melissa

[melissag]

and this ^^^^

is where you are put to the test, where being the best person you can be will be defined.

Stop focusing on what he says, and how and why.

If you cannot resolve an issue of a field trip, what will you do when you guys have to discuss new schools, drugs, bad influences, alcohol, grades, partying, curfews...

Pointing the finger and finding all the negatives will keep you from finding ANY common ground to co-parent effectively.

Focus on getting rid of the anger which is clouding you at the moment. You've been absorbed in it for a while now and it's keeping you stuck.

You and your kids deserve better.

Huh???

My reluctance to send my D9 on this field trip has nothing to do with my H or my anger toward him.

I want to do what *I* feel is best for my kid!!!

Yet, to me, it sounds like to be "the best person I can be" means going against what I think is best for her, in order to agree with my H??

I'm totally confused.

I started off not wanting to send her on this field trip. I didn't send her last year. H didn't care. I asked him for his thoughts. I told him my thoughts. I have been NOTHING BUT cooperative with him.

Yes, I am very frustrated (angry, whatever you want to call it) with the way that he communicates. The manipulation, the insinuations, the accusations, etc.

One has nothing to do with the other. I am not allowing my anger or frustration to cloud my judgment AT ALL.

I am not digging my heels in to be stubborn!! I have said NOTHING. NOTHING to my H about all the things I disagree with. NOTHING. He comes to me to complain about something HE disagrees with, and I am supposed to - what? Do things his way so that I am a good person?

Sorry, I am feeling really frustrated and misunderstood right now. I feel like I am trying SO hard to ignore all the emotional BS my H spits at me and just stick to the topic at hand. I have done everything I can to make our co-parenting R very cooperative. I come here to vent about my frustration over the way he sets it up so that it's impossible to have rational communication, but shifts the blame to me . . . and I feel like some of you are telling me that I should just do what my H wants, or I *AM* the bad guy.

What am I missing here?