I am not a distancer unless I am emotionally vested. Most people would describe me as open and warm. Distancing is my way of handling my insecurity/fear of rejection. When people get too close, I back off. In all other aspects of my life I am fairly confident and self assured. Not sure if that makes sense. Probably not.
The lock thing was just him being absent minded. It was not intentional. What got my goat up was a) he forgot about me AGAIN, and b) the expectation I would drive half an hour out and half an hour back to come get the keys. In any case, the locks are changed now and, no, he was not happy about it. We were in the car with the kids, so he couldn't go off on one, and I said it was because I was locked out ("when were you locked out?") and that I would get him a copy of the keys cut, but I failed to mention I was only giving him one of the two keys. I got some grief about calling an emergency locksmith out (waste of money) but that was about it. He was mostly silent after that.
One last thing ... and this is just to see if I handled it properly.
H came to pick the girls up yesterday morning to take them to school and I asked if he could drop me off at the station (it is on his way). When I went to get in the car, D12 was in the front seat. She has been doing this a lot lately. H looked at me and said, "You'll need to sit in the back". When we got in the car, I said to D12 (in a banterish way) "you took mummy's seat". She said "Why do YOU get to sit in the front?". H smiled. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it so I just joked something back and said "that's ok, it means I get to sit in the back and hold D9's hand".
When I got home last night I spoke to her quietly and said that her behavior was disrespectful. She asked why, and I said that if she got in nanny and granddad's car she wouldn't sit in the front and make nanny sit in the back. I said I knew she didn't do it on purpose, she was just trying to get one on D9 (they argue over who sits in the front in my car) and that I wasn't mad, but I'd like her to not do it again. She took this quietly. But then started to cry. Not crazy tears. Just little ones. I don't want to make her anxiety worse, but I also want her to know that being disrespectful is not on. I can't talk to her dad about it because he will just say I am being ridiculous.
