Thanks Peace. I'm working on me. I think that is the real difference.
I have been forced into much more contact with him for a variety of reasons of late and just had a long telephone call for the first time in almost a year. This on the heels of the sneaky behind my back stuff he was doing. I never let on that I knew about any of it. I just charged neutral as they say and kept to the discussion, which was about one of the children, but oddly never mentioned the other or the divorce or anything else.
He is still displaying far more emotion than he should have for this late in the process. Insofar as I can have a completely neutral conversation with him now, it is a little jarring to hear so much emotion in his voice. Cold fish is more his thing. It is largely still coming across as anger and accusation, but it quickly melts into a real softening and a return to himself. He used to love rubbing in my face his plans and commitments with the OW and why he couldn't see the children as a result. Now he only mentions work and "appointments".
We discussed him seeing the child and I once again set down the boundary on no third parties/places in view of the child's emotional issues and this time there was no push-back at all, which previously caused the almost year-long period of no contact and the nastiness that resulted in his filing (from his end, I was being calm and offering alternatives for resolution without court).
Just as he asked to have a call with me before meeting in person to try to resolve the divorce issues between us (which I requested because of the looming tax change), he has now asked for a call with the at-home child before seeing him for the first time in more than 6 months. I literally think he is afraid to go into these face-to-face meetings without some indication of what reaction he is likely to get from the other person. Even before he would talk to me about the somewhat emergent child issue, he repeatedly asked me to tell him what it was about in email before the call. I finally said I wasn't angry, or mad, and didn't want to hurt him but that there was an issue with the child that needed to be dealt with. With that, he actually called me. Shockingly, he also unblocked me immediately after the call and sent me a text so I would be able to figure out that he had done it.
