All 3 of you may as well get used to her negligence right from the start. Your wife would only be pretending to be an attentive parent if she called. She could never maintain the pretense. The kids would just have to catch on later that she is self-centered and they are not her highest priority. They may as well learn it now and get used to it. That will not change. At least not for the better. This is why they have a good father. In fact, your wife chose you to be their father for exactly this reason.
I'm going to disagree on the issue of detachment. There's a fundamental difference between detaching as a left-behind spouse and detaching as a co-parent. If that rather inelegant construction means anything, it (should) means CO-operative / CO-ordinated / COnjoint / COmbined parenting. So being upset at a wrong done to a child is an upset of a different order from being upset at this or that thing done or not done to or for me. I mean, I can be completely indifferent to my neighbor, caring nothing for his actions, paint preferences, car, lifestyle choices, etc. But if he comes up and sh*ts on my front stoop, then I can care quite deeply without acquiring an emotional stake in him as a person.
Can you tell me honestly that your perseverating on the evils of stbx's neglect this morning had *no effect*, no dimunition of your available emotional energy and joy towards and for your daughter?
It's not about being right. I don't think anyone here would argue the rights and wrongs of a mother not bothering to contact her daughter on her birthday. It's about the effect on YOU, on the only damn part of this you have a hope of controlling ... your spirit and demeanor. You may be the best actor on the west coast, but perceptive kids can sense what's going on underneath. The more you can manage to kick this crap out of your brain, the more you CAN be there for them, fully there. Will you be able to do it perfectly? Of course not, but I'll admit it vexes me to read your defense above. Would you rather spend your emotional capital to "care deeply" about crimes committed or to "care deeply" about the fact that, right now, today, you are there and they are there and you all love each other and take joy in each other?
"Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock." -- Frank Herbert
You've got guys, you've got gals telling you the same thing.
Let it go. You cannot control what type of parent she is, will be and/or how she will treat her children. If you have to cling to what you thought you had, the ideal you hoped to have then do it.. but with your eyes open.
Does talking to her reasonably, unreasonably, rationally, irrationally change anything? Is she more interested in talking about herself or hearing about the kids? Why.. if she hasn't listened to you in the past, will she listen to you now?
This is a tough period. Her castoff clothing with her scent still lingering is poignant and probably stirs up all sorts of angst which brings up more stuff which can send MoJo into a Tidy Bowl swirl. Cut yourself some slack, reread your goals on this thread and find that stride.
I mean.. look at how far you've come.
Just remember. You are the dad. You are the birthday cake maker. You are love. Their mom has to suffer the consequences of her actions.. and that will come from the kids, not you.
And it could be worse. But through all this, they have you. And they learn from you. Let go of what you can't control, drop the rope, stop trying to tug their mom to be where most people think any self respecting parent would be.
And kids need both parents, even if they only have a sliver of communication. Who knows what the future will bring.
No one is saying that shouldn't upset you. You have a right to be upset about it.
But...
Look at what YOU did about it...
You jumped onto her FB page to see what she was doing, saw an update, then took the effort to search for a time-stamp, did a time difference calculation, deduced a value for the time-stamp... then became angry.
So, with your aforementioned knowledge about her indifference to her children and only caring about "being free" while traveling (aside from sending you nasty-grams to push your buttons) the following remains:
Do No Harm does not just mean do no harm to the other person but it means do no harm to yourself as well.
Yes, your W is in a selfish mode right now and yes, anyone would have expected her to contact her D in a timely manner on her birthday. BUT she ain't right right now. Acknowledge it and leave it there. Don't search behind the curtain to see what the time difference is etc etc. You seem to be doing harm to yourself.
I could be wrong and I often am but I have done much harm to myself, so I thought something seemed a little familiar and if I can ever help steer someone away from that path I will try to...
The journey is long and you have far to go, SP. Do No Harm to yourself.
@Gnosis: But...Look at what YOU did about it...You jumped onto her FB page to see what she was doing, saw an update, then took the effort to search for a time-stamp, did a time difference calculation, deduced a value for the time-stamp... then became angry. So, with your aforementioned knowledge about her indifference to her children and only caring about "being free" while traveling (aside from sending you nasty-grams to push your buttons) the following remains: You actively sought reason to be angry with her. That does not sound like detachment to me.
Bad prose. All I meant there was that she'd been updating the FB page -- this I know because we have mutual friends, so I see her comments on their pages -- during the trip, so one could reasonably infer that the problem wasn't lack of connectivity -- that's all I was getting at. I hadn't specifically looked at it on the day, in other words -- I was simply aware that she was in possession of electrons.
@kara: I forgot to ask if you made the birthday cake.
Yes I did, and let me tell you -- frosting a cake is a lot dam harder than they make it sound in the Ladies Home Journal.... Making frosting is a lot dam harder than they make it sound, too! Yeah, I got your "beat until just fluffy" dangling! "Fluffy" -- what the !@^&*)#$_ hell is "fluffy"?
Got a great icing recipe from a professional pastry chef. It's delicious.
1 large tub of cool whip 2 cups sour cream 1 cup granulated sugar
Stir ingredients together, do not whip. If you want chocolate icing use the above recipe and add powdered cocoa. If you want coconut icing just mix some shredded coconut into the white icing and then push more up against the frosted cake with a plate.
