The kids are always the same or better after the visitation, they miss their mother very much and look forward to their time with her. It crushes them when she doesn't show up when she is expected to.
Just to clarify my pretty muddy previous post what I was suggesting is that we too often enable our MLCers. We all complain about the bad friends they have that have helped them get to where they are and my XW has had some of the worst friends you can imagine. It is the bad friends and employers and relatives and us that enable the MLCer to do the things they do. I think that with enough enabling they may never do the work they need to do on themselves to become healthy individuals.
This is why I've chosen not to enable any longer, you see when XW calls in sick, skips on CS, dumps the kids on her parents etc. she is running from reality. I have no control over her boss or friends but I do have control over me. If she wants a free day without kids she can call in sick to work but I think her boss will not tolerate that for long.
I have thought about this a lot and I think that when it comes to enabling the MLCer we need to point our finger at ourselves as well.
