A WW? (5)

[lt0402]

CT, I have always appreciated your support brother! There are some awesome people that have been helping me in here and I can't even begin to thank all of you enough!

So, I'm pushing my W now on a few things. Told her today that I'd like to:

1) do every meal and meds for D on Sunday's
2) fully do her after school routine, homework, meals, and meds on Mondays and Wednesday's.
3) go to all doctors, dentists, and orthodontist appointments going forward
4) get recipes from W of a few of the things she makes for D so I can practice making them
5) I'm making a list of house things we need to do to sell the house
6) I'm making a list of expenses we need to cut

W responds i can't just force changes to Ds routine bc that will negatively impact D. W says we can't change Ds routine until we figure out how everything will work with S.

I tell W that while I hear her worries about disrupting Ds routine, I don't agree that we have to wait and I'd like to start moving forward with doing this stuff.

W says please stop making this harder for D. Then she leverages our counseling session for the first time and says even the counselor gets that, why don't you. Surprised it took her this long to hit me in the head with what came out of MC.

D has a friend show up and I head out to a golf tournament with friends (my GAL today). W then hits me on text.

W: we can't discuss today bc Ds friend is over. We can figure out S plans and then work on the other stuff. Sorry if you don't like that but think about D for a sec. You are doing the same thing you did over the summer and it made it worse for D and you know that. If you are not willing to see the MC and try to deal with this fairly you are going to push D farther away. How do you not get that?

I don't respond, come home from golf, say hi to W, get ignored by W, say hi to D and friend and now am sitting here. just now, W follows up with this:

W: I understand you do not agree with me but that's not the point. We need to agree together on something that is good for D. You're going to have to compromise. Disrupting her routine with no explanation is completely unfair to D. We should talk about this calmly when D goes to bed tomorrow and come up with a reasonable plan for you to start doing meals next weekend. Please do not mess with her school routine right now. D is having a good year, please don't cause her extra stress. I will help you next weekend but please don't mess up her school week yet. Not until there's a plan. You cannot say that's not a fair request. That's selfish and won't help any of us. In the meantime reconsider talking to the MC bc we are not getting anywhere without her. Way back in May you thought it was a great idea so there's no reason not to go.

So, that's been my day with her stewing on that. Had a wonderful time at the golf tournament. We won the thing and it was great to be outside with friends all day. I used to play a ton of golf before I got married but really don't anymore. Don't have the same passion for it. Trying to find something else to fill that void.

It's funny that my W doesn't realize I really don't need her help on those requests. I'm more than capable of doing those things for D now. Even the homework stuff, where W has been more active than myself, I feel I can pick up quickly and keep D succeeding. I realize now I'm more than capable of driving the stuff my W does, both for my D and for our household. It's a liberating realization.

All that said, I don't think what I'm asking upsets Ds routine. Why would D care who makes her food or does her meds? The homework stuff, maybe. But I'll offer that I sit with them for a couple weeks while they do it then I'll transition into it.

I think the larger issue is Ws fear of losing control. She continues to leverage D as the reason I should allow her to retain control. This is such a huge issue that I'm not sure how it resolves itself. W seems to want to get me back in front of MC so she can push her agenda as well as her and MC aligned very well last time.

We will see. All I know is that D and I are going to an island park downtown tomorrow morning to hunt Pokemon (supposed to be the best spot in our city). We've been looking forward to this for awhile. All D wants to chat about recently is Pokemon and we've bonded a bunch around it. Pretty interesting to see where their passions lie!

In a good spot right now. W isn't weighing on me as much as she has in the past. My focus is on my D and the custody piece of this. Meet with the L on Tuesday to see how best to proceed. Thanks all for the thoughts and support!