School uniforms

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

This one is new... .uBPDbm is claiming we are hoarding all of my SO's D8's school uniforms at our house and demands that we return them. We sent her a detailed list of the ones of hers we have and the ones of ours she has and offered to exchange them. She won't let up. She claims D8 has zero uniforms at her house because they're all here and demands them to be sent back.   Do we pick her up from school fully clothed and then send her back naked? Is that how this hoarding has happened?

Sometimes... .I just don't get it.

[Thunderstruck]

This one is new... .uBPDbm is claiming we are hoarding all of my SO's D8's school uniforms at our house and demands that we return them. We sent her a detailed list of the ones of hers we have and the ones of ours she has and offered to exchange them. She won't let up. She claims D8 has zero uniforms at her house because they're all here and demands them to be sent back.   Do we pick her up from school fully clothed and then send her back naked? Is that how this hoarding has happened?

Sometimes... .I just don't get it.

[DreamGirl]

Sometimes... .I just don't get it.

It's frustrating.

You're trying to rationalize this for her by sending her a list of who has what. It's the hardest part of this - you can't neutralize this by showing her that she's wrong. Or by coming up with solutions that won't work - like sending her to school naked.

How else can you bring resolution to the problem?

Can more uniforms be purchased so that she has more then enough?

Is there even a problem?

Maybe mom is having a bad day?

Also, a rule of thumb in stepfamilies is that the kids' clothes are their clothes. Not Mom's. Not Dad's. I wouldn't get in the habit of deeming "Mom's clothes" or "our clothes" - it puts a lot of stress on the kiddo to make sure which clothes goes where. Studies have showed just how much the kids struggled with that kind of polarization.

-DG

[Matt]

What if you just ignore this?

[david]

When xBPDw left in 2007 she took all our kids clothes. She literally emptied the house of everything. I went to Walmart (boys were 8 and 5 at the time) and purchased a shopping cart of clothes. Over a period of time I noticed all their new clothes were gone and all I had was clothes with holes, stains, or ones that didn't fit. I purchased a bunch more.

From that point on I made sure the boys left with the clothes they came with. That worked well.

Last year, after several weeks, I noticed I didn't have any underwear for him. I realized ex was sending him out without any when I was picking him up. I bought new underwear. I talked to him and explained he must have underwear whenever he gets dressed.

I never communicated with ex about any of this because that would have been a waste of time. It isn't always easy to find ways around the nonsense but I have found that works best.

[PM720]

Oh man the funny thing is I just went through this. Every time if think my situation is unique someone shares an experience and I'm thinking "yup, been through that."  I had told my ex that she had all the kids uniforms and to please bring them the next day. I got lit into about how "she didn't have them and I needed to be more responsible, that the uniforms were expensive and how I'm not a responsible dad." The next say she brings a bag over with every single one of their uniforms. Not one apology for being a jack ass. Didn't say one word about it.

Maybe you could write your initials on the tags and have the kids bring them back?  I don't know if that is getting them too involved. Maybe you want to avoid that. I am going through the same thing now and it's a bit tricky.

[PM720]

Oh man the funny thing is I just went through this. Every time if think my situation is unique someone shares an experience and I'm thinking "yup, been through that."  I had told my ex that she had all the kids uniforms and to please bring them the next day. I got lit into about how "she didn't have them and I needed to be more responsible, that the uniforms were expensive and how I'm not a responsible dad." The next say she brings a bag over with every single one of their uniforms. Not one apology for being a jack ass. Didn't say one word about it.

Maybe you could write your initials on the tags and have the kids bring them back?  I don't know if that is getting them too involved. Maybe you want to avoid that. I am going through the same thing now and it's a bit tricky.

I take it back. Don't involve them. It would probably really stress them out. Sorry you're going through this. Good luck