Sorry you are having to put up with that behaviour from him. I'm just trying to think through some solutions.
For him silence is power, you know I have this ongoing thing with my h about him being 'busy'. Jody gave me a few ideas a while ago about how to deal with it. Here are a few phrases she gave me to use...
'I continue to get the feeling that you're too busy for friendship. I understand that right now you don't have a lot of time. I don't want to be another item on your to-do list so if things change, give me a call.'
Or 'I notice that a lot of your emails start with 'I'm sorry'. I don't want the dynamic of our relationship to be this way so I'm going to leave it to you.'
I think in DBing sometimes we let bad behaviour go because we are afraid to address it. But really, what have we got to lose? In fact Jody has never shied away from addressing negative behaviour by my h.
Could you send him a message saying something like.
'Hi H, I know we had some cross words the other day and I am sorry for that. I know that I have enjoyed the family time we have spent together lately as have the kids. If you want to drop over sometime let me know, however I'll leave it with you.'
I don't know, something like that. It just takes away the battle by you saying you know what, it's fine, do whatever you like as I am not bothered. Just takes away the power struggle.
If he responds negatively saying he only wants to communicate about the kids just say 'no problem'. If he feels heard I'm sure he'll start communicating about more than the kids soon. Or of course, he could respond positively.
