I may have spoken too soon last night, because there was a three minute ranting message on my cell phone from W last night.
Basically, W said she couldn’t take it any more and that she was going to bring the kids back to house and she would retreat alone to the beach house to get her sanity back. She said I should take time off from work now, cancel my trip alone with the kids in August, and since I refuse to leave and want to be with the kids so much, just do it now. She then moved into the separation issue saying I need to make a decision on staying or leaving because she can’t take it any more and she’s at the end of her rope and needs to take her own action. This turned into a lengthy discourse on our sitch (a good deal of projecting), my unwillingness to work with her, and again the need for me to make a decision – and my failure to make a decision would be deemed an affront to the emotional health of the kids. Just more of the same.
When I called the kids this morning, I learned that S10 set W off by not liking an ice cream treat at the shore and throwing a mild fit (In my view, this is the result of not imposing a stricter no-tolerance disciplinary policy at home--but I'm willing to discuss that).
D8 told me that W got all the kids in the car and called them little “f**kers” (this struck D8 a lot) and said they would all go home. I told D8 that Mom was very frustrated by their constant fighting and not listening (true) and they needed to listen to her.
In any event, W picked up the phone briefly and asked if I got her message. I said I listened to it this morning and she replied that she thought she got through to the kids last night and things would get better. Basically, she wanted me to ignore it and that was all. I certainly wasn't going to say anything, so I let it drop. I guess I'll bring this up with C this week.
