Help! Have an urgent question!

[tpaschal]

Thanks to Breton39, Kelly23, and peacetoday for your answers to my urgent question last week.

When H came to pick up the two younger kids to drive them to school Tues. morning (H drives them a 3 minute drive 3 days a week, I think to be able to tell himself that he sees his kids "all the time!"), he kind of indignantly said, "So, I guess we're not going to talk?"

I told him I hadn't seen his text message in time Monday evening to be able to do anything about it, that Tuesday evening I was very busy with the kids, but if he wanted to take some time off Wed. morning or meet for lunch Wed. before going to mediation, that was fine. He got all snarky that he didn't have time to take off work because he couldn't afford it, and it was just FINE with him if I didn't want to talk.

When he was getting all snarky, I calmly said that I wasn't sure why he was so upset, since the last time we talked it seemed to be a waste of time since nothing got accomplished. He responded with another snarky comment. I said, "If you want to talk, that's fine, but not if we're going to sit and negotiate for three hours, then you go home and disregard everything we talked about. Also, it needs to be a TWO party negotiation, not a THREE party negotiation. It seems like that's where we got help up last time."

He drove off in a huff. I spoke to my L, and he encouraged me to try to sit down with H before mediation. I sent H an email saying we had never really decided whether or not to meet, and told him I was happy to talk to him if he had some free time.

I guess at that point OW had gotten wind of the morning's convo, because his reply was nasty and snarly, and he refused to meet with me.

Maybe I should have handled it better, but what I said was the truth, and I think it really would have been a waste of time. As the mediator said later, "Wow. It's so strange to see this in a grown man. Your H really is a puppet on a string." (For the bimbo.)