I do want to make sure I'm not painting too black of a picture of XH. Our settlement specifies that he has the kids 6-8 nights a month and he does always do that. However because of his schedule, that has always meant having them on school nights (and they still have extracurricular stuff) - so he has ended up only having them for about 8 waking hours a week. I will give him full props- it sounds like he gives them his full attention during that time. And that is why I was a little surprised, now that Saturday is available, that he doesn't exercise the option of seeing them at games, etc.
I think that is actually the cause of my current malaise. When things ended with OW and he moved back to our town - I didn't ever really think reconciliation was in the wind, but I did think a better parenting relationship was possible, and I guess I'm a little disappointed that doesn't appear to be the case (and it's not like I do any pushing).
One of the things he does is tell the kids he misses them in such a way as to engender pity for himself. D7 would say things like "poor daddy...all alone...sad because he misses us...etc." I finally had to have a conversation with her, in as age appropriate language as I could muster, that it was fine to feel sad that she doesn't get to see him as much as she would probably want, but his guilt/sadness is not her burden to bear. And I guess as I see him becoming more and more distant, I foresee a lot more of these kinds of problems.
Anyway- in good news - my job is going to begin to send me to Santa Cruz once a month (on a night when XH has kids), shich means I can spend one evening without kids enjoying the beach scenery. That will be nice.
