The big punch

[Redo]

25, as usual, i appreciate your feedback.

Your wife is playing a dangerous (and dirty) game. In our state, if a parent hinders the communicatioins between another parent and their child, or bad mouths the other parent , it is called "parental alienation" and it can cost the one doing it, custody.

I guess the shock is that i convinced myself that she would not. Daughter does not have habit of talking much on the phone. Usually wife prods her to talk. I liked that technique. But since friday, she just hands the phone to daughter. I cannot seem to get daughter to talk much. I just wish she's consistent in her behavior. If she decides not to involve herself during our convo, she should do that even if things are okay. But yea, i am just gonna persist to talk to daughter.

As for the journal, she's had it awhile and yet let you care for the d alone for hours or days at a time, correct? How dangerous could she have believed you to be? IThat means she trusted you with the d's care until she wanted to extort you w/the journal. NOT going to work...it's like people who say their spouse is a dangerous drunk, BUT HAVE LET THAT SAME "DANGEROUS DRUNK" care for their children for hours and days at a time, only to whip out that threat when there's a divorce. Courts frown on that, a lot. It's too convenient.

I guess the biggest irony is that wife herself said so many times that i was one of the better dads she has known in our friends circle. Never missed a single appt for daughter for her doctor even if it meant missing out on important meetings at work. I always wanted to be there for both wife and daughter. I am just gonna assume that she does not know what she is saying out of anger.

But things like showing up for your d, do matter. Missing her birthday was a mistake, so was missing out on her illness. You can't throw your hands up and do the "I'm too weak" routine anymore, or you will lose her. Your d is worth manning up for, or no one is. Simply put, Do it, or lose her.

I agree with you wholly. But at the same time, i did not wanna break down in front of her family if i had visited for daughter's d-day. Honestly i don't i would have made it 210 miles alone without going crazy. About the sickness, i guess i should have. Yup, i do plan on seeing her more often now.

When it comes to this type of stuff, the nitty gritty of custody and money, you do what you have to do to see your d, without consideration of what your w would like or prefer or if she's more likely to see you favorably, etc. What matters FIRST is the custody issue. DB says, take care of business. You have to. The rest will follow.

So wife says that environment was getting toxic for daughter at home because i was not bubbly with her. So now she says that i don't deserve joint custody because of that. But then she says that she wants me to be there in daughter's life. Just that she should have full say in daughter's life. None of this makes sense. Somehow wife thinks that she can provide daughter with a more stable life at her parents place by herself than us parenting togehther. I guess the biggest irony here is that wife said once that we made the best parents if not necessary the best married couple. Now she is violating her own words.

From your suggestions if there's one thing i am taking away, it is that i have to stand up for myself and for my daughter right now. Otherwise the way i see it, i'll just fade away in my daughter's life and i cannot let that happen.

Thanks 25.