I'm finding it difficult to post here lately on my situation. I am concerned about posting details for anonymity's sake. There has been a lot going on, but I will keep things vague for now.
KG, some of your recent updates have really helped me get my mind set straight. I see how your W uses all kinds of different strategies to bait you into a response. Many of these, in a healthy relationship, are perfectly harmless conversation starters. But in a toxic relationship, they are not. I don't see this as a devious manipulative plan... they just instinctively revert to the same old patterns of initiating interactions and know what works.
My W has been reaching out a lot to inquire about my thoughts on what's going on with our kids. I find it really difficult not to respond. I can detach from anything involving me and her, but when kids are involved it feels so entangled. She projects her feelings onto them ("the kids are worried about <something my W is actually worried about>", for instance) and then asks what I think. As genuine as this may appear on the surface, I know it is bait, and the goal is to get me to react and then we get drawn into an exchange where I end up validating and deflecting and trying to exit as quickly as possible. But in the moment.... it is so HARD to hold back from responding.
I do not feel like she has a healthy curiosity about my thoughts on parenting. I know it is bait, and if I bite, my thoughts will be dissected, refuted, analyzed, and debated. I may be called names. I typically give a bland neutral response (such as, "Yeah, I noticed that behavior, I am also concerned")... because I don't want to be accused of not responding and hence not caring. I can deal with all the blowback, I believe I am emotionally strong enough at this point, but it feels pointless to engage. Especially when she characterizes any response that doesn't agree with her opinions as "angry" or "venomous", etc.
I've been reading some co-parenting books about how to handle these situations. I am struggling to figure out how much to engage. I have a very very fine speck of trust right now with my W. Ideally I'd like to trust her more in the future and be able to have healthy conversations about our kids. I have no clue how to rebuild that trust when there is no healthy forum to do that. MC would have been an opportunity, but W spent 6 months sticking to the same tune of safety concerns, etc. Maybe this is just what it is, and as years pass we will build trust with the mere passage of time. I am sad for my kids to see what is happening. I have the instinct to be protective and stand up for what I think is right, but I also recognize it is a losing proposition to engage with my W right now.
Perhaps in the future I will feel like my parenting opinions are respected. At the moment, it's more of her "let's be on the same page" script... meaning she writes the book and I read it. Pretty sure I'm going to be vilified (in her mind) for a long time if not forever, no matter what happens.
