Moving Forward

[MonicaP]

Hi Maf,

I am so irked at my H right now and thought I'd better write it down here before I wrote it all to him in an email.

First of all, he showed up at 9:30am this morning which irritates me because - in the beginning - we "agreed" that he would show up by 8:30am. He did that for a while but for months now has slid it up to 9am. I had asked him last week to try to show up early since he had only been over twice in the last 2 weeks, no luck! And S4 was up at 5:30am wanting breakfast so I already had 4hrs of mommy duty before he even rolled out of bed practically. His excuse: oh, this anti-anxiety medication makes it hard to get out of bed. I swear, does he think I buy all his BS!

Anyway, he arrived saying he would probably only take S4 to the park - given his exhaustion - and otherwise stick around the house. I told him what I'd be making for dinner. So, I get home at 4:45pm to find a note saying he was at the park and would be back by 5pm or 5:30pm. So I prepared a nice dinner (w/ "leftovers" for him)...5:45pm still no show. So I called and ended up leaving 3 messages, no response. By 6:10pm he calls completely oblivious saying he was on his way back. Well, little does he know that I was terrified during that 30 minute window that maybe he was actually capable of taking or harming our S4. That just feels so bad. But that's how much I distrust him and am scared that - as this totally different person he's become - that he's capable of God knows what. I think I am just so scared that he's really going to go off the deep end.

Well, we all sat down to dinner. He tried to make conversation about his dad, and later gave S4 his bath. Well, S4 started pulling the acting out "I'm going to hit you mommy" routine and I did my usual things to curtail it. Apparently H didn't think I was doing a good enough job and started to intervene. It went like this all evening until we were just not able to have a civil conversation. I didn't want to get into all this stuff in front of S4, but H kept saying "it's fine". S4 kept escalating with agressive behaviour, etc..

H got angry at me - said I wasn't going to listen to him, said he didn't think we (he) needed MC to help us with this co-parenting stuff, and it just got worse from there. It's clear that he is angry at me for pointing out the fact that I am with S4 the most and therefore am a lot more aware of S4's behavior. I want to help S4 to identify his feelings and find words or ways of expressing them, whereas H wants to pretend nothing is wrong and that I am essentially telling S4 how he feels. It's ludicrous.

H doesn't see S4 when he cries his desperate cry "I want my mommy", "I want my daddy", or when he decides to throw his bowl of oatmeal on the livingroom floor. He doesn't see S4 when he wakes up coughing in the middle of the night and I have to bring him in the bathroom for steam. He doesn't know that S4 likes a little banana at bedtime and doesn't like his bath water drained right away "for the fishies". He doesn't get to hear about his day at dinnertime or to see him with his friends.

Bottomline, he doesn't really know S4 in the same way anymore and he's going to have to rely on me to give him some information. I want to support his ongoing bond with S4, but I also want him to know where S4 is coming from - he still almost treats him like he was when he left - 3 yrs old.

Well, I asked H if he would stay to talk and he said no. He said let's think about it and talk next time. Good advice, but the way he said it was so condescending.

I am so tired...