Rob, When I read your post the first thought I had was that there is nothing you can do to avoid her anger if you interact with her - and any type of conversation you have with her seems to give her an opportunity to release her tensions in your direction. She is not rational when it comes to interacting with you - and no amount of reasoning or patience on your part will improve that situation - it's a terrible shame that she has simply accepted her way of being as "normal" and justifiable - but that is her reality to deal with not yours - so long as she doesn't seem like a risk to your D.
While I'm not divorced yet, I do experience that same kind of mindless anger coming from B - it's just always there, waiting for a chance to come out - and she'll find a way to do it. What's the best way to respond? For now I've continued in my method of not responding to anything she says or does unless it has a question mark associated with it - if there is no question (and by question, I mean anything related to S2 or practical matters) than she gets no response from me. Nothing. I read her emails and texts, listen to her messages, but do not respond at all unless there is a clear question - and then the response is as matter of fact as possible. A yes or no question gets a yes or a no response, no explanations, no justifications, nothing more - and a request for information - i.e. my soc# for her taxes - gets just that, my soc# with no questions and no additional interaction. It's kind of the way I respond to Windows when it hiccups on my computer...the error messages pop up, I acknowledge them and move on.
From your post it seems like asking her questions gives her the chance to be angry...perhaps it would be best not to ask questions but simply share information with her? When my S2 didn't have school last Wed for an admin day, B had said nothing to me about it - and so I wrote to her saying, "please let me know if you intend to have S2 home with you, if not, I will arrange to have him home with me." So I couched the question in a way that still let me be in control of my time with S2 - and didn't give her an opportunity to pretend that she had a better sense of what to do than I did...hm...just occurred to me that part of the issue is that when you ask her questions you empower her - and she takes that bit of power and uses it to try to define you...at least that's what my gut is telling me...I may be wrong...but it looks that way from afar.
Well...whatever the issues she's got - at least you get your time with your D, and that's beautiful.
Do you get much of a Spring break to spend with her?
