#2: WAH separated from us & I'm on the DBing path

[flowmom]

I'm feeling a bit more low/fragile today. It's been almost a month of separation, and there are lot of aspects of the "new normal" that really suck. I'm feeling really anxious about what will happen with S's education in September. I want to continue homeschooling and I'm afraid that H will push for full time schooling.

I'm thinking of setting a boundary by email. Something like this:

Hello H,

I know that you're working really hard to make things work for the kids right now. I hope that it's OK for me to give you some feedback about this.

These are behaviours that I'm seeing from you:

• constantly frowning at me
• speaking to me in a harsh/annoyed tone of voice
• making complaints about having to work for and pay for the things that our family needs
• avoiding speaking to me unless absolutely necessary
• making an argumentative comment to me while I'm on the phone with my mother

It's not working for me to be treated like this. I'd like you to consider what behaviours on your part would be consistent with a positive, collaborative coparenting relationship.

Although I think that it normalizes the situation for the children to have you spend time with them in our family home, I wonder about the message that they are getting from your behaviours. They are learning about how fathers treat mothers.

Flowmom

I dealt with a lot of grumpiness before the separation as well, but at least it wasn't totally forbidden to at least try to connect with H or try to lighten the situation.

Some people might think that I've been a bit to "doormat-ish" in the relationship in recent years, so a 180 would be not putting up with his sh!t. But I've also tended to set boundaries in a harsh way that wasn't loving/connected. So I'm trying to figure out if a 180 would be finding a gentle way of setting a boundary. My email is an attempt to do that.