I am a big proponent of peaceful co-parenting. I understand that some WAS's can be impossible to deal with, but I think sometimes LBS's are just looking for excuses to "teach them a lesson" and end up making things worse than they need to be. I think when one parent decides to take a hardline approach, then the other will follow suit. And that can create a lot of animosity. Early on when my ex would try to make parenting changes my initial thought was to tell her no, not because it was an inconvenience but because I thought I would be teaching her a lesson. But I knew I was just being vindictive and so I went along with it. Well karma happens and I found myself asking my ex for more favors than she was asking me for, usually due to unexpected work trips. And I am so thankful I didn't take that hardline approach because in the end I would have been screwing myself!
I also believe in continuing to have shared parties for the kids' birthdays. Regardless of the status of the M, I feel it's important to come together as a show of support for your kids. My ex and I still do that (just us, we don't bring OP's), we just had dinner with S15 (now 16!!) last night for his bday. Michele says in one of her books something like "when kids are involved, there's no such thing as divorce." You are linked together for life through your kids, you should strive to make that as stress-free for your kids as possible. I realize it's not always possible because some sitches are REALLY bad, I'm just saying it's something to strive for.
^^^ sorry to hijack your thread EZ, but for AS this is where i get lost. As much as I would love D14 to spend time with WW, D14 vehemently refuses and i have to respect her feelings. Do i force her? Do i consequence her if she doesn’t want to? With regards to WW, her reply would just be, “ I know she can never forgive me, and i just have to live with that”. So WW will just wait for time until D14’s anger is resolved? is that how i see it?. Right in front of D14’s IC she firmly said, “I don’t want anything to do with my mother!” Really lost on this.
