Alligator Love

[Painter]

Did she get the court to agree to that custody setup? Not a father-friendly state?

I'm in MN. It isn't father unfriendly. STBX has simply built a case that it's best for D4 to be with mom more right now and that S11 has 'adjustment issues' and is going to counseling for outbursts of anger so it would be 'best for him' to stay with her during the week. My L says that we might not win this one. It's still in negotiation. Frankly anything less than living with my family 100% of the time is criminal, so now we're just haggling over which ring of hell is the legislated reality.

I hope you get 50/50 - and soon. Personally, I think her arguments could just as easily be turned the other way... that an 11 year old troubled boy needs to be with his father at that age.

I'm not sure which reply you were talking about. I didn't post how I replied to my children. The word "really" was just my surprise at the fact that my son had already heard about my key ring solution, it wasn't in reaction to his parroting STBX's comments.

I meant where you said that you sometimes would say "I'm not really worried about what mom thinks". It shows that she's doing this. It indicates to me that there has already been several incidents where the kids tell you that she criticizes your parenting.

That said, my reaction is one of indifference. If they bring up that "mom says" or "at mom's place" I just shrug and tell them we're different people and are going to do things differently like it's obvious and no big deal...because that's the truth.

If my D's start parroting mom's critical voice when they get older I'll be just fine. I parent them for them, I don't need their affection and approval. I fully expect them to be monsters, but I don't let my children impact how I feel about who I am or what I do. I think I learned this from being a manager. I got used to the fact that some employees would criticize everything I did, blame me for everything that went wrong, etc. Trust me, I know who I am and what I bring. They can criticize all they want. I'll get them to 18 and make sure they know I am there if the day comes they want to be civilized with me. It's their life and they'll have to choose their path. I will just lead by example and be available to them as little or as much as they want.

I am disappointed that their model for relationships will be to walk when it gets tough. It wouldn't surprise me if both of my D's became WAWs at some point. But again, I get to do my best as a parent to show them what I believe, and ultimately they get to make their own choices. I was pretty angry at one point at STBX because I feel she is bringing a lot of pain to the children and I am helpless to protect them...but I realize this is out of my control, and life's bumpy anyway. This is the human experience. I'll just be there to support them through it and show how to be true to yourself no matter what happens.

What I'm getting here, is again that you are focused on how it impacts you... not on how it impacts the children. It puts them in a bind that they don't know how to resolve. It puts them in the middle, which is exactly what you want to avoid to not have them carry the scars of their parent's divorce for the rest of their lives.

You are not helpless to protect them, there are several things you can do to stop this cycle, like ask for a co-parenting class for both of you. This is very common in D and not an unreasonable thing to ask for, especially when you have these episodes that have already happened.

I would encourage you to read about parental alienation and the damage it can do the children, and talk to your L about it, as well as S11's counselor.