So...I'm still trying to figure out the best approach to take when trying to negotiate with someone that seems disconnected from reason...and it's not easy...
Let me explain...I normally get Saturdays with my S2 - such has been the understanding since B moved out last November. And so, S2 is supposed to be with me, as usual, this Saturday - which also happens to be July 4. Now it seems that, since B was invited by her friends to a barbecue that she's coming undone yet again...and doesn't want to have to arrive there without S2....I don't fault her for that - being at a "family" even without the family just sucks...but she seems to think that she can prolong the inevitable fact that divorce is disruptive to her life - and that she will be inconvenienced at times.
Rather than try to discuss the day with me, she's opted instead for throwing ultimatums my way and accusing me of caring more about my older son than for my S2 - this because I agreed to have S2 stay with her for two Saturdays on which S12 had out-of-town soccer games and S2 had a fever...
Of late I've been getting longer and longer emails from her with increasingly brazen lapses in logic. While the tension and frustration of having to deal with her can slow my day (as it's doing now, since I just feel the need to purge a bit and write here) - it's also served the more useful function of letting me see, from at least some healthy remove, that her inconsistent reasoning is impossible for anyone to address. No matter what I say, she'll twist it into a kind of balled knot and call it a sweater...and so I try opting for the silent route - which means I get an email accusing me of not trying to help with communication between us...
It's kind of amusing in its own dysfunctional way - though it does remind me of how lost she is - how much she must believe that her attitude is somehow a show of strength - rather than the symptom of an unsettled past. A few weeks ago, she insisted that I communicate with her only via email - unless it's something pressing about S2 - and then a few days ago she tried to fault me for the fact that she did not read my email in which I told her that I would not be giving up S2 this weekend. Her logic maintains that I should have checked with her again, since I hadn't received a response from her regarding my email...which is ludicrous to me, since I was not the one changing dates/plans, she was...and it was clearly her responsibility to bring up July 4 again if she intended to change the parenting schedule...besides, she's been in the habit of not responding to my emails for several months now - in particular the emails in which I disagree with her concerning her continued nursing of S2 - and my suggestions that we get a professional opinion - instead of just going by some article she found online...
On top of tall this...I had the misfortune of happening onto Sandra Tsing Loh's article about her divorce in The Atlantic. I'm no fan of Tsing Loh...and this article of hers just cemented for me the impression I had of her as someone who's just smart enough not to realize that she's a self-centered simpleton...and her attitude reminded me all too much of B and how she will seek out any kind of fact or figure to support her ridiculous point of view.
