The crack in my perfect life...

[Accuray]

Sweetbriar,

Good for you on your GAL activities, 180's, etc! It's so important to plan forward when you're feeling good so that when you're not, you have momentum to carry you through.

You are in a tough spot right now with H and your girls. He's going to assume that you are influencing them against him because he wants you to play the villain role, per our prior posts here. That's your role in his mind. Your challenge is not to play the part. The problem, of course, is that your girls are caught in the middle and you can't support your H at the expense of your girls.

Its great that you transcribed your conversation, that's so helpful to actually see what was said. I agree with Lisa.7 on this:

Im sorry you felt that was the right thing to do

With that opening, the conversation was going nowhere but downhill. Why? because it's a passive-aggressive statement. What you're *really* saying is "You made a decision I don't agree with", and to say that you're sorry about it is patronizing. At that point, his emotions are going to engage and you're no longer talking to a rational person. Better to tell him "let's take a break and resume this at xx o'clock" (2 hours later or something).

You have 3 difficult situations happening at the same time (1) your pregnancy, (2) your relationship with H, and (3) your status as a co-parent with a father who is not in the home. Unfortunately where (3) is concerned, you will often need to put (2) aside.

I *strongly* recommend you find a good family therapist and ask H to go with you to work out the best way to handle parenting in this situation. Tell H you don't want to be seen as alienating the girls from him and want them to continue to have a good relationship with him, but that this situation presents some challenges that you all need help with. I also think it would be good for the girls and H to do a session with the therapist, the girls have things they need to get off their chests with a moderator present, and you can't be that moderator.

With regard to your interchange with H, passive aggressive messages are frustrating to the recipient because you're couching how you really feel. You're honestly better off just saying "I don't think punishment was the best way to resolve this" and make your true feelings known, at least then it's out there and you can discuss it. If it starts to get heated, call a timeout and come back to it in a couple hours.

I think that you and H need to have a joint parenting discussion and make some rules that you will both abide by. These rules might be that (1) the two of you will discuss and agree on punishments before imposing them, (2) the two of you will not "badmouth" the other parent to the girls, (3) the two of you will not let the girls play one off against the other, (4) the two of you will not expose the girls to OP without first discussing with each other, etc. etc. Make your own list, but I think if you have this in place, you'll have fewer conflicts because the rules are understood and agreed upon. A family therapist can help you with this.

Now with regard to H, his behavior is simply not acceptable, he is the adult, and he needs to act like it with his daughters. I think you need to rise above and help him patch things up. The best way to do this is with a family therapist engaged, but if that's not going to happen quickly I would suggest this:

Call H and say that you understand he's having a difficult time with the girls, and that he feels you're not supporting him. Tell him that it's important to you that their relationship improve, and ask him what he thinks the two of you should do to make that happen. Since he's a man, it's going to be more effective to ask him questions and allow him to offer solutions than to serve up answers or plans to him and expect him to get on board. Use the "Socratic Method" of asking questions to make your point, but be very careful not to make them patronizing or leading, and really listen to what he says. If he gets disrespectful or irrational, then set a boundary. "I want to work though this with you productively, but I will not be spoken to disrespectfully. Let's take a break and pick this up again at X o'clock". You also have to be very careful not to sprinkle in blaming or shaming. Look at it as "what's done is done, how do we move forward." If you sprinkle in comments like "this was your own choice", or "you could come home and work on this if you wanted to" you are going to torpedo the discussion.

This is unfair in the extreme, but it's on you to carry the weight for the sake of your girls until some of his fog starts to clear.

Accuray