BD and 6 months later PA confirmed (2)

[Bunches]

So W took S out last night for a couple hours visit. She is obviously agitated at me still for our text exchange earlier this week. I try not to worry about it. I setup a new go to the gym schedule around the weekend and her visits with S so I'm not home when she picks him up from sitter on weekdays. Last night when she dropped him off I was friendly at the door, but its come down to hi...exchange S...have a goodnight. I think this might be the easiest thing for us right now. We don't interact and it should give me more time to focus on me and stop worrying about what is going on with her.

Haven't heard back from L yet on how long the paperwork is going to take to setup. No news yet on new job offer that might have me moving out of state.

[Bunches]

Setup a new workout schedule this weekend. Found a cycling class I like and should be going every Saturday / Sunday now. Also came up with a new routine that should help me drop those last 20 lbs I want to get off. Starting to get compliments on looking good these days. Making me feel pretty awesome.

Contact with W all week has been nil. She visited S on Thursday for 2 hours and we only said goodnight to each other but I smiled and appeared pleasant instead of disdainful. Anyways, W startd texting this morning. Wanted to see if I'm inline with DB with convo.

W: How's S?
Me: Good
W: Anything going on with him?
Me: Always...anything specific?
W: Just wanna know how he is and what he's up to. I miss him

I just left it at that. She didn't ask anything specific but I am trying not to do the 'weekly / daily update' anymore, where I just end up telling her all about what is going on in out lives. I think when we were having those nightly calls before she got to know what was up with us and I'm not trying to prevent her from knowing what goes on with S, but am choosing not to facilitate updates from me to her. Does this sound fair?

[Bunches]

W text me again early this morning saying "We're going to need to talk soon." I'm fairly certain she is mad, feeling like I'm keeping S from her. I really want to stick to my guns this time about the schedule. She has regular visits with S. I don't want to feel like I need to be spending my time on the phone with her updating his daily events. Is that so unreasonable? And I don't feel like I should feel guilty about this either. W walked out on S and I, not the other way around.

[twinmom]

Stick to what you think is right. Don't let her put her guilt on you. My IC phrased it like this..... guilt is a winter coat, don't smother in someone else's. Take it off.

[Sotto]

Hi Bunches

Maybe you could let her know that you are finding the nightly calls hard to accommodate now, and seek some sort of compromise? What level of contact from her would you be comfortable with? Maybe use that as a starting point and negotiate...

I read somewhere - she can ask, you can say no - you can both negotiate....

Best of luck...:-)

[Bunches]

I like that saying Twin, thanks. How have you been by the way? I noticed you moved to another section, somewhere I'll be joining you soon, but no updates in the last month. I was wondering about you.

Toots, I can see the reason in your point here. I worry that I'm going to end up bending over again for her to get 'her way'. I do appreciate your point though about waiting for her to ask and then decide whether I can or can't do that.

There is a string of this in the last year. I decide to take some small stand at points and shortly after she can't stand it so she comes and tells me how its unacceptable. I feel bad that she misses out on so much of S life at this point, but I also feel like that was her choice. I do want to be reasonable if she came up with a good compromise, but she never seems to. I kind of want to wait for her to think through one on her own. Each time this has happened so far I've given in to some arrangement I didn't really want that ends up having some falsehood or flat lie on her end of the conversation. I don't mean to punish her for lies or false statements, I just don't want to deal with her daily anymore and I'm trying not to focus on her needs. I do agree though with the overall approach that when she wants to discuss it I can just state that I'm uncomfortable with the previous arrangement without justifying my 'truth'.

I know we don't see eye to eye on how things got here so there is no reason to force my truth onto her.

[Barrybran]

Don't forget to validate and if you're not sure about something, don't be afraid to say something along the lines of "I'll think about it and get back to you."

[Bunches]

Thanks Barry, I think that will be the mainstay I use for the inevitable conversation that I think is coming tonight. W will be picking up S for a 2 hr visit tonight so I expect she will want to talk after that.

[Barrybran]

Good luck!

[Bunches]

So I had the conversation last night when W picked up S for her weekend. Things of course were not comfortable. I did manage to stay calm and not throw any remarks un needed...I think. I did use the "I understand how this could be hard on you" and "I see why you might feel that way". We talked about me having a job opportunity out of state and leaning towards taking it at this point, meaning we would go at the beginning of the year. She was not happy and went into things I didn't expect. She feels that she has been laying back and letting me have my way for most of the last year out of guilt. She thinks I have been changing situation around S visitation and contact to suite me. She now "feels" that she is just as good for him as I am.

I think this is leading up to a custody battle, where she has worked up in her mind reasons that make me the bad guy and gives her reasons to try to take S back from me. I don't want to fight over this but I need this job and I have no intention of giving up my S just because she now wants a life here on her own. For years we had the intention that if something opened up abroad that could allow an advancement that we would take it and move. Now its here, we aren't together, and for her that means I should go alone and give up custody to pay her child support. I 'can' see why she wants it to be that way, but that would be making a huge change in my life to accomodate her. Why would I do that?