xBPDw is itching for a fight

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

Our custody order states Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter week be split 50/50. This has not been a problem for three years now. When the holiday was an odd number of days ex suggested that we rotate each year so one of us has an extra day every other year. That worked fine for three years. Well this year ex is demanding that I have one day and she has four. I am very careful about following the court order and have only changed one thing without going to the courts. I did email ex about it when I did it. S14's grades were slipping and I decided the only way to help was to stop taking him to karate on my custodial time because that was the only time I had to work with him. This happened two months ago and his grades have all gone up significantly and they are still improving so I have no intention to change things right now. I do not believe any judge would object to my decision. Ex has taken him just once this year to karate and I am still taking him on my weekends. I have documentation. To top it off ex actually pays for his karate !

Looking for ideas on how to resolve this with ex. I am thinking of telling her in an email when I will be picking him up and that it follows the court order. I will show up but not before the police are contacted and with me. Any other ideas out there.

[david]

Our custody order states Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter week be split 50/50. This has not been a problem for three years now. When the holiday was an odd number of days ex suggested that we rotate each year so one of us has an extra day every other year. That worked fine for three years. Well this year ex is demanding that I have one day and she has four. I am very careful about following the court order and have only changed one thing without going to the courts. I did email ex about it when I did it. S14's grades were slipping and I decided the only way to help was to stop taking him to karate on my custodial time because that was the only time I had to work with him. This happened two months ago and his grades have all gone up significantly and they are still improving so I have no intention to change things right now. I do not believe any judge would object to my decision. Ex has taken him just once this year to karate and I am still taking him on my weekends. I have documentation. To top it off ex actually pays for his karate !

Looking for ideas on how to resolve this with ex. I am thinking of telling her in an email when I will be picking him up and that it follows the court order. I will show up but not before the police are contacted and with me. Any other ideas out there.

[ForeverDad]

Exceptions are hard to deal with, the ex will seem so very reasonable and try to guilt us into being more than reasonable.  Yet there is high risk such consideration won't be reciprocated when we want something.  How about this?

We will be following the order and the procedure we have used for the past few years when a holiday period involved an odd number of days, that is, alternate who gets the odd day.

However, if you have a special arrangement, such as needing additional time to travel for the holiday, then you can request in writing for a one-time trade modification and set up a trade where we both agree that you will have XX days and I will have X days for this holiday period then next year we will reverse the number of days and you will have X days and I will have XX days.  Of course, if I agree and we make such a trade this year for this holiday, then it will be binding upon both of us next year when the other half of the trade is completed.

[david]

FD, I wrote the majority of our court order and it is very specific about altering things. It must be agreed to by both parties through email and once it is agreed it can not be changed unless there is an email that specifically agrees to the additional change.

I have an email ( I need to find it/this is what documentation is all about) from ex that spells out that the extra day on odd holidays is to be rotated on a yearly basis. She proposed and I agreed.

What I am trying to figure out is if there is a way to resolve this in an amicable fashion. Yea, I realize what I just said.                                                                                                      My plan is if we do not reach an agreement I will show up with police (for my protection from false allegations and documentation) and if she refuses I will have to file a contempt charge. I realize this won't do a thing but it's just more evidence for the future.

[DreamGirl]

Any chance at asking her:

I thought we agreed that the extra day would be alternated. (See attached email below)

Do you have something special going on? 

[ForeverDad]

I just remembered, I sometimes can't be nice and offer my ex multiple choices or it might trigger her.

[david]

She did claim she talked to the boys about an overnight vacation. She has two times to do that the way the schedule is set up. I talked to the boys yesterday just asking if they had any plans with their mom for the holiday and they both said nothing was discussed. She does these kinds of things a lot so I really didn't expect them to say yes anyway.

I sent an email today showing that her schedule is lopsided and doesn't follow the court order. I didn't say it I just pointed out the facts. In addition I offered to switch Easter completely and let her have the boys and next year they will be with me. This Easter is her normal weekend and next year it is my normal weekend so this eliminates a shortened weekend. I suspect this will trigger her but it is a reasonable offer and I believe a rational court system would agree.

[DreamGirl]

I didn't say it I just pointed out the facts. In addition I offered to switch Easter completely and let her have the boys and next year they will be with me. This Easter is her normal weekend and next year it is my normal weekend so this eliminates a shortened weekend. I suspect this will trigger her but it is a reasonable offer and I believe a rational court system would agree.

That sounds like a good guage to have!

If she is anything like the disordered soul in my life, she probably just didn't retain the prior agreement. She's usually seems to be most concerned of her best interests, so if you're kinda always looking out for your own best interests, agreements that benefit the other party as well aren't so easy to remember.  

[hell0kitty]

Ours never remembers either. When I first started dating my BF, she kept kiddo over Christmas that was Dad's year (He and I started dating just a few months before, so she was at the height of her meltdown and afraid he was going to let me around their child over his holiday).  When it was pointed out to her, she said she would let him have the following Christmas.  When that time came, she stated she "does not recall making any such agreement" and that was that.  From that point forward everything has been in writing.

[david]

All our agreements are in emails for the last three years so there is no way to change history. When she tries I just find the email and forward it. She then goes with ' "Oh, my mistake." The first time she did that I thought she had a breakthrough. That was short lived.

[AnotherPhoenix]

 

Mine also usually doesn't remember what many of our agreements are, or what happened on past Holiday. Sometimes she not only remembers wrong, but then sends me an email griping about how badly she was short-changed in a future year, when it actually was the opposite. This year, I got a very nasty email about how she didn't get to see S8 on Christmas day last year, when she had him all of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning! I, like all of you, try to keep all communication by email (which she hates), so that I have a record of things. I've learned to keep all of it, because so many times I have been amazed at what is falsely stated and twisted around!

I still am amazed at how one-sided (her way) her proposals often are, and how crazy her claims are. Her original proposal for "splitting" Spring Break was this: stbex has S8 from Friday night thru Tuesday afternoon; I have S8 from Wednesday evening through Friday afternoon; then stbex has S8 from Friday night through Sunday. When I emailed her stating that the split didn't seem 50/50 to me and gave her one that was 50/50, she stated that she "gave me a weekend".  

But then, like you state about your ex, when I point these things out, she just says "I'm sorry", or "I didn't mean it that way".

David, I get uncomfortable when my BPDw does something that is "nice". I keep an open mind, but I also turn up my awareness and get mentally prepared. And yes, I think each time my wife was "nice" this year, there was something she wanted from me or was trying to cover up.

Stay strong and sticking with your instincts!

AnotherPheonix     

[GaGrl]

What happened to your parenting coordinator?

[david]

Our parent coordinator was court ordered for two years and that ended about 6 months ago. How time flies by when you are having fun. The majority of the issues that were brought up with the pc were from ex and the majority of rulings followed my recommendations. However, that cost 2,500 each and since I didn't use the pc (I believe it was twice) I really don't want to throw all that money down that pit anymore. Our first meeting with the pc went well and I thought this might be a solution. I remember the pc stopping ex and saying that she didn't care for passive/aggressive stuff and if it didn't stop she would go to the judge and have primary custody changed. The passive/ aggressive never stopped (it still goes on) and the pc never did anything about it. I am so used to it I don't even acknowledge it or react.

[Matt]

The communication approach that works for me - after I tried several others - looks like this:

"I will pick up the kids at 9:00 a.m. Saturday 3/23 and return them at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday March 26."

The reason this works is that it states what I will do.  Then I do it.  It does not require agreement or ideas from the other party.

If the other party has a good reason to prefer a different schedule, she can easily respond,

"I was hoping to take the kids to Event at noon on Sunday 3/24."

Ideally, she would add, "So how about if you pick them up at 2:00 Sunday 3/24 and return them at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday 3/27?"  But she doesn't.  It falls to me to make a revised commitment (note that word!) that will work for both of us:

"OK, I'll pick them up at 2:00 p.m. Sunday 3/24 and return them at 6:00 p.m. Wednesday 3/27."

Each note from me is a commitment - what I will do.  Not a proposal for discussion, not a request for her ideas, not a chat.

Oh and I usually either cc: the kids (now 14 and 16) or I let them know by text or phone what is going on, so they are ready to go.

If their mom ever tried to block this - if it was possibly an honest mistake, I'd roll with the flow.

But if it was clear that she was blocking my parenting time, then I would take other action:

"I will be there to pick up the kids tomorrow at 2:00.  If you keep them from coming with me, you will be in violation of our court order, and I will take appropriate actions immediately."  In the form of a "boundary" - not an order or a request, but a statement what I will do - "If you do X, I will do Y."  (And then you have to follow through!)