My problem relationship isn't a marriage...it is a co-parenting relationship.
This guy was absolutely not interested in any kind of romantic relationship with me after he dumped me 5 years ago when I was 4 1/2 months pregnant. We got along pretty well most of the time, but he didn't want me dating other men. Last ditch effort, we "became a couple", but our relationship was the same, just with a different name. He was not interested in giving me any attention, affection, companionship, or conversation. We spent Monday evenings together for a couple of hours as a family. He would not have a photo taken of just me and him at my daughter's birthday party, he would not sit and talk with me alone. We had ONE physical experience (after 2 years and 8 months of not even holding hands or a kiss) and 3 weeks later when I told him I was about ready for another kiss, he literally ran away. Then I dumped him. I was not getting my needs met and the whole purpose of the experiment was to see if I could get my needs met by him. I dumped him, changed the schedule so we would not be together on Monday nights and drastically reduced our contact.
I emotionally disconnected with him and I started dating other men and I did not need or want anything from my ex, but I did have some anger and resentment I had to deal with because I thought he should have made more of an effort to keep me from going to another man/men. I still think it would be best if I could be with my child's father rather than another man, but I have not looked to him for attention, affection, sex, etc. in a year and a half, YET in this past year he has complained bitterly about how I have harassed him and smothered him.....WHAT? The farther I pull away and the less I have to do with him, the more he complains about me being in his life.
The last straw was when I tried to get him to work on his attitude since we shared custody, and we have 4 exchanges a week because he sees her so often. He told me that I was using our child to force him to see me. That was ridiculous. I have bent over backwards trying to arrange things so he has as little contact with me as possible and he still complains when I contact him only about scheduling variations.
So, I said, "FINE, you don't want to see me, I 'll fix things to where we don't ever have to see each other." I won't go to his house for pickup 2 days a week (very inconvenient for me, anyway, but I felt like he was holding her hostage until I came to his door to pick her up) and we will jump through whatever hoops necessary so that he won't have to see me. It lasted about 3 weeks...we did the exchange at the YMCA day care. He would drop her off, I would pick her up...one of us was always at the facility when our daughter was, AND we only communicated via text.
I loved the new arrangement. I felt like a weight was lifted. But about 3 weeks in, he asked me to meet him at chickfila. I asked him how he was going to do that without us seeing each other. Then he said I could come to his house and he would just stick her out the door when I got there, so we wouldn't have to see each other. I told him I was not going to come to his house. I am trying to keep distance from him. It is rather silly, I think, but I didn't know what else to do.
Well, this has been a disaster. The farther I pull away from him, the worse he behaves. So, I am going to do the opposite. Remember, I have spent a year and a half keeping my distance from him and the only "pursuing" I have done is giving in to his silly demands for distance. Now I think he keeps running when I am not chasing him because he WANTS me to chase him because he doesn't like how things are, but he doesn't know how to change them.
I had a flash of inspiration the other day. I remember "The Miracle Worker" and how young Helen Keller didn't have the ability to communicate and Annie Sullivan FORCED her to learn. I know Helen was just a child, but still, it is a beautiful story about love and sacrifice and determination.
I told my ex that I feel like he's like Helen Keller and I am like Annie Sullivan. He does not want to cooperate with me, but I truly do believe he can learn new skills that will make life better for him and everyone around him (especially me and our child.) We will see how it goes!
I guess my biggest question is.. what do you want?
At the beginning of your post, you specifically discuss this as being a co-parenting issue. Why do you want to co-parent with him, rather than parallel-parent?
How is the relationship between the two of you negatively affecting the co-parenting? How do you WANT the co-parenting to look like?
Or...
Is this really about the R with the father of your child?
Ways I think he tries to get me to "chase" him: 1. Not answering text messages regarding scheduling changes (I have 2 other kids with an ex-husband and sometimes we need to make some adjustments...specifically we had a birthday party and a dentist appointment I needed to schedule around)EVEN THOUGH he agreed that we would communicate about schedules. Previously, I had had basically NO CONTACT with him for 3 1/2 weeks (I was angry and frustrated with him, I wasn't trying to cater to him) and when I made ONE phone call to him about a scheduling change for Thanksgiving holiday, I left a message, sent a text asking him to call and 4 hours later I called him again (my aunt was waiting to make plans for which day we would visit--the urgency was for HER benefit) he answered the phone all angry telling me to "stop bothering me!" I told him at that point that if he did not want me to call or text repeatedly, he should reply in a timely manner. 2. He acts weird or says crazy things just to get me to engage him. Like when I sat down on a couch beside him, he scooted away and said, "Don't get too close!" like he's an 8 year old boy who thinks I have cooties or something. Of course that it silly and childish behavior.Of course he knows I am going to want to know why he is acting that way. 3. He does not do what he says he will do, so I can confront him over that. He originally said he would drop her off at 9:30, but he never did. He basically changed the drop-off time to 10:30 without telling me until the last minute (he does not plan ahead or give me information so that I can plan ahead.)
If he really wanted to limit contact, he would do what he said he would do, he would deal with my questions promptly. It goes from "do you plan to drop her off at 10:30 instead of 9:30 every day?" to "I'm just asking, it's fine" to "please reply if you are getting these texts". One time I had my brother call to tell him that I was afraid he wasn't getting my texts, but as soon as he saw my brother calling, he texted me a reply to my question and called my brother back to tell him that he had got back to me. A few days later he didn't reply to my texts again and I asked him about it and he said he was getting them but that I asked him too many questions.
I told him he is like a little boy who pushes a little girl into a pile of dog poop or sticks her pigtails in the inkwell (archaic reference) at school because he doesn't know how to interact in a positive way with her. He is 41 and has never had a "normal" relationship with a woman. Very few and very short lived "relationships". I thought his problem was "just" committmentphobia, but that should have gotten better when I withdrew almost totally from his life.
He is NOT "typical," he has "special needs" that make relating to him in a positive way very challenging.
The good news is that in the past several months, I have gotten control of my own emotions and I feel like since I have "taken the beam from my own eye", I can help him with his issues. Our problems were different, but we both have struggles with anxiety and depression and letting our emotions control us rather than us controlling our emotions.
I want him to not go out of his way to play childish games with me.
I want him to treat me with common courtesy.
I want him to communicate with me in a respectful and timely manner in matters concerning out child.
I want him to not have an anxiety attack every time he gets a text message from me. That's just sick.
I used to want us to be able to be able to be together for special occasions, like birthday parties, recitals, her wedding, but now I don't care if we can't ever be in the same room together. I am not going to fight for that.
We started out co-parenting and it went well. In reality, we are mostly parallel parenting, but it still isn't working. Even in parallel parenting, there is some contact required.
I am not new to coparenting/parallel parenting. I have 2 teenagers with my ex-husband and I have never had the kind of problems I am having with this other man. My exhusband and I don't have problems communicating with each other or attending school functions together, etc. I have not had to jump through hoops with my exhusband like I have with this other guy.
It is just annoying and inconvenient when I need to communicate with him and he plays games. I don't want to play games back with him. I could have easily left him stranded last week and not have been there to pick up my daughter when he probably was expecting to drop her off. I had to take my other daughter to a dentist appointment and I needed to know if he wanted me to get my younger daughter either before or after the dental apppointment. But he didn't want to reply to my text.
I just want him to act like a normal, mature adult. Stop the game playing. Recognize he has emotional issues and deal with them so they don't stress him out and stress me out.
Even with "parallel parenting", there is contact and a "relationship" YES, I want that parenting relationship to be improved.
I haven't figured out what his problem is. But he's got a problem.
Just so you know, how I am dealing with my stbx is the same as how he appears to be dealing with you.
Frankly, I want nothing to do with my stbx. I have gone as dark as possible. We have custody arrangements and I stick to them. Nothing more, nothing less. If she attempts to engage me for any reason, I ignore it.
I want nothing to do with her and I don't want her to chase me. I'm done.
And that... sounds to me like the possible reasons for his behaviour. He's setting his boundaries with you. He's not playing a game.
To be a little more clear about this, my stbx has set up the kid schedule. Something that I asked for because without it, I saw the kids very little. All based on a schedule that stbx created, without discussing it with me. Her L drafted the schedule, along with the separation agreement. Because I knew I would not be able to "negotiate" with stbx, I agreed to the schedule because, it was certainly much better than prior and it was at least "close to fair".
And... once it was signed, my W then verbally asked / suggested / stated that she wanted us to be flexible. So... in her mind, it was back down to her way or the highway, for my visits with the kids. She would ask for a change in the schedule and I would say, "OK". I asked for a change in the schedule and I was accused of wanting things only when it was convenient for me. So much for fixed OR flexible schedule...
Unfortunately, it is the child who looses the most in a separation / divorce.
Is it inconvenient? Sure. Does it svck? Yes. Can we control others? no.
Rather than trying to push some change on him, how can you work with what you've got?
I told him last month that if I couldn't have a good relationship, I didn't want a relationship at all and that is when I backed up as far as I could. It seems to have blown up in my face, so I have to try a different strategy...Rather than "let go of the rope" I am going to hold on and my mission is to be to transform this relationship into a "good" relationship.
I told him to "Let go or get dragged" because I am not going to continue to try to cater to his neuroses. I am going to do everything I can to fight for him, like Annie Sullivan fought for Helen Keller. Helen Keller's family had "dropped the rope" but it ended up not being the best approach for anyone.
He really has some serious phobia to me now. I told him I am looking up about "exposure therapy" and told him we should work on that since he doesn't want to get professional help. My therapist says I should not expect him to cooperate with me, and I don't expect it, but I will try anyway. I have to do something. He is really suffering and I feel like he has been crying out to me for help, in his own way.
I just want us to both have peace and our daughter is must 4, so I want the next 14 years to be more pleasant than the last couple.
tnmom, I do want you to know that I empathize with your sitch. A lot of what you've written is very telling.
I do want to ask you, has your entire relationship with him been you steamrolling him?
You appear to be a very strong character. I do understand you are frustrated right now, but it seems like for the entire relationship with him, you have "directed" all things in the relationship. Your entire focus right now appears to be pushing your will and desire on him and how custody and visits with D4 will go.
Do you make the majority of the decisions around your custody and visitation with your teen kids and ex?
He SAYS he wants me "out of his life" but he has also said that he wanted to co-parent.
How can I be any more "out of his life" than for him to not ever have to see me and to not have to hear my voice, but to only communicate via text about our daughter? I ask him and he doesn't have any answer.
