Well you can flirt with me but I know you're faking it You pursue your XW in a way no other man does on here
Re X and my kids, I have got passed the point where I even care who wins. He can win if he wants, all I want is peace, at any cost I want peace.
I know they love me. I know they have asked to see me. He doesn't bar all contact, he has offered me limited contact, but it's always on his terms and we never agree. If I do agree, then I have to contend with the mind games, and him picking at my mothering continually. It is bearable when he's on his own but when he has an OW he's even worse as he then asks the girls loads of questions about what I say about OW and he's even ruder to me than normal. He will say stuff like 'sorry, you can't have them today because me and OW are taking them to such and such a place for a family day out' etc.
When I tried to tell him I am the mother, let me take them out, he would just say 'I don't want to wind you up but me and OW are a 2 parent family now.' (i.e, she is the parent, not me).
At Christmas and birthdays etc he would say I couldn't have them unless OW could come round as well and on Christmas 03 I remember having to have the now EX-OW in my living room just so I could give some presents to my kids. It was really awful having her sitting on my sofa, watching me with my kids and then X got at me because I wasn't friendly to her.
My view is that if I hadn't asked to have them on DD4's birthday, he would not have sent me that email about OW2 and DD4's birthday would not have been ruined.
If I hadn't asked to see them the other week when he went nuts in the street, they wouldn't have been in the back of the car, witnessing that. I feel to blame that they were caught up in the middle of it, because of they'd just stayed at his place, they wouldn't have seen all that.
He does respond to reasonable, civil conversation (usually) but so far if I instigate any contact with them it is never without some sort of mind game, and of course he then knows my schedule and if I have anything planned and then usually tries to upset me so I won't be able to enjoy what I planned.
On the times I have been really flexible with the arrangements and given him whatever he wants with DD4, he just tells EX-OW that I am a push over and he can't respect anyone that just gives in to whatever he says (she told me that) and if things don't go according to plan he responds aggressively like the other week, or threatens to take me to court again.
He frequently says 'if you hadn't done this I would have let you keep the kids' - like he still gets a power trip out of the fact that he could take them.
The only time it isn't like that is when he is dating me. Then he is more respectful and he doesn't have a temper then, and he doesn't get at me about how I look after the girls. In fact, when he's dating me, he pretty much agrees with 85% of what I ask for. Last time around we only disagreed about my mother and the home ed meetings.
That's one of the reasons I persisted with DB for so long, as everything is so much EASIER then.
I hate to admit it, but it is easier just not seeing them than it is to put up with all of that. I am worn out to the point where I don't care if he has won.
