I thought everything was okay...(Part 2)

[MCS]

So, I'm getting a little anxious about my tactic here. I've tried to be in 'sit back and wait' mode about everything. I guess I'm fine with that for our R, but our lack of interaction about our kids is just troubling and not the precedent I want to set. She's expecting 50/50 custody, but seems like she feels we don't need to communicate at all about them.

So, I want to be prepared for what I think will be the next step in whatever our MC (mediation) session will be.....kids schedule.

I'm debating forcing her to talk about some of these issues, but it's not very DB. So I'm conflicted. At first, she lost almost all my trust about her and the kids based in what she did with them before BD w/o me knowing, how she handled BD with them and the things she exposed them to during early part of separation (the text message was the biggest one.) it seems to have gotten better, based on what the kids say to me, but part of me thinks that she's just doing it because I told her these were things she needed to do. I.e. Put the kids first when she has them.

We have not been able to agree on a schedule really since the beginning. I can tell you how she left and just walked out and disappeared on the kids for a week really is still a deep wound for me. They were so scared and confused and still are.

She has pushed to do a week on/week off for the kids. I think that's too long for them to be away from the other person. However, I don't think we are in a place to have an open discussion about it. Ever time I try to talk about it with her, she blows up and says I'm witholding the kids from her. Right now, I have the kids during the school week and she picks up Friday from school and drops them off at school on Monday.

I've been kicking this can down the road per se, because I have been trying to wait to see if our communications about the kids could improve, but it really has not improved at all.

--She had OM and his son over at W's house while the kids were ther, which was something that I've requested her not to do, especially because she tells me there's no R with him. It's not a big deal, so I won't confront her about it, it's just something that we've talked about

--She's asked to share pictures and stuff about the kids, I've sent her about 10 pics and I've got none, not even responses to the pics I sent

--She's never called, texted or anything to ask about the kids

--Her place is ~1/2 hour farther away from school and daycare, so the kids have earlier wake ups and longer commutes to/from

--She hasn't answered any of there questions about what has happened to mommy and daddy and why she doesn't want to be with daddy anymore

--When I bumped into OM at the store, I overheard him talking to someone about how I am putting conditions on her having the kids (something to this effect, I couldn't hear everything) like getting into a house


Anyway, this is all seemingly small stuff, but the total lack of communication about their well-being, activities, Etc. I'm still not comfortable with. My brother and his XW never established any type of communication about the kids and now 8 years later it is coming back to bite them as my niece is using them against each other. I don't want to be in that situation.