Refuse To Lose, Part VI

[nutfarmer]

D called W while we were at the game and talked w/ her for about a minute or so. About 45 minutes or so after D's call, I get this text from W:

thank you. although you are obviously not intelligent enough to realize it, your continued, blatant coaching of D makes you look terrible to the court and helps me greatly. so thank you and keep up the terrible job.

She followed it up with a text saying "August 14..." That is the day she said she was unhappy and didn't know if she loved me anymore.

Friday night w/o her daughter + vicious texts to her STBX = Alcohol enhanced pity party. Ignore it.

I didn't text back and I've resited the urge to defend myself, but I'm so hurt, scared, angry and confused. What is this? I'm not coaching my D. My D is telling me things about the OM. Did W go to the parenting evaluator and he discussed my concern about D not calling OM by his real name w/ her? Is this what she is calling my "coaching?" I don't know, but now I'm all defensive and racking my brain trying to figure out what I could have done wrong.

Your simple existence is what you are doing wrong. If you would just give her everything that she wants and then disappear from the face of the earth, she could be happy.

You can't apply reason to magical thinking.

I don't know what to do here. I really don't. I'm tired of being harrassed by her and I'm tired of her mean spirited actions and words. I hate that I'm second guessing myself now about my words and behavior around D.

So don't do it any more. The reason she can get to you is that you are unsure of RTL, the person. I am not. RTL is not perfect, nobody is, but he is always doing his best and trying to do what is right. Once you see in RTL what everyone else on this board sees, you'll see her nastiness for what it is--childish petulance.

If I guilty of trying to coach her on anything it is on the concept that she lives sometimes in her "house w/ mommy" and sometimes in her "house w/ daddy." I'm doing this so she'll always feel like she has a place, not to get her to choose me over her mother. I was told to make sure I do this in my parenting class, so I'm focusing on making sure D feels like she belongs and has ownership of somewhere.

You know what is right, so keep doing it.

I'm still not in a good place over this. Why did she have to give up? Why did she have to be so mean? Where did my W go? Why am I still trying to save us? She is so mean. Will she ever soften?

This person has been there all along, but you chose to ignore it because of other aspects that made up for it. We do that in all of our relationships. Will she soften, who knows? My bet is that this will be a repeated pattern for her until she learns to look inward for happiness.

I really want to quit and fight back just as nastily as she's doing, but I can't. I want to, but I can't.

You can do the former, but not the latter. That is not the father you want your daughter to see.

I'm down and need to got to sleep.

Everything looks less hopeless after a good night's sleep.

Keep putting one foot in front of the other RTL. No matter what the alien says, you are doing a good job.

Nut