Mach - you (and many others) are right. Try as I might, I have never truly vanished on her. Ever. I have always been there when she has needed me.....without question. So no, she has never lost me.
We each have ten consecutive nights that we can take in the summer with him for vacation. To date because of work I have not been able to do 10 nights with him. Since she is off in the summers it is not a problem for her - she could take 20 if I would let her. I literally do not need additional vacation days from her....I can't use all the ones I have - so there is no compromise to be had. Plus I do not have much of a desire to try and bargain with her for anything. I am not going to. I mean really....10 nights isn't enough? Come on.
Then I get conflicted about what kindness looks like. If I was kind would I let her have those days she is asking for? To her, it will be read as me being retaliatory or punitive.
Remember - in our C session one of the "objectives" she wanted to achieve was getting better at negotiating parenting time because "sometimes he gives me 5 days, some days he gives me 10....and I have the summers off". To contrast, I said in my objectives were that I wanted to try to learn who the other person is now and get to a place where we can stop our S from hurting. Selfishness.
