melissa

[labug]

I asked about the D-land Debacle (I'm willing to be that parents fight more with each other and the kids in the midst of a vacation in The Happiest Place on Earth. But I digress) because we don't really know how you operated as a couple.

As you were describing your H it's clear that he's wounded, but most of us are. That doesn't mean you need to fix him it just means you have a better awareness of who he is. I'm going out on a limb here to conjecture that your H actually has very little self esteem and all this is bluster to make him feel better about himself. It's pretty clear he hasn't worked through the trauma of being abandoned by his H. Not your problem, except that you share children and you need to figure out how to interact with him.

So how to deal with him? I like PM's post. But let's run a scenario. In the Disney event, you led with "H, you were wrong."(I know that's not exactly what you said but go with it). You became the authority figure who was judging him and so he was immediately defensive. Predictable for this guy.

What if you had said something like "H, that situation with D and the other kid was really upsetting. I felt (angry, scared whatever}. Were you feeling angry, too?" and then let him talk and you keep asking questions, if needed. Once you open a dialog you never know where it might go but it might give you insight that will help you work out the problem. You can't go in knowing what he's going to say or trying to control the outcome. When you do that, you're dealing with the H in your head not the person in front of you.

For the fish issue, "H, I understand the fish wasn't a big deal to you but is was to D. It was her pet that you bought her so it was special. She cried over the story you made up about the murder. Were you thinking that story would help get her over her sadness?" I can't remember all the details so I made up facts but do you see the difference?

Most of us want problem solving to be quick and easy. It isn't, it takes time and steps and it starts with listening and finding common ground.

When we try something new and don't immediately get the response we desire or think is "right" we tend to drop whatever efforts we were making and go back to our comfort zone thinking "well that didn't work!" This is a process and it takes work. It doesn't just happen.

You said: "There really is no way to bring this up with him without risking getting some more hateful spew sent my way. I am willing to do that if it will help my kids, but I am not sure it will." Spew is just words and can be water off a duck's back as long as you don't believe it. Spew can sometimes mean something is shifting and the shiftee is unhappy about it so they're hanging on with dear life and trying to ward off the person injecting shift into their life.

What is this fear about his spew?

Fear keeps us from moving away from our old patterns and comfort zones because even tho it might be a crappy way to live, it's what we know. It's our crappy way. We don't even see that there can be a better way.

You won't be perfect at this, you'll make mistakes but don't let fear of that stop you from trying.

Let H out of the box you have him in in your head, the "He'll never change" box. You may be right, he may not but you'll never know if you don't try. Sometimes we have to be the first to change. Right now the 2 of you are locked in your positions with neither of you willing to budge, so things won't change if that continues.

What I see with your responses here is you're charming, you're witty, you're emotional (I mean that in a good way), you're smart, you're thoughtful, you're bound by some pretty strict rules of behavior, you care a lot about how people see you, you like to be right, you can be defensive, you want to have the last word. You have many facets, as we all do. Which of these facets has H seen most in the last year? Bring out the others in your dealings with him, don't be handicapped by by his mental construct of you or your metal construct of him.

Only when we let go of all our preconceived BS can change really start to happen.

None of this is meant to say you give up anything that is rightfully yours or that you deal with him about the financial issues face to face.

If you H doesn't respond in a way that's helpful to the family, then he doesn't, but you'll never know that until you try, consistently. 25 used to say Change + Time = Change you can believe in (or something close to that)

Remember to be grateful for today.