So... you're probably right. I have no safety issues. no good reasons to say no except I simply don't want to. I probably need to sit with this for a bit because it isn't really setting us up for a healthy co-parenting dynamic, and stepping back this isn't the person I want to be in the long run. But right now I just don't have it in me to be cool with this.
This is good, May. You don't have to be Mother Theresa in all of this. You just have to be honest with yourself about your motivations. I don't know if it would be a good idea to say this to your H. To give him some version of, 'look, I know this isn't reasonable and I know you are having trouble with it. There's a part of me that agrees with you, and I wish I was in the position to be in a different place about this, but I am so angry and so disappointed with your decisions that right now, I just can't. I really don't want to be in this place forever and I am working on it.'
I really don't know if that would be a good idea. Part of me thinks he'd take any admission of uncertainty or vulnerability on your part and use it to manipulate you. That he'd position himself as a man of sense and sanity, and you being run by your emotions - and use that to get his own way on everything. And that you'd let him. When in actual fact, you are working on being steady and making progress but you aren't all the way there yet, and he doesn't seem to be even ready to try. Do you think if you did say this to him, and instead of an adult response, which would look something like, 'I get that. This is hard and it isn't your fault it is hard. Let's postpone the idea of a holiday for now and revisit it in six months when things are clearer,' he actually tries to take advantage of your honesty, you would be able to stay firm and assertive in the face of that?
