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This morning at our child exchange ex flat out refused to take daughter's baby bag. I put a journal I write in every day, frozen breast milk, her favorite toy in it. He literally grabbed daughter without a word and blew by me as I was holding the bag out.

How did you respond?

I didn't say anything, I stood there with my hand out with the bag until he turned around and blew by. When I got home I emailed him "I don't understand why you refused daughters baby bag this morning. It is important for us to communicate, the journal I write in is one way to communicate. Refusing to take the breast milk I pump for daughter is uncalled for. I will try to give you the bag again at our next exchange. Thank you." That was it. I have learned not to say anything with daughter around, it will escalate. No response yet from him.

Is the note written for court purposes? Most people with BPD experience levels of inadequacy and self-loathing we can not imagine. It's unlikely he can take in what you're saying in the note, ie. "uncalled for."

It is of course uncalled for, and it's not understandable. It's important what you write in the journal, all of this is true. It's also true that he has severe emotional and psychological limitations.

Some people here try to work with the emotional limitations. Others will focus on alternative methods to make sure that the kids' needs are met.

It's generally not possible to work with them as though they are normal parents -- radical acceptance of this will help reset expectations, but it does take time and effort.

Yes I am documenting for court. Really just to show the reality of the situation since he projects his issues on to me. I have accepted I won't change him. I just can do what I can do. If rejecting breast milk isn't alienating and hostile I don't know what is.

He responded " all you are doing is setting this up for court and not paying attention to what's important. Not worried about breast milk as I always have what daughter needs. I will communicate as I have been doing."

He just emailed me " you only email or text so you can paint a different portion fair". Please tell me when the judge reads these he will realize something is wrong with him.

I thought your response is good. My ex would have been shamed into doing the right thing. But they are all different. I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's heartbreaking that he can't do what's right for her. Disgusting, actually.

Do you know what he means when he writes stuff like this?

No he is the same in person, just kind of rambles doesn't make sense. Like he says " you just made daughter a dentist appointment for retaliatory reasons". I don't think he even knows what some words mean.

The same dentist issue I emailed him and said daughter needs a dentist appointment by her first birthday he says " they only say that cause she has insurance. There you go interpreting things yo manipulate. I go by proffesions you read off the oh so called internet. Please read before you jump the gun to manipulate for court. If you could read you would know what I say. Stop asking the same question then there will be some clean communication. I'm not playing games thanks for playing though. Thanks for your understanding." And I just go what the heck did I just read

Or " you are always saying what you do for daughter that is amazing when we should be communicating what we both do for daughter as I do when I say what we ( daughter and I) do with you"  I could just list all the crazy emails and texts and write a book.

Interesting. Now he wants you to "rescue" him. You're doing a great job rarsweet, in an incredibly stressful situation.

What's his reference to what always having what she needs? Is he still only feeding her gatorade?

I take this that he is trying to limit your influence on the child by limiting your ability to breast feed.  That's it.  He can't breast feed, you can.  If he does in fact have everything necessary, leave it at that.  The journal going back and forth I see as a real issue for him and maybe not entirely necessary. 

A plan that limits or eliminates these types of interactions is what is needed.  So eliminating some of the triggers, the journal, breast milk, may be what needs to happen.

The journal was a suggestion the coparenting program I go to told me about. I only write what she eats, when she sleeps, diaper changes, I wrote when she sat up, crawled, first tooth, if she says a new word, etc. I don't write anything to him, no notes or anything. The theory was its a way to identify allergies or if she did something like roll over at one house the other parent would be aware she could roll. The first time I gave her zuchinni she broke out in a rash. I write stuff like that. We wouldn't send our kids off to babysitters without info sharing would we? Even when my mom babysits she has her own journal and I transfer her notes to my journal. I feel like I have to try, even if he doesn't like it, I have to do what I feel is right. I figure I'm not going to diminish my parenting to not trigger him. Its just so frustrating though as we all know.

My ex has an issue with the dentist too. he emailed me to say the kids shouldn't go until they're 5 at the earliest. We went to see our parenting coordinator and i told her the experts suggest a visit every 6 months. the PC said generally we go with the experts. so my ex agreed and now they see the dentist every 6 months. a judge wouldn't say it's ok to wait until 5 - plus, the kids' pre-k program requires dental visits every 6 months.

as for gatorade, i feel like i just read a news story somewhere where neglectful parents were only giving their kid gatorade. but maybe i read your post? in any case, seems like an expert would say that's bad. so yes it would look bad in court.

We didn't take S5 to the dentist until he was well into his 3rd year. Big mistake. He has metal molars and it cost $1k of unnecessary dental work. We took S3 before she turned 2 based upon that experience. Thus far, no problems. Trust the experts, not ordinary folks... .

Seems to be a common BPD ex thing - they don't like you taking the kids to doctors or specialists. I guess it does feel like a loss of control.

On the other hand, to those driven by hermit anxieties, it can be three polar opposite: every little thing is a crisis, and kids can get over medicated.

I've seen my SO's uBPDxw do both.  She was that way with many things both neglectful and indulgent. Never able to do the day to day hard work of parenting.

My ex just wanted the opposite of whatever it was I wanted. 

Well, that's how they keep us engaged. We have to pretend a lot of these things don't matter to us so much. Sometimes that's not possible.