25- thanks for taking the time, going to read all this when I get back from having lunch with my neighbor - right now - this is an aside (something else I need help with)
I'm confused right now. I wanted to go away next weekend - so important.
I'm not b/c L told me "If you want to fight for custody, I wouldn't"
But I don't want to fight for custody. I want this man to have custody! I just want my D to sleep and do what's in her best interest. AND I want/need/have to travel. On a regular basis. Somehow. I NEED TO DO THIS FOR MY SANITY.
I want to travel regularly to italy. I want to meet a man who travels and maybe we'll live overseas one day. These are dreams I'm not ready to part with and thinking of a path where exBF and I are contentiously in court fighting for custody is not the way to this.
I have no intentions on proving him to be an unfit dad. Does he do stuff that freaks me out? Yeah, but he's not going to kill our kid. And I can't control this. She'll get effed up or she won't. My friend with a 15 year old has a daughter who is effed up now b/c of a very similar sitch but what could she have done?
These are scary thoughts, but I stay home and don't leave D with exBF and not go on my trip just in case I have to go to court to prove his is unfit? NOOOO.... I am not ever going to do that unless there are majorly egregious acts going on. Will I miss D when she is gone from me and at his house? Hell yeah. Will I suffer? You bet. Will I hate that she comes back exhausted, and hate her life being so shuffling back and forth? probably.
But as far as I can tell there's NOTHING I CAN DO But fight him in court (or hope that he moves to california and gives up - ha) and I'm not interested in fighting him in court b/c that is only going to hurt me and my interests.
Is there something I'm missing here? b/c even my coaching buddies are coaching me not to go next weekend, and there's a voice in me that is saying what I just wrote above.
CHANCES ARE... if I drop the rope on sleepovers and custody, chances are he won't even take her as much as I want him too (which is not to say I want him to but I'd like her to see him frequently.) I just don't want to commit to formal custody agreements and if he bails on being her dad, which he won't, fine. We can move back to Italy. If he wants to be a very very minimal dad, that's fine too, just don't try to control me when I want to do stuff with her.
no it's not making sense. Way too many details and contiingencies... way too much borrowing trouble from the future and not enough dealing with what is...
worrying NOW about whether you'll be able to live in Italy is....really NOT making sense... and no offense, but when I read that note-- after all the other stuff you actually DO HAVE to focus on, just strikes me as very unhealthy.
I hope I can just leave this with "enough said"....
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
before skipping ahead to the next FUTURE problem , which keeps you from dealing with the ones you really have.
Do you get that?
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
ps I'm not angry or "accusing", just observing and suggesting.
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
when my boys' dad left I was a single mom with no child support for ...well...for forever. They are 13 and 14 now and he left when they were 2 and 3. He just started paying child support this past year!!! Holy smokes!!!
He wrote letters refusing to allow me to send them to private schools, tried to stop me from moving 3 hours away (even though he never saw them) and this past year stopped Cori from adopting them. Now that Nick turned 14 and Dylan will be turning 14, they can request that Cori become their legal guardian in place of Jeremy. They are in the process of doing so.
Lila...
you need to suck it up
You aren't a relationship with this guy
It is not his job to do what you want him to do
it is your job to get your crap together and get it done
I worked a full-time job, a part-time job, went to an accelerated masters program and was a single parent to 2 kiddos in order to get what I needed to get done done. There are tons of people who have had to do what it is that you are doing
You need to get your daughter to sleep
YOU need to do this
you can't wait for someone else to help you or keep thinking up excuses
get it done
you are a parent now and the time for pussyfooting around is over
it's hard and messy and exhausting but you need to get it done
I don't know, I still think I should write back - "Sounds good - and sounds like a good time to get a night nurse!" you really think this will get you a night nurse? AND That a night nurse is the solution?
The man is just never accountable. PLEASE understand...it is NOT your job to make him accountable in life or work...it's just not. You resent his well paying job but your d benefits from it and indirectly so do you....
What does he care that his kid doesn't sleep? What does he care that he doesn't have to arrange for child care to spend a week away. all this ^^^ stuff is pure envy/jealousy. Does not bring out the best in you. Is this who you really want to be? More important, since this is DB land, HOW can that help the situation?
I got ya covered. No worries, babe.
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
I might say "Maybe we can get a night nurse that week to help with the sleeping issue." I actually don't think that's entirely unreasonable *in our context* - not in anyone else's reality, but ours -
With both of you up to your ears in debt it IS entirely unreasonable - it is a luxury you cannot afford.
And I was suggesting it is your REASSURANCES of her that make her think there is something to be scared of when she wakes up. Rather than, when she does wake up, you treating it like an ordinary kid waking and not an emotional crisis that needs some kind of explaining.
And yes, my ex traveled when I had an infant AND a toddler, as well as a four year old, and any one or all three could wake up on a given night. I'm not saying it's easy. but you put them back in their bed, say good night, and be firm. Even if you have to do it fifty times like one poster said, it is NOT going to take three weeks! Probably one bad night and you would be done. Try it.
who gets a night nurse? And who pays a sitter $15 an hour?
Holy smokes!!!!!
My daughter is disabled and we do not qualify for a night nurse nor do we qualify for a $15 sitter.
I think those are some highly unrealistic, unreasonable and plainly...ridiculous things to request when you say you are broke and need to move in with your mother....
my daughter has epilepsy and autism and is 2 yrs old. She has stopped breathing at night. She DOES NOT sleep with us. She is put lovingly into bed. She is read a bedtime story, we say our prayers (well...I say them...she isn't very verbal) then she is put to bed, her singing seahorse is pushed, her covers are pulled up, her star nightlight is pushed and I give her a kiss on the head and tell her I love her. I don't linger, I don't tell her it is going to be OK and that she is alright and mommy is here...she knows all that. She is in bed. It is bedtime and it is time to sleep.
I am with KML...it is your over reassurances that clue her in that something is not right...
My oldest hated bedtime...it took 3 nights of crying with me doing the ferber method (I think it is called) for him to break the bad habit of wanting me next to him to sleep. IT was hard, and it broke my heart. However, he is 14 now and doesn't need therapy and isn't mal-adjusted because I let him cry 3 nights when he was 2.
KML, I did that for three nights. I didn't treat it like an emotional crises. She still didn't sleep - three nights is about as much as I can take with zero sleep. I was firm with her. I'm not about to leave her in a room to cry alone when she's not even sure what's going on in the first place.
Figgeroni, where do you live? Here in the suburbs of affluent NJ where exBF lives, sitters demand $15 an hour. I pay mine $12 (the fill in one wanted $15) and I told her I would give her a raise, b/c I feel like a cheapskate giving her $12. It's not my idea, sweetie. Trust me on this.
I'll write more soon. We've had no power for two days and are staying at my parents.
