As usual, you are entitled to your opinion but I disagree, completely. I am beginning to think your entire viewpoint on such matters is centered on promoting the interests of the WAS and less on the interests of the children as you may claim. You certainly seem less concerned for the LBS.
The scouting thing was a no-win situation for me. You are absolutely wrong though in assuming letting the WAW have her way was going to do anything to promote peace for my S's much less be in their best interests. That way leads down a slippery slope -- I have given her inch after inch and she takes mile after mile. If she were to claim the one remaining activity I share with my son(s) -- after losing so many others to her already, and all because she can't share like a mature, rational adult -- I might as well hang up my parenting hat for good, because she would not stop until I am completely out of the picture. How would that help my children?
Likewise, lifting the 10-mile limit as a condition of shared parenting would be a poison pill solution. It gives her the cover to say she supports shared parenting, but if she moves the children more than an hour away (as she has planned long before this bomb) then it makes the practicality of being able to share parenting 50-50 impossible. She knows that, and that's why she made the offer. Even were I to persist she would then be able to go before a judge and claim harm to our kids since I would thus be forced to drive them more than two hours per day just to commute them to and from school. I'd be an idiot to allow her to put me in that situation.
But you assume that I must be trying to control my xW and her sinful LL. That is the least of my concerns, as I know I cannot control her and I certainly don't want any responsibility for her or her outcome at all.
I understand it is best that one forgive and forget, but you can't really forgive someone if that other party is not only unrepentant but is continuing their transgressions against yourself.
Really, I am wondering just why you think the LBS should appease such people. You come off every time as the advocate for these unreasonable wayward spouses. Perhaps you just don't realize that appeasement with some people only breeds more trouble.
Maybe I missed it, but why, again, are you here on these boards?
I'm not asking you to appease your W at all, nor help out WASs. I'm trying to help YOU out. You seem to be in an (understandably) angry and reactive place. If you can take a step back and eliminate some of the emotion from your choices, you'll wind up in a better place.
I don't assume that your concern was about your XW's LL. You were the one that mentioned that concern with respect to the 10 mile limit. I said IF that was your concern, to let it go.
Now, it seems that your real concern is having the kid's school within x miles of your house and limiting the roundtrip commute time for kid swaps to under y minutes. So, rather than simply saying "no" to eliminating the 10 mile limit, my suggestion is that you instead reply with what YOU really want. The 10 mile limit is rather arbitrary. Thus, in the interests of making progress on the custody issue, you might suggest, "I am fine with eliminating the 10 mile limit as long as the kid's school is within half an hour from my house and my roundtrip commute for kid swaps is under one hour." (Or, whatever numbers work for you.) The point is to move the discussion forward and get to what really matters with respect to the 10 mile limit.
As for the scouting thing, XW had custody of your son that day. Period. Your choice to go to the scouting event cost him the opportunity to go. Period. If XW is unwilling to give up her time with son to you for scouting events, there is not much you can do about it unless you change the agreement. If you want to keep scouting limited to you and him, then you are going to interfere with his scouting. That is not going to be good for him. Try not to be jealous of XW's activities with son. You are not going to lose his love, nothing and no one could ever replace you in his life. What is important is have good quality time and creating special times together. You'll have plenty of opportunities to do with scouting AND with new things in your lives. Again, it is pretty standard for ex-spouses to avoid each other. Indeed, at this point it is probably best for your son that he not be put in the position of dealing with both parents at such an event for now and the forseeable future -- until you and XW have a clean, settled, civil, unemotional, business-only co-parenting R.
I really have no idea how XW is continuing to transgress against you, nor how she did in the past. It is irrelevant to YOUR best moves at this point, unless the kid's welfare is at stake in a way that is legally actionable. Right now the best thing you can do is focus narrowly on getting the business arrangements settled in the way that is best for you and the kids. If you think that you'll get a better deal and hurt the children less by going to court to fight it out, then go for it. But, that is seldom the case.
As for why I am on these boards, I am here to try to help people out from a more objective perspective. There are plenty of cheerleaders, consolers, and people pleasers on these boards. There are plenty of people struggling through the same issues. Having been an LBS with a WAS myself, and come out the other side, I post to people I think I can help with a pretty direct manner from a pretty detached, rational place. They mostly find my help valuable and my intuitions surprisingly sharp, but not always. It seems that you do not, so I can certainly stop posting to you. But, I urge you to open your mind and try to get a new perspective on things. That you think I am defending WASs says a lot about the perspective you now hold. We all go through a stage in which our vision is very skewed and clouded by emotion. Don't let that get in the way of your and your kids' best interest.
Finally, I'm sorry that you felt attacked by my post. Trust me, my intent was not to attack, but to support you. That being said, I take your last comment to me to be a request to stop posting to you, and I can certainly honor your request.
Take good care and keep the big goals in mind so that the smaller things don't get you off track. And don't forget that the things that piss you off the most on these boards are usually those that are worth paying the most attention to.
As for the scouting thing, XW had custody of your son that day. Period. Your choice to go to the scouting event cost him the opportunity to go. Period.
I don't get that. My H has running/track night with the kids each summer. I 100% support him having them those nights although each of them have fallen on "my" night. I do girl scouts with my D9 and my H has always been supportive of that. I don't hold my D9 back b/c my H is going. NC's WAS is an adult and she should be more mature than that.
I think it's hard to understand a WAS like NC's unless you have experienced that. I can say I have and I don't think it's as easy as you describe. Wish it was. I do try to be flexible about most everything, but sometimes things matter (like the fear of your kids being moved away!) and you have to stand your ground. Karen
Hey, I understand -- you are definitely making the better choice for your kid. I think his XW should have let him take his son to the scout thing too. But, she didn't, she isn't willing to allow that flexibility -- which is, very simply, her choice. Her time, her choice, period. Trying to understand it or fight it is a waste of time and energy, not good for anyone in the long run. Once the D goes through, the kid's R with the X is not the other parent's job to manage or direct or interfere with. It is nice to have some give and take in the co-parenting R, but the space for that usually comes long after the D and custody battles have been settled, not in the middle of the mess, unfortunately. NCB made a reasonable request, he was turned down -- struggling against his XW on this cost his son the scouting activity. Not a fight worth picking.
-And, I don't think it is easy at all. It is gut-wrenching, tragic, unbearably sad, infuriating (a stronger appropriate term escapes me), hurtful, horrid, and horrifying.
I tried being conciliatory and overly flexible in the early days following the bomb. I bit my tongue and accepted her continual upbraiding me for the failure of our M and why she was "forced" to end it. I tried to keep the peace and I honestly blamed myself -- which she insisted on. And still she continued right along with her A and making her plans to replace me in our S's lives. And no, that is not hyperbole -- prior to the bomb she began laying plans to take my children away from me. She brought the OM into my home on at least two known occasions while I was at work. She was auditioning him for stepping into my role even though I had no clue we had that degree of M difficulties, let alone enough to betray me so. My then W was filling my children's head full of dreams about a new life way out in the country, with a tree house and a new older brother. Mind you, I knew nothing of this treachery at the time -- I had never even met this OM, her co-worker of some ten years (and still haven't).
After the bomb and I discovered all the emails and letters, she has denied every single thing, even though her own son and her own mother (inadvertently) corroborated the events that took place in my own home. She swore I was mistaken and wrong to misunderstand her intent to be to replace me lock-stock-and-barrel with the OM. And yet over the last two years she has methodically moved closer and closer to that actual aim.
Moreover, any activity that I took up with my S's, she has gradually tried to commandeer away from me. When I began attempts two Summers ago to take our S's camping and fishing, she forbade me from doing so, saying that they were too young and could not be properly cared for safely and securely in such an uncontrolled environment. And though I relented, it wasn't two months later before she herself took them both camping and fishing.
I joined the local Lego users group with S8 because I had years ago gotten him interested in Legos (which she had her reservations about way back then about his ability to build anything. She thought it would be too frustrating for him. But he took to it like a duck to water.) And since the bomb she has tried to commandeer that to herself.
I am an accomplished and skilled paddler, for both canoes and kayaks, having grown up with this sport, and yet xW had to beat me to the punch when it came time to introduce them to this activity.
I told xW a long time ago that I was going to get our S's involved in activities like Scouting that they could share with me, their father. xW even began nagging me about when I would make good on that promise. I began taking S8 to the den meetings and to work with him on the achievements and the projects. To her credit xW, allowed S8 to go to the meetings every Monday even on her week of custody. So the precedent had already been made. And yet she refused him from going to this one event simply because she refuses to get along with me. That was her decision and her prerogative, certainly, but I won't be cowed into accepting all of the blame for S8 being the one who suffered for it. I hate that he missed out, and yeah, I could have allowed his mother to bully me into giving in to her all-or-nothing demands, but I decided that it was in no one's long-term interest for me to continue to step aside.
So I may indeed be getting overly alarmed at xW's attempt to manipulate me and our S's. But I don't think so -- sometimes one has to protest what they see as wrong or unfair, or else be prepared for the offenses to continue indefinitely.
...struggling against his XW on this cost his son the scouting activity. Not a fight worth picking.
I struggled with myself on this. Fortunately, I had the discretion to not breath a word about the event to S8, but instead had asked xW if I could take our S to the event and thus be able to tell him about it. I was prepared for her to say no, in which case S8 would never hear of the event from me and thus be disappointed.
At the same time, I will not casually absolve xW for one iota of her role in this dispute. She wouldn't leave it alone. She blew it up into a major issue so as to put me on the defensive. But truth is, whichever way I turn xW is going to always see the worst in it.
Sadly, the reality of this is that this won't be the last time our S's will suffer the consequences of this continual dispute between their parents. I am doing my best to ensure any negative impact to my S's, especially in these all-to-often lose-lose decisions, is kept as minimal as possible.
Stopping a pointless battle to allow your son to attend his scouting function has zero to do with absolving XW of anything. Not playing her game and feeling "forced" onto the defensive is simply the better move. Ever seen War Games? Continuing to engage XW in such battles costs your son. If she isn't doing something legally actionable and she is doing something within the context of your agreement (having custody of son and not sharing it on her day), then fighting about it isn't going to go anywhere except making co-parenting harder, which is harder on your son.
Have you tried no contact except for email? Email makes it easier to keep things strictly business. It helps avoid those landmines that WASs often seem to scatter so prolifically.
Continuing to engage XW in such battles costs your son.
And allowing his mother to solely dictate the terms by which his father can parent him will cost him far more.
You think it's pointless. I'd say you haven't considered all the stakes. Her "game" is to wean the children out of having a father with an active role in their lives. She wants full and absolute control of our children's lives. She would have me be nothing more than the "wallet".
This isn't just about legalities, this is about right and wrong. It is about understanding that it takes both parents to properly raise a child -- I don't cotton to this fallacy that fathers are irrelevant.
This particular battle over the scouting event was engaged entirely by email. Since then I have refused to reply to anything she sends that doesn't pertain directly to our S's, and even then I have said very little, keeping it short and sweet.
...
But here's a real kicker for everyone to ponder. I begin my next week of custody this Friday, just as xW began this week's custody last Friday (the day of the given dispute regarding the Scouts). This Friday there is an event at S8's school, a meet and greet for his new teacher (he begins 3rd grade next week.) xW knows I am going to this after work -- this is already known.
Well just this very morning she asks me if it would be okay if she were to also get off work a little early so she could pick up both our S's and meet me at the school with them, and we could all go meet S8's 3rd grade teacher.
I haven't replied yet. But can you see the dilemma and the contradictory message she sends? I'm thinking a week ago she cannot stand for me to be around her and that is her stated rationale for not wanting to share our S's during her week. But suddenly she can tolerate my presence when it means she gets to share them during my week?
On principle, were I to reciprocate the way she has behaved I would deny her "offer". The irony is not lost on me either. But I'm not nearly as petty as she has proven to be, as I don't really care if she's there or not. Not if my S's would appreciate it.
"And allowing his mother to solely dictate the terms by which his father can parent him will cost him far more.
You think it's pointless. I'd say you haven't considered all the stakes. Her "game" is to wean the children out of having a father with an active role in their lives. She wants full and absolute control of our children's lives. She would have me be nothing more than the "wallet".
This isn't just about legalities, this is about right and wrong. It is about understanding that it takes both parents to properly raise a child -- I don't cotton to this fallacy that fathers are irrelevant."
Wow -- where is this coming from? Who said that fathers are irrelevant??? My interest is in getting you to a place where you can do the most effective fathering possible. The best way to do this is for you to get the best custody agreement possible. Working on the agreement in a productive, business-only manner and not engaging in these side-battles over time that is currently "hers" will help you get there.
Who said anything about XW gaining "full and absolute" control of your kid's lives? She had custody of the kids that night and chose not to share it. Period. Would it have been nice for her to share it or let you have the time? Sure. But when you are D, your X doesn't have to be nice. Battling about it will not help.
I admire you not engaging in tit-for-tat with respect to her latest move. And, even moreso for not calling her on her switcheroo. She would no doubt have some rationale (like scouting is optional, school is essential, or something...). And, then the challenge would go nowhere except downhill. So, you did the brilliant thing -- ask the factual question, "Is it acceptable for me to come?" with a simple, straightforward answer, "Yes." (And, FWIW, that kind of direct, simple, non-battling, non-emotional response is far more likely to get her to start looking at her own inconsistency than anything you could say to her....) So, great, great job with that.
The best way to do this is for you to get the best custody agreement possible. Working on the agreement in a productive, business-only manner and not engaging in these side-battles over time that is currently "hers" will help you get there.
If you have rational, reasonable people that are looking at being productive or cooperative, then that would be true. NC's wife is not that kind of person. It's hard to understand if you haven't personally experienced that I think.
NC, I do agree you are doing the right thing on Friday. That would be great if she looked at herself or would return the generosity, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Karen
Karen