Just need to write this out to make sure I'm not going mad.
stbx and i attended mediation in the last week of November.
At the end of the session we went to the receptionist to organise our next session. We were offered 5 dates between then and Christmas.
I had my diary out and noted that i couldn't attend the first 2 times offered due to work commitments. Stbx dismissed the last 3 times offered (in the week before Xmas). At the time I (cynically, or so I thought) assumed he was probably going on another holiday with OW.
We agreed with the receptionist to a time in the New Year.
Later that night, stbx texted me with the same list of times and asked me to please make a selection from the dates on offer.
Next day, i replied that we had already discussed these times and had found that none suited us both.
stbx exploded and sent ranting emails indicting that i needed to understand how serious it was that we arrange a meeting before Xmas. He threatened to discontinue payments of support to the children.
I saw him face-to-face a day or two later and told him that the only time I could do was the last one offered - which was 4 days before Xmas. I said that my preference was not do this so close to Xmas, as I found it too hard/painful at that time of year.
He said "It's your choice when you go" (not nastily), and changed the subject.
Two days later he came back to me and spewed that he was not going to mediation again, that he was taking me to court, and that he had decided to fight me for 50/50 custody of the kids. All because I had 'refused' to attend mediation a few days before Xmas. He mimicked my voice: "Oh, it's all too painful for me so close to Xmas."
Today I found out that stbx is indeed on a holiday interstate on the days offered by the mediator in the lead-up to Xmas. It appears that there was never a possibility that he could have attended at these times any way.
D16 rang him to ask to see him (he had been NC all over the weekend and has only been in phone contact since school finished a week ago).
He said he couldn't see her because he was in another state and would be there for the next few days.
D16 was upset that he had gone away without telling her.
I feel like I've been purposely manipulated by some sort of ultimate control freak.
I'm just sitting back quite gob-smacked at the level of manipulation involved. How do they summon the energy, even, to orchestrate all of this?
