This morning was the first day of school. Kids were with W, and I went over to her house to see youngest daughter off to kindergarten. After the kids left, I asked W if she'd be agreeable to changing the schedule to full alternating weekends. Our schedule for the first 18 months was split weekends, but for July and August I agreed to give her every other Sunday, as part of our effort to reconcile. Probably a mistake, but we were spending so much time together, I felt it was okay to be generous.
Now that school is started, I thought we'd be going back to the same old split schedule, so I suggested going to full alternating weekends instead. First W said "My heart is hurting because of D going to school, can we talk about this later? We should meet to talk about a lot of things, and that can be part of it." I said "Ok." The dog was barking in her crate, so I asked if I could go see her, and W said sure.
I played with the dog for a minute or two, then I walked back out to her kitchen. W said "Wouldn't it just be easier to leave things the way they are, since the kids have activities on Saturday morning? What do you want to change things for?" I said "I just thought that since I never get a Friday night with the kids, and you never get a Sunday with them that it would be more fair to go to full alternating weekends. Then it's even." W said "I get every other Sunday now." I said "That was only for July and August." She said "No, we agreed to a three month trial, to see how the kids would do with it, and in my opinion, they're doing well with it." I could see this was going to go very bad, but I didn't want to back down. I said "I gave you those four days in July and August because you asked for them." Then W started getting quite angry. She said "You are not the absolute authority in everything. Your memory is not the only one here. I remember us saying three months. As usual, you are making this about you and me, and not about the kids. I hate your attitude that you GAVE me those four days. It was supposed to be what was best for the kids." I got a little agitated and said "It was just for July and August." Then she got her wounded puppy attitude going and said "Thank you so much for this." I said "You asked if we could talk about it later, and I said ok." She sarcastically replied, quietly, like she was only talking to herself, but of course loud enough so I could hear "It's all my fault, of course." I tried to defuse the situation, and said "W, we're only really arguing about whether it was two months or three months, I remember two months." Then she said "Please leave, I have to get to work." I was feeling very threatened regarding my custody. As we walked out to the cars and I said "I am not going to accept less than 50/50 custody." She got in her car and said "Bye."
What the h*ll is going on? The fixer in me wants to send a defusing message, something like "What are you so angry about?" or "Can we agree to meet and talk before getting entrenched in our positions?" I know that's my "nice guy" tendancies showing, so I'm fighting against them.
She has such anger seething under the surface. She seemed very threatened this morning. Is this all because I pulled away from her? Is it because she thinks I'm dating someone else? Was this her plan all along, to get me to agree to a change in schedule for the summer, then try to make it permanent?
