Betsey - thank you so much for the thoughtful response. Most days I feel pretty good about my decision to fly solo , but there are an awful lot of people in my world that seem to think it's unnatural. And after listening to them for a long time - I start to question if I'm out of line - so it's nice to have some validation on that choice.
My divorce was final this week. I thought it would be a difficult, emotional day, but as it turned out, I didn't feel very much - it seemed pretty anticlimactic. I guess it was fairly fortunate that it fell on Feb 29th - I'll only have a divorce anniversary once every four years!
Here is where I really struggle. I keep as much distance from XH as possible. We communicate almost exclusively about the girl's schedule, and that is done mostly through text and the shared calendar I maintain. This works well for me. I'm more positive and in a better mood when I have as little contact with him as possible.
But - we're parents...... and there is more to parenting these two girls than just figuring out who can take what day off during Spring Break week. I look at some of the other situations on this board - which seem far more high conflict than mine - but the parents are still able to both make appearances at the kids birthday parties - and I have to say there is no sign of that happening here (either on my side or his). I'm trying to make the best of a bad situation for my daughters, and in many respects I have been successful, but I can't ignore the fact that a more congenial relationship with their father would be in their best interest. XH avoids me like the plague. I'm pretty sure that his absence from all of D7s sporting events is related to my presence there. And at D7's school play last week, he took off at the precise moment the last note was sung. So - not much warmth coming from his side either. We're in our own personal Cold War. Clearly there needs to be some sort of detente.
For example.... D7 has had the first whiffs of being on the receiving end of some mean girl behavior. Her closest friend at the moment is the little girl who lives downstairs from XH. She seems sweet enough and is a good student, but she's two grades ahead of D7 and that age gap is pretty significant. She behaves like a wanna be tween and passes along a lot of those opinions to D7. At one point she told D7 that boys would like her more if she said "OMG!" all the time. (My response began with "Wow - there are so many problems with that statement - I'm not sure where to start". We talked it through. Good talk.) Then they had some sort of spat and the message that this girl left on D7's phone was pretty fierce. I was able to talk D7 through the whole episode and it sounded like she got good advice from her Dad, as well. However, I was acutely aware that he and I should have talked it over and compared notes about what we were seeing. And....I just didn't do it. This particular situation has gotten a lot better - I invited the friend over for a sleepover, where I got to know her better, which allayed a lot of my concerns.
Anyway- yes XH freezes me out. But I know that I have agency in this and could suck it up, pipe up and say, "I'd really like us to have both better and more frequent communication about the girls. What do you think we should do". And I just can't do it. And I don't know why. Is it because I'm angry? I don't feel angry very often, usually just for awhile after one of the girls says something particularly poignant, such as D4 wishing all the way to school yesterday that "Daddy could pleeeeaaaase come live with us". And then I. want. to. shank. him. But that soon passes. I feel so selfish that I can't be the bigger person and do what needs to be done and instead am choosing my own peace of mind.
