Time with the kids

[dtkm]

I am looking for advice on what to do…my uBPDh and I are not currently allowed to live together, I would go into it further, but would rather not since we are in the middle of his court case. As mentioned, we have 5 kids, 2 together, 2 biologically mine and1 biologically his. My stepdaughter’s mom knows how he is, asks no questions and just sends my stepdaughter to his place at the scheduled time and whenever he wants her. He pays her what he owes her in child support and that is it. When my h was forced to move out, I became responsible for all 4 kids 100% of the time. I will tell my h about my kids activities, etc and sometimes he shows up and others he doesn’t. He doesn’t pay a single penny for them and has left it to me, I make about half of what he makes, except on the rare occasion when he is Disney dad. Our deal was that he would pay the mortgage no matter what, and that is late each month. My h texts me about once every other week saying that his kids need to see him, which I agree, as long as his mood is stable. So I invite him to something everyday and when asked send our schedule for the week and sometimes he goes and sometimes he doesn’t. When I send our schedule he always chooses to do things together as a family on that day.  I have tried twice to try to arrange for the kids to sleep over at his place every Sunday night, but he keeps agreeing and then saying we will start that at xyz date and then forgets about it. This morning I asked him to help me with meeting my son before school on days that I have to work. He agreed and then later responded that he needs to see his kids alone. I am trying to schedule that!  Which I told him, though I did give him examples of each day this past week that I offered and he refused…but he told me he is not going to see any of us if there is tension and he is not going to wait on his son to finish his video game to talk on the phone with him (his son started the video game because he was waiting on his dad to know if it was an ok time to call and I didn’t even know that there was tension between us!). I don’t know what to do!  He often chooses one thing to hold over my head until I “take that thing away” (ie he used to complain that I wouldn’t sign the car title over to him so he could get a new car and he would do the same to me as that would apparently solve all of lives problems but I told him I would do so and he has not brought it up again, and I haven’t actually signed the car over to him yet!) ugh!!  Any thoughts would be appreciated!!

[RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING]

RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM SOLVING This is a high level discussion board for solving ongoing, day-to-day relationship conflicts. Members are welcomed to express frustration but must seek constructive solutions to problems. This is not a place for relationship "stay" or "leave" discussions. Please read the specific guidelines for this group.

[dtkm]

To further expand on this…I have also asked him to help pick the kids up from school, he can’t he has to work; I have asked him to help me find daycare, he won’t because since he pays the mortgage I should have to pay for childcare so he doesn’t want anything to do with the childcare; I have asked him to support all of the kids not just his biological kids and it depends on the day as to his answer; I have told him that the kids are struggling, that I have to be on the phone for an hour with my son while I am at work trying to calm him down to get him to go to school; he tells me thanks for the update. I don’t know what to do!

[dtkm]

Another update, on Sunday my uNPDh asked me to send times when we could hangout as a family and times when he could hangout with the kids. I sent him our schedule for the week His response was I can do any day after work but Wednesday.  I responded, you choose, Tuesday/Thursday is probably the easiest for us. No response. 24 hours later I get, let’s all hangout together on Tuesday. So we meet at the park tonight. He is clearly in his not good mood. Our kids are excited to see him, so am I. He ignores me and goes to play with the kids…took him a little bit to include my daughter but he eventually did. I played with whatever kid he was not, then cheered for the kids while he was playing with them after about 40 minutes he started to say bye to the kids. Way shorter hangout time than I thought!  He then turns to me and says so when am I going to get the kids on Thursday. It threw me off since we hadn’t planned anything. I told him we have parent teacher conferences on Thursday, my original plan was to grab ice cream or something like that together to celebrate the kids hard work, but nothing had even been mentioned between the 2 of us about Thursday. My daughter, his stepdaughter was standing right there and I said can you please include all 3 kids when you try to make plans, to which he tells me that I don’t invite my stepdaughter anywhere, I have given up because after asking so many times if she can join us and getting no each time, I gave up, plus she can barely say hi to me when her dad is around. He then gives her a hug and walks away saying that he might not go to the parent teacher conferences if I don’t let him have the kids after that I can deal with that on my own. I told him that is fine, he can choose how involved he wants to be with his kids. Then I went back to playing with the kids and he walked off. I am stuck, my kids do want to spend time with him and I want that for them, but I worry as I have seen how he has treated my stepdaughter during these times. My plan on the way over to the park was to offer for the 3 kids to sleepover his place  on Saturday night ten hangout with him for the day as I have to work on Sunday so it nice for my older kids to not have to babysit. But his crap tonight tells me not to do that!  I want really badly to split up responsibilities for all of the kids, but that means he would have to take a child to school, to sports, etc and not just take them to his place and have them watch tv. It also means that he needs to step
It up on his responsibilities, like paying the mortgage on time each month. I know that I need to go at this with love, but would love some suggestions on how to say this as just saying it won’t work!  Thanks!

[Notwendy]

I think it is clear that your H's feelings- he says he wants time with the kids, don't match up with his ability to be responsible. Of course he wants what he wants. We all do, but many of our wants are linked to responsibilities. We want money- of course we do, but to have money we have to also go to work.

Of course your H wants to play with the kids, and the kids want to play with him. But older kids learn - if you want to play, you need to do your homework first.

There's also consequences. If you don't go to work, you lose your job, you don't get the money. If you don't do your homework, you don't get to go play.

I think you get the idea here. Just because your H wants something, doesn't mean he gets it if he isn't responsible with the kids. This isn't punishment, it's the natural consequences. You also can't make him be something he's not. Seems he's not able to keep up with his responsibilities. If talking to him about him being responsible worked, it would have already worked. There's nothing to say to him to make him do something if he himself isn't going to be responsible.

Your role is to take care of your kids, regardless. They can't do this for themselves. Your H may be the kids' father but he's not a reliable person.

IMHO, I think one approach to this is to invite your H on some family activities but to not rely on him to do anything. Maybe he will show up, maybe he won't. Choose activities like going to the park, where if he's there or not, it won't make a difference in what you are doing there. Don't tell the kids ahead of time he's invited. If he shows up, they will be excited to see him. If he doesn't show, they won't have expected him.

Yes, he should be more responsible but you can't make him do that. It may seem that you are "doing his job" if you take over his responsibilities and not rely on him for that,  but you are not doing this for him, you are doing this for the kids.

[kells76]

Communication with disordered individuals can be tricky... but not impossible, as long as we are willing to make some powerful changes on our end.

The sense I get is that you communicate with him "assuming" he will be reasonable:

on Sunday my uNPDh asked me to send times when we could hangout as a family and times when he could hangout with the kids. I sent him our schedule for the week His response was I can do any day after work but Wednesday.  I responded, you choose, Tuesday/Thursday is probably the easiest for us. No response. 24 hours later I get, let’s all hangout together on Tuesday. So we meet at the park tonight. He is clearly in his not good mood. Our kids are excited to see him, so am I. He ignores me and goes to play with the kids…took him a little bit to include my daughter but he eventually did. I played with whatever kid he was not, then cheered for the kids while he was playing with them after about 40 minutes he started to say bye to the kids. Way shorter hangout time than I thought!  He then turns to me and says so when am I going to get the kids on Thursday. It threw me off since we hadn’t planned anything. I told him we have parent teacher conferences on Thursday, my original plan was to grab ice cream or something like that together to celebrate the kids hard work, but nothing had even been mentioned between the 2 of us about Thursday.

With "generally normal" families, you can communicate that way: he asks for you to send times, then you send options, and a "typical" person would pick an option in advance so that you both can plan your lives and you aren't left waiting.

Being left waiting for pwBPD to get back to you puts the power in their hands and leaves you unable to plan ahead.

It's good that when you sent the week's schedule, he did respond with specifics that would work for him, and it's good that you were cordial and offered Tuesday or Thursday. That is positive.

Getting no response is very difficult. Fortunately that is simple to change  

The way to tweak that would be:

Instead of:

"you choose, Tuesday/Thursday is probably the easiest for us."

try:

"you choose, Tuesday/Thursday is probably the easiest for us -- just let me know by 5pm on Monday. If I don't hear back by then, I'll assume neither works for you, and the kids will make other plans for those days."

Building in a deadline is important... even more so is building in what you will do if he chooses not to reply.

I had to do this with my H's kids' mom; otherwise, she would never have gotten back to me about some stuff.

I would text "hey, SD16 has an opportunity to do X from 5-6pm on Thursday. Does that work for your schedule? If I don't hear back by Wednesday, I'll assume we're good to go, and I'll pick her up and drop her off at your place. Thanks; kells76".

That got responses much more then "Is it OK with you if I ___________?"

...

Notwendy's approach could also be good for your situation: let him know when you and the kids will be doing an activity and that he's welcome to join, but don't tell the kids "Oh yeah, Dad said he'd be there".

You may be able to do a hybrid of both approaches -- keep the door open for him to engage with the kids by letting him know about "open" family activities, and also build in deadlines and "non-response" responses to other communications, so you aren't left waiting on him.

This puts the power back in your hands to move on with your life.

[dtkm]

Thank you both for the advice. I decided to follow what we had originally talked about, setting up a schedule that we could follow each week for time that he had with the kids, time together as a family and time just the 2 of us. I sent him a text pretty much asking him if he would like to be in charge of our S7’s basketball, taking him to practice Wednesday evenings,, helping to coach only if he wanted and taking him to the team activities. I told him it would just be him and our son and he could have our d4 too there if he wanted,  I told him that he could take the kids on Sundays, but he had to agree to take my daughter/his stepdaughter too. I told him that I work the next 2 Sundays so drop off would have to be earlier, but whenever after that is fine. I also said that I was going to start taking the kids to the park on Tuesdays and we would love to do a family night at the park if he wanted to join us. He told me that all sounded good except he asked to change our park nights to Thursday as he has therapy on Tuesdays. I agreed!  I thought all was good…I have taken that one off the table, as our son has basketball games on Friday night, so he would see the kids 4 days a week, twice alone, and more if he asked us to hang out. I also felt good as I felt like I was giving him a responsibility and for the family nights I wouldn’t tell the kids he was going to be there just in case. I also asked if I could get my stepdaughter’s basketball schedule as the kids and I would like to support her and that my d10 would love to hangout with my stepdaughter sometime. He responded well, happy for the days and to be in charge of basketball. He then asked if we could look at a day for sleepover sometime but completely ignored his responsibilities with my daughter and answering anything about my stepdaughter. He was friendly last night and this morning. He then had court this afternoon. I usually hear from him afterwards but nothing. We had the kids parent teacher conferences. He didn’t show up, so I did them by myself. I then get the following text
Hope you all have a good night. Please let me know when the kids can spend the night over.
If I’m going to assist with driving the kids and showing up at events I need to spend time with them without you always being there.
Thanks!!!
Ugh!  First I just offered you 2 days alone with them. Second, I have offered an over night twice, the first time I was told it was too much and the second time I was told we could plan it after his next court date (that one was over a month ago).  Third, if you want to see your kids wouldn’t you take every opportunity to do so, to support them no matter what to show them how much they mean to you. It makes no sense to me!!  I can’t win…I offer time and I get told that it isn’t enough, I offer overnights and I get told we can schedule that later. I could probably offer them again right now and he may schedule them but I feel like that is giving in to him. Any advice is appreciated. Our son”s birthday is on Saturday so I have to see him then so I am trying to keep the peace. My thought for the night was to respond saying we can talk about additional time on top of the 2 times a week that you have the kids alone, another time when conversations are calmer. Thoughts

[Notwendy]

It makes no sense to me!!  I can’t win…I offer time and I get told that it isn’t enough, I offer overnights and I get told we can schedule that later. I could probably offer them again right now and he may schedule them but I feel like that is giving in to him.

IMHO-No, you aren't going to win on this one, but the real "losers" are the kids if they are thinking their father is going to show up and he doesn't.

What he is doing doesn't make sense to you because, distorted thinking doesn't make sense.

If this is a win- lose endeavor, this doesn't work. The Karpman triangle dynamics helped me to understand this better. If the perception is "victim" then this is the choice of position. You offer time with the kids, your H changes plans, then says "he doesn't have time with the kids".

To "get off the triangle", IMHO, you have to change your expectations of him. You might as well at least try this,  since what you have been doing isn't working. When you have an agreement with him to spend time with the kids, he may not show up anyway so why have the expectation?

The main focus is the kids. They need a reliable parent. You know he doesn't follow through. You be the reliable parent. You can invite him to participate but don't rely on him or tell the kids. If he shows up, then he does, and if he doesn't then he doesn't.

He's an adult and if he wants to see the kids, he will decide this for himself. If you try to exert any control or expectations for what he should be doing, you and the kids may be disappointed. Let him be responsible (or not) for his own showing up.

[dtkm]

Thank you NotWendy, I am willing to try anything different, I guess I just don’t understand what it is you are suggesting. Please correct me if I’m wrong, I should try inviting him to activities but not let the kids know that he will be there and have a very low expectation myself that he will show up?  If he does, great, if he doesn’t no one will really notice. I don’t give him the “alone” time that he is asking for with the kids until he can prove that he can show up for them?  What do I do when I get the texts of why won’t you give me my kids alone without you? And what do I do when my kids tell me that dad told them when they come over to his place without mom he will take them to this amazing park and buy them ice cream, etc. I am there for my kids 100% of the time, with the exception of the rare time that I can’t take it from him any longer and I break down, but I do not do this in front of the kids. I have set up a back up for each of the days I have asked him if he wants to help out, I know I can’t count on him. I have gotten the kids involved with as many outside people that I can, trying to show them some sort of normalcy.

[Notwendy]

It's good that you are there for the kids and have back up plans. Unfortunately, you can't control what your H does or says to them. I think it's great that you are providing "normal" for them and also involving other people. My father did this for us too and it made a big difference. It didn't change my BPD mother's behavior but it did make a difference to have consistent and reliable adults in our lives. You are doing the best you can with your part in this.

What is going on with your H is drama with you, and the kids are an extension of it. Look at this statement: he says "you don't give me alone time with the kids". This is victim language, blaming you for his neglect of spending time witht the kids. But this isn't your responsibility to fix this for him. If he wants to spend time with the kids, he can take action.

Compare this to if someone said "I'd like to spend some time with the kids. I can pick them up Tuesday after school if this works for you" and then showing up. This is being responsible for his own time with the kids if he was responsible. But don't say this to him, this is just for your own recognition of responsible behavior. He isn't doing this. Don't expect this from him.

Yes, invite him but don't expect him and also don't tell the kids. He's going to do or say whatever to them, you can't control his part in it. If he says "you won't give me alone time with them" that is drama, blame, and victim speak. I'd say "it's unfortunate you feel this way. We are going to the park this afternoon if you'd like to join us" and then- stop the discussion because a "you don't give me" intro is an invitation to JADE.

He may continue to blame you but you can't change his thinking. Just do what you need to do for the kids, invite him if you wish, and don't engage in the blame drama.

[dtkm]

I know not to expect anything, but it is so frustrating. Yesterday was our 7s birthday. He wanted to go to the pool, so I asked my h is he wanted to meet us there. He did and he showed up with my SD. We all had fun, though my h was a little standoffish. The kids asked to go with him after, to which he told them they should go with me since our youngest would need to sleep (he can’t get her to sleep easily) and then said to them we have all day tomorrow to hang out. I asked him what he wanted to do about the kids going to his house and he asked if I could drop them off on my way to work, 6:30 am
Ish. The kids keep asking to go to dads and I said it was fine as long as our youngest slept. If he is in a stable mood I am ok with him having them. When I stopped back to give him
clothes for the kids to change into he mentioned that he had to drive around forever to get our into sleep seeming frustrated. At dinner we were meeting at a restaurant to celebrate our son. We get there and my h is on his way to ignoring me. He interacted with others, but pretty much ignored me. He then said that he thinks the kids should sleep in and he would pick the kids up at 8:30-9 instead. He knows the kids get up between 6 and 7….but im sure wanted to go to the gym first, as thats more important than seeing the kids you claim you can never see right!  The night ends and he can barely even look at me to say  bye to me. The morning rolls around. I text him at7 to let him know that I am at work and that I have told the kids you will be there and their bag is packed. When I am not at home I have to talk to the kids every hour ish to keep them
Ok. It had been over an hour since I last talked to them and it was 9:30 so I text my daughter. She doesn’t respond, so I text him to see if he has the kids. He does, but of course couldn’t let me know he picked them up. I text my daughter as I am
Leaving work and she tells me that they are I the way home to our house. I was confused!  He has said that he was going to have them all day to their faces, plus why give them back early if you feel like you never see them. My daughter calls cause my youngest is upset because she thought that she would be there all day, but he has promised her he would take her on Tuesday. He them texts me to tell me that he just dropped the kids off. I tell him that I am confused as I had thought that you said that you wanted them all day so of course our daughter is upset. He says he can’t take them all day cause he has to work and he never said all day and I need to give him an over night and not just time that helps me out and…I started to type my response which was full of JADE…then erased it as said I am sorry you feel that way. And then I invited my stepdaughter over so she didn’t have to sit there while he worked. I got a love on the text, he will never allow her over here without him as she might see that all he has said about me isn’t true!  What do I do about Tuesday…last week he asked me to change our family park day from Tuesday to Thursday since he is moving his Wednesday therapy to Tuesday so he can take our son to practice on Wednesdays. What he told me was our daughter wants to be with him on Tuesday…when I am sure a 4 year old didn’t say that.

[dtkm]

I just realized that my h lied to about Tuesdays. He had asked me to reschedule our family park nights to Thursday instead of tuesdays as he told me he had therapy on Tuesday nights. Today he told me our daughter wants to hangout with him on Tuesday. It’s seemed fishy to me, so I looked on my stepdaughter’s school calendar and “ta da” her basketball games are on Tuesday nights. I had asked him when her games were and he ignored me. How do I go about this when he asks for our daughter on Tuesday? 

[Notwendy]

I don't have a solution. This is drama between you and your H- over the kids. Regardless of who is right or who is wrong, or who is doing the right or wrong thing- this is a topic for drama- even if it's all on his part.

Here is what I learned from my relationship with my BPD mother- I learned that putting anything that mattered to me in her hands, was a possible drama issue. I could not rely on her to follow through with agreements. I don't have experience with shared children- but my father did- and also she wasn't a reliable parent, so he either did that or got child care- even though they stayed married. I realize that the cost of child care may be unrealistic for some families. But the result is- if the parent is unreliable then, they are unreliable.

You H's actions may not make any sense to you. These requests and actions may be emotionally based and if his feelings change then so does the agreement. Same for what he says.

What I learned from my relationship with my BPD mother is that- if something is important to me, I do not put the outcome of that in her hands- at all. By following this concept- there isn't drama over who does what. There isn't disappointment if there are no expectations. This did not mean having no contact with her, it meant- having a firm boundary on what matters to me and what is hers.

It also meant not accepting offers to do something because, she could change her mind. She didn't offer to watch the kids but if she did, I would have declined. Even with any possessions. If she asked me if I wanted something and I said yes, she'd control whether I could have it or not.

The kids will ask to see Dad- they don't know any better. Your H may ask to have the kids and then change his mind - but none of this matters. It's difficult but you will have to also accept being the "bad guy" here. Yes, your H will see this from victim perspective "you are keeping his kids from him". Your kids will want to see Dad because, kids want what they want even if it's not good for them and it's not good for them to leave them with an unreliable parent.

There will be reasons, games to go to, all kinds of excuses and accusations and manipulations but, I think, until you are able to say "no more" to it, it will continue because, the drama is a part of how your H relates to people, and to you. So when your H asks to reschedule, or to take the kids, on your part it's a firm no. "this is the schedule, be there or not". This to me is the only possible solution but perhaps other posters can offer some.