Visitation Strangeness

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

In order to get things back on track from the summer, the kids spent 2 weekends in a row with their mom. For 2 weeks, we only saw them on Thursday night. Last night D14 had an event at school. This morning she got up and hung around for a while. She said she might want to go over to her mom's for a little while and something about wanting consistency. Then she said her mom was cleaning today and has a past of throwing away her things while cleaning. When she left (~11am), I asked her when she'd be back and to let me know if it would be much different from that.

DH comes come and says "What the hell is going on?" We have an app and D14 was in a nearby town. There were certain things there that we thought might be related to the boyfriend. I just wrote "Is everything ok?" She replied "Mom had a shop she wanted to show me... .(kinda weird she never does this stuff)." I was a little suspicious and asked what she got. She said a sweater A little later, she called me for tech support on her mom's phone. In the middle, I thought that I shouldn't be putting her in the middle but it's tech support, not custody arrangements. She said mom couldn't do anything about her phone until payday which is odd since she can buy a sweater in August in Alabama.

At 5 she called saying she wanted to stay a bit longer. I told her where are going which is fun. She asked if I wanted her to go. I said I will miss her but want her to do what she wants. She chose to stay.

Thoughts?

[isharcanis]

In order to get things back on track from the summer, the kids spent 2 weekends in a row with their mom. For 2 weeks, we only saw them on Thursday night. Last night D14 had an event at school. This morning she got up and hung around for a while. She said she might want to go over to her mom's for a little while and something about wanting consistency. Then she said her mom was cleaning today and has a past of throwing away her things while cleaning. When she left (~11am), I asked her when she'd be back and to let me know if it would be much different from that.

DH comes come and says "What the hell is going on?" We have an app and D14 was in a nearby town. There were certain things there that we thought might be related to the boyfriend. I just wrote "Is everything ok?" She replied "Mom had a shop she wanted to show me... .(kinda weird she never does this stuff)." I was a little suspicious and asked what she got. She said a sweater A little later, she called me for tech support on her mom's phone. In the middle, I thought that I shouldn't be putting her in the middle but it's tech support, not custody arrangements. She said mom couldn't do anything about her phone until payday which is odd since she can buy a sweater in August in Alabama.

At 5 she called saying she wanted to stay a bit longer. I told her where are going which is fun. She asked if I wanted her to go. I said I will miss her but want her to do what she wants. She chose to stay.

Thoughts?

[Turkish]

At 5 she called saying she wanted to stay a bit longer. I told her where are going which is fun. She asked if I wanted her to go. I said I will miss her but want her to do what she wants. She chose to stay

What do you think if you had just said "yes?"

[isharcanis]

I think she would have come.

We took D11 and did something super cool (not intended to make her jealous). She wanted to come back but we didn't get back for a couple of hours. We'll see about tomorrow.

[Turkish]

I'd just be honest in the future.  She's old enough to determine her own feelings and make hey own choices.  She's not BPD,  so it's good you didn't get a passive aggressive response that you rejected her.  You didn't,  but a pwBPD might take it that way. 

I could never nail down what I was supposed to do with my uBPDex in such situations: respect her independence? Try to guess an unstated emotional cue? 

[isharcanis]

We are suspicious that mom is withholding good attention until our time with the kids. That would be horrible.

[Turkish]

We are suspicious that mom is withholding good attention until our time with the kids. That would be horrible.

What do you mean?

[isharcanis]

Positive attention from mom is rare. I think sometimes they want to spend more time at her house so they can catch every moment she pays them attention. D14 told me recently that mom hadn't sat down and talked to her since mom got her bf in April.

Mom has always weaponized the kids. If she knew that it hurt his feelings to have them not spend time here on the schedule, she might do that just to mess with him. This could be a one-off and I hope so. Regardless, we had an awesome time with D11 and we'll take both of them later.

[Turkish]

Positive attention from mom is rare. I think sometimes they want to spend more time at her house so they can catch every moment she pays them attention. D14 told me recently that mom hadn't sat down and talked to her since mom got her bf in April.

That's sad... .what did you say to her?

[isharcanis]

That's sad... .what did you say to her?

I know that I can never fill that hole your mom leaves but I will do everything I can to fill as much as I can around it.

[Panda39]

At 5 she called saying she wanted to stay a bit longer. I told her where are going which is fun. She asked if I wanted her to go. I said I will miss her but want her to do what she wants. She chose to stay.

This is tricky because you don't know what's going on at the other end.  How good is D14 at standing up to her mom? D14 could have wanted you to say "yes" so you take the decision out of her hands then you're the bad guy in the eyes of her mother rather than D14.  She may have been walking on eggshells so saying "yes" she wanted to stay was to avoid conflict/punishment (withholding affection) from mom when in fact she might have wanted to go with you.  Or she might have really wanted to stay with her mom.

Panda39

[isharcanis]

D14 is strong. She and mom clash regularly because she has taken DH's place as the root of all evil. She thanked me repeatedly for letting her go so it was definitely her choice. When she left, she apologized for it being crazy and said that she "had a good time" like she was a guest.

OTOH, she told us Friday night or Saturday morning that she comes to our house to reorient herself from the gaslighting. If she's away too long, it's hard for her to remember.

[ForeverDad]

We are suspicious that mom is withholding good attention until our time with the kids. That would be horrible.

Suspicious?  Move that one level higher.  One approach is to state you already lost a prior weekend and here was another encroachment upon DH's assigned time.  (Remember, bioMom has majority time, right?)  So it is not unfair or unreasonable to require a trade of parenting time.  Rather than Gifting Away DH's time, would trading time work?  I do have a concern you're allowing D too much "Decision Making" while knowing her mother is influencing it.  Yes, she is older and should have a little more freedom to make decisions in her life but she probably would be happy for DH or you to still keep some limits in place.

I recall when my ex and I got our temp orders.  Twice, the first was for our protection orders and the second was for the divorce.  Well, silly me, when she would call and ask to trade time, I agreed.  But I learned quickly that her idea of a trade was to get my time first then when my traded time from her rolled around, she denied ever making a trade.

Regarding traded time... .  Get it in writing.  In the early days my ex would seek to make a trade and then fail to comply with my side of the trade.  So for the first couple years I had to make sure any traded times were in writing and started with me getting my time first.  This may not apply for a teenager, but that's what worked when my son was young.

So, would trading time work, allowing flexibility without losing what time you do have?  "D, it's nice that your mother wants to do that but we did have plans.  While we also want to wrap many of our activities to include both you girls, we can take your sister with us today.  Would you come over another day on your mother's time ("trade") so we still get to do something with you?"

Addendum... .Yes, I'm that jaded.

[isharcanis]

Addendum... .Yes, I'm that jaded.

That's part of why I'm here. I need your cautions.

D14 is very cynical about her mother, describing her need for her mother's attention like a drug she can't shake. She knows her mother doesn't love her - or at least not like a mother should so it's painful to not be able to stop yourself from loving her. I can see her trying to take advantage of the rare moments when her mother pays attention to her. My concern was that mom would choose to be nice mostly during our visitation.

Also, it had been only a week since the incident where she got into d14's phone and accused me of trying to get her to tell me things about mom. This was seen as a betrayal, siding with me over mom. D14 may have been trying to make up for that. It's hard to know.

Other than writing about it on here, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it unless it happens again. If she asks on our next weekend, then I'll question her. She's used to my questions because I've had to work to get her to tell me the truth, not what she thought I or someone else wanted to hear.

On a good note: D11 has been asserting herself more. Friday night she sent her dad out of the room to talk to me but quickly brought him back to tell him the same thing. It used to be a big deal to transfer that openness to him. Before they left yesterday, she wanted to talk to D14 about their room. D11 is, by nature, messier and less consistent than D14. They had their own rooms until the divorce so this conflict is new. Two children who watched their parents fight all day every day sat in my living room and respectfully discussed this. At first D11 started to cry but stopped after I added a talking stick. No one yelled. No one was insulting. I hope they can do this as adults. D11 chose to do this in front of us which makes me feel like she saw this as a place where she would be supported.

[ForeverDad]

D14 is very cynical about her mother, describing her need for her mother's attention like a drug she can't shake.

The word that popped into my thoughts was Dysfunctional.  A synonym is Unhealthy.  However, it is also an inborn tendency as well, a natural one for a child regarding the parent.  Over time she will have to learn — and Accept — the limits to her mother's parenting ability, and build appropriate framework boundaries and expectations.

[isharcanis]

She knows that her mom doesn't really love her and is cruel to her. She's just not yet able to shut off the emotions. DH feels sorry for mom because she's losing the opportunity to have relationships with her children. I have no clue how D11 will end up.

Sometimes when they do things like D14 did this weekend, he goes into a minor flashback and is convinced he's going to lose his relationship with his kids (frequent threat of his uBPD ex). Although he's glad they are talking, he gets a little worried that they communicate with me and not him. I keep telling him that when they are 25 years old, they will remember who was kind to them and who did things for them. They know that scary dad was a creation of mom and that mom was still unstable and cruel after the divorce. Even during the marriage D14 figured out that mom was starting the fights.