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Hi,

I'm trying to make arrangements so that my exhBPD takes our D3 to a doctor's appointment. It's a routine appointment, nothing serious, and I see no need that we both miss work. Also, he never does anything with her on his own, so I hope this will be a step forward.

I need some pratical advice on how to talk to him about this. He sent me a message saying "I would appreciate if you told me how, where and at what time I should pick up D3 to take her to the doctor." I replied "you can pick her up at the house at hours, I will be at work so my mother will be there with D3." He replied back: "I do not want to go to the house". 

I can offer various different solutions but I know he'll just keep refusing, having a problem with all of them. He does this constantly, trying to have an endless conversation, never offering any solution and refusing all the solutions I present! Eventualy we end up with one of those solutions which he will later tell me how bad it was, that it's my fault this and that happened because I was the one who made the decision to do things that way.

Can you please share some advice on how to handle this kind of conversations, where I realise he just wants to keep me engaged, texting all day long, getting me all nervous and anxious, and not really deciding anything.

Hi MiaP,

I wish I had a magic wand that would make your ex (and for that matter my SO's uBPDxw) do what we would like them to.  But in my experience you can't make someone else do something they don't want to do.  It sounds to me like he uses appointments like this to see you and interact with you rather than an opportunity to be a father to his daughter.

I think you need to focus on your daughter and what she really needs here which is to get to the appointment, he's not going to get her there on his own so I think you have two choices go with him or take your daughter on your own.

Panda39

Hi Panda39,

you're right, I think he uses visits and appointments to interact with me and unfortunately I cannot force him to be a present father (still working on accepting that... .). However, in this particular case, he offered to take her so I was trying to make it work.

I'm just having a difficult time figuring out how to make all sorts of arrangements with him because all of our conversations go like that: he refuses to say how he would prefer, forces me to make a decision and sooner or later let's me know that he had no saying in that matter and it's all my fault that things didn't go well, even when they do (which I don't really care about anymore unless he shows up raging on christmas day or whenever - it's nerve racking never knowing if (when) he will flip out.

You might ask what he thinks he can do. This puts it on him to make a decision. IF he says something that makes no sense then you can simply say "that will not work, thank you for offering" or "I will take care of it, thank you for offering." This ends the back and forth and also sets up the next time on what he can expect. Do that several times and either he will completely stop or he will get involved. I don't even ask my ex anything anymore and just do the doctors, dentist, eye exams, etc. If something out of the norm occurs I will send an email letting her know.