co parenting: Can things ever get better?

[OneStepAtaTime]

It has been a long 5 years of co parenting and we  to have finally found a happy middle.my fear is has she found another target or its a ticking time bomb. She has a boyfriend for 2 years and is planing to buy a house with him i just hope that shes done manipulating my ex and alienating my kids I feel like shes to busy being angry and her boyfriends ex wife. Does it ever get better or its just a temporary thing? It has been going good for about less than a year. Longest before that was 3 weeks. I need insight so I can either keep my guard up for start building a better relationship with my husband's ex wife

[kells76]

Hi OneStepAtaTime;

Sounds like you've had some ups and downs with 5 years of coparenting. My husband has 2 daughters, and I can relate to how 5 years of trying to work together with an uncooperative mom can seem like 5000 years.

Our situation is a little unique in that Mom's new husband (well, new to her right after the divorce) has hugely enabled and encouraged a lot of the dysfunction. What is your kids' mom's partner like?

I'm glad you've had smooth-ish sailing for a year. Those "breaks" can be helpful for sanity and rest. Sounds like you still have the feeling of "but now the other shoe is going to drop". Right there with you.

Do you have a counselor, therapist, or another professional like that with whom you can talk? Someone who you trust who sees through the BS?

The kids have a counselor who has been great. She has met with all 4 adults involved. She has helped me get a perspective on the whole situation and a feel for if it's going to keep getting better, get worse, or stay the same. (In our situation, she thinks that unless Stepdad deals with his issues, we will be in stasis for a while -- a lot better than the Bad Years, but still not super).

Again, welcome, and let us know more about where you're at and how the kids are doing.

[livednlearned]

either keep my guard up for start building a better relationship with my husband's ex wife

What has your relationship been like, and what's it like at the moment?

[OneStepAtaTime]

The boyfriend of my husband's ex is a bit unpredictable he kicked then out 2 year ago in the middle of the night in a snow storm where her parents house was 1.5 hours away. The since then got back together and things have been great since we don't accept what he has done everyone makes mistakes but I wonder if now they baught a house she won't feel the need to be as nice because it's her place too and can't get kicked out. I want things to continue getting better  I am scared they will eventually go back to being the way they were for now her target is her boyfriends ex wife and she claims a lot of things about her and her drama is more focused on that. We just want to keep moving forward dbut shes so unpredictable

[Ulysses]

We just want to keep moving forward dbut shes so unpredictable

A few years ago I realized the predictable thing about my exH is that he is so unpredictable.

Coming to that realization helped me a little bit.  The unpredictability, coupled with often chaos-inducing actions, can keep us focused on them, and can upend parts of our world when we are affected by them.

[Panda39]

Hi OneStepAtaTime,

I agree with Ulysses, the ex is going to do what she is going to do.  As much as you'd like to you can't control her the only people we can control is ourselves.  This site can be really helpful with tools, and strategies when negotiating life with the ex when things are bad, but right now things are good so enjoy it.  Try and focus on now and try to stop focusing on a future that hasn't happened yet.  Trying to figure her out, trying to anticipate what she will do, and stressing about those things is not helpful to you... .it only creates stress... .anxiety.  Hopefully you will find the information below helpful...


TOOLS: US: Do not allow others to 'rent space' in your 'head'

Many of us have been habitually "renting out" the precious space in our minds to totally undeserving, and sometimes quite malicious, people for many years. So long, in fact, that it can actually be very tough to simply "turn off" this type of ultra-self-defeating behavior after all this time and practice. This gives others a considerable amount of emotional power and control over us. Don't let them rent space in your head! Read more.

https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=74749.0

Panda39

[OneStepAtaTime]

You guys are so right. I need to learn how to not think in the future i always seem to be on the defensive because i cant predict her behaviour but today is today and we will deal with tomorrow tomorrow

[kells76]

I can get frustrated when the kids' mom and stepdad don't meet the expectations I have for behavior -- which seem like pretty normal expectations (remembering the parenting schedule, not making last-minute plans over ours, checking in on the kids' schoolwork when kids are with mom, doing their laundry, etc).

On the one hand, those aren't unreasonable expectations (I'm pretty sure). But what would be unreasonable would be for me to look at the history of Mom's behavior, have that data, and STILL hold the expectation bar pretty high. That's when it becomes MY problem. Instead of calibrating my expectations about Mom to match the data of reality (she sometimes succeeds but forgets a lot of stuff), I try to force Mom's behavior to match my fantasy of health and competence, and then I get upset. And that's on me.

So, it's not an unkind thing for us to radically change our expectations about someone else's behavior to match their track record. Like Ulysses said, sometimes the predictable thing is that those folks are unpredictable (or unreliable, or fragile, or brittle, or forgetful, or whatever). When we change our expectations to match reality, it can be a rational, kind thing to do.

For example, with my DH's mom, it's hard for her to look back at the past and accept responsibility for some of her parenting choices (yeah, when DH married his uBPDxw, he kinda married his mom, but that's another story). DH used to beat his head against the wall trying to "make" her face it. She got really defensive, "I didn't do anything wrong", her husband started intervening ("stop attacking your mother", all that. When DH realized that a relationship with his mom meant accepting that she was severely limited in her ability to take responsibility, and that it was kind of HIS problem for not recognizing that, things got better. She still probably won't really look at the past in a deep way. But spending time with them is more relaxed. I've also accepted that DH's mom and husband are great at having a fun time. So that's what we do when we're together, and that's my expectation for what they're able to do. We have fun party times together and that's how we can have a relationship and relate. I don't expect deep conversations because they can't go there.

Anyway, long story short, my perspective is that it isn't always a bad thing to radically lower the bar for what we think someone can do, especially if it matches their character and choices over time.

Hope this helps or is some food for thought;

kells76

[bus boy]

In my situation, Xw is reliable in her parenting, s11 always has his homework done, he's a high 80's-90's mark average, his laundry is always done, he's clean, well looked after, s11 is always ready when I go pick him up but Xw is completely unreasonable to deal with. She never sends back his clothes or lunch dishes. I've stopped sending him home with clothes from my house or to school with lunch dishes. Any request on my behalf to make changes in access is met with such crazy making or not responded to at all. If I miss time due to sickness or weather, she completely refuses to make up the time. S11 and I were going to a hockey game, s11 was excited because his favorite team was playing and it was there only game that close to us for the rest of the season, I asked to change pick up time 1 hour early and was met with crazy. Nothing is really unpredictable, Xw is a constant terrible person to co parent with and I know when she's nice she is still a terrible person so I expect nothing from her ever except ignorance.

[ForeverDad]

In my situation... .Any request on my behalf to make changes in access is met with such crazy making or not responded to at all. If I miss time due to sickness or weather, she completely refuses to make up the time. S11 and I were going to a hockey game, s11 was excited because his favorite team was playing and it was there only game that close to us for the rest of the season, I asked to change pick up time 1 hour early and was met with crazy. Nothing is really unpredictable, Xw is a constant terrible person to co parent with... .

I had a few thoughts for bus boy's post... .
She sees herself as the controller, the dictator, the Authority.  It appears that won't change... .if left up to her.  Do you expect to return to court on any pending issues?  Frankly, regardless what she thinks, court is The Real Authority.  Odds are that court will be at least somewhat "less unfair" than she is.  If you appear in court reporting an assortment of issues, at least some of them will be dealt with.  I recall one time appearing in court during my divorce with a neatly typed list of 11 issues for my attorney.  My big mistake was grouping them by topic, not priority.  We did get a few addressed but ran out of time for the rest.  I was so bummed out that I hadn't listed them by priority.  Learn from my lesson, major issues first.

If/when you appear in court you can list her refusal to be reasonable in adjusting the schedule.  Courts know things happen and the schedule needs to be somewhat flexible.  Court doesn't expect you to get every request, but not getting any request ought to catch the court's attention.  Be careful that when you make a request you also include an offer for makeup time.  For example, if you request an early pickup then offer for a future pickup to be an hour later, or something similar.  Then save those communications, your request and her response, as documentation.  If you say to court "she always... ." without supporting documentation of dates, events and other details then it will be perceived as too vague and therefore something like hearsay.  If you tell court "In the last 6 months (9 months, or year) I have asked in advance and in writing (letter, email or text) for adjustment to the schedule for events and other parenting matters and she has refused without basis {virtually} every time, which is unreasonable and contrary to the spirit of co-parenting."

Does she ask for (or make unilateral) changes that benefit her?  Then is might be possible that you respond "I'm sorry, you have refused the last ___ requests I have made for reasonable one-time changes to the schedule I have requested.  Due to that, I cannot agree to you changing the schedule to your parenting-time benefit while you are not granting me changes I have requested."  Then if she ignores you and you fail to get an exchange, you can call the police for the officer to come and write a report and with that report you can file a Contempt of Court case in family court.  Of course, check with your lawyer first on how to approach that.  Also, understand that the first few times Contempts will be treated like parking tickets, maybe the ex will get a mild education on not doing this again, maybe not.  After a few times the court will start getting peeved, hopefully at her.  That's why your communications have to contain more than a simple request or a simple refusal.  You ought to offer some similar time to exchange or if you refuse her request you have to include a reason the court will view as appropriate.  Write as though your lawyer and the judge is watching over your shoulder.

Understand that if you do end up in court, this can raise the level of conflict.  Ex will likely have an "extinction burst" trying to shock you into retreating back into the past normal, for her.

I agree with Ulysses and Panda, the ex is going to do what she is going to do.  As much as you'd like to you can't control her, the only people we can control is ourselves, that is, what we choose to have as our boundaries and how we address violations of said boundaries.