is coming. I don’t trust him a bit. And it’s so absurd. I packaged up all of PP’s kindergarten stuff in June and sent it to him for review and he kept all of it; how much more open sharing and communication can I do? I am afraid that he is trying to paint me as a non-communicative and non-cooperative parent.

I wasn’t doing well after figuring out that my mother dumped me a month or so ago, but I was coming out of it and then this whole thing dropped, and since then I just have not been able to kick-start myself. I am keeping up with my obligations but new projects, long-term side projects, all that, have pretty well fallen off. Not a big deal, maybe; not depression, I know; but I am sad and afraid. What is he planning? What am I fighting here? How many times am I going to have to deal with this over the next thirteen years?

And what if for that whole time I am dealing with this by myself?

Because this is where the parent thing fits in: I can’t count on them. I am half-afraid that, given the choice, they would pay his legal bills and leave me to struggle by myself. I can’t help but wonder how that would look in a court, if my parents take my ex-husband’s side in any dispute. I’m afraid to bring it up with them; I have no desire to hear what they would have to say. In the meantime I can’t talk to them about anything; not that it matters since I haven’t heard from either of them since before this happened. I feel so abandoned. It should not surprise me.

You may or may not be happy to know that the therapist has joined the chorus of voices saying that keeping that relationship alive for PP’s sake is probably asking more of myself than is right, or fair. But I think if that is something I am going to do then I need to talk to them first. I can’t be like my mother and just disappear.

But I don’t want to. Whatever it is they have to say I don’t want to hear it. I want to go through the rest of my life without ever going through whatever is coming in the next few months. I am dreading this. Yet I find this is another one of those situations where there is no going out the back door until you’ve gone in through the front door. Somehow or other, I am going to have to find a way to bring this up. To say, I can’t have a relationship with you while you have a relationship with my ex, not while he is doing this to me.

I don’t want to do this, but I think I’ve reached the point where not doing this is worse.

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it’s a relationship

I know this is absurd.

But I like him a lot.

And so does Niamh, apparently.

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