Monday, February 13, 2006

Deja-Vu All Over Again

The doorbell rings. It's 3:50... ten minutes before the ordered and agreed upon 4pm pick-up time.
Instead of inviting her in to wait, I tell her that I will have to send Cinderella out. It's early and she is still doing her homework.
It's only by like five minutes, She tells me.
Ten minutes according to every clock in our Home but I decide that I am not going to engage in this debate with Her.
Thankfully She let's it drop and changes the subject.
Did you get my message yesterday?
Yes. I was feeding The Baby and wasn't expecting your call so I didn't get your message right away.
I was partially telling her the Truth.
What I neglected to tell her was that I had called The Husband after listening to her message.
Any idea why she called me?
Yeah. She had asked if she could pick Cinderella up early on Mondays and I told her we would have to Play It By Ear. Don’t call her back. I will take care of it.
Does that mean you will call her?
No. It’s not necessary. Let her come at her regular time.
ExWife is attempting to manipulate the custody schedule and take advantage of The Husband again.
Or should I say STILL.
I start re-playing the last 6 years in my head where ExWife did everything in her power to manipulate the custody schedule, and life in general, to her advantage and in so doing begin to feel my old familiar friend -ANGER- rear its ugly head.
ExWife lives in her own reality. Oftentimes I am envious of her ability to create this perfect fantasy inside her own head where all is right with the world, she is in charge, and The Husband is here to do her bidding. I wish I was able to escape to my own Shangri-La most often when having to face the reality of life with her delusions.
In her World The Husband suggesting they Play It By Ear means it's ok for her to implement this proposed change right now. She tells me as much.
We decided that I would call you every Monday at 3:45 to see if Cinderella was close to finishing her homework so I might pick her up early.
I determine that by “We” she means the Voices in her head but keep that thought to myself as I am in no doubt that it would not be received well if I were to express it.
Every week since the Custody Case has been "settled" ExWife has made a request to alter the pick-up/drop-off time in some way.
5 minutes here. 15 minutes there.
Husband is losing control over the situation and the Control-Freak in me feels this overwhelming need to point it out so that he may put a stop to it before it goes any further.
She doesn’t get that she has lost custody for a reason.
She doesn't get that she.lost.custody.
I am fearful that The Husband has failed to learn the lessons of history thereby dooming our Family to continue to suffer at the hands of a delusional lunatic person who just.doesn’t.get.it.
Husband admits to needing some help in establishing the boundaries. He lacks the finesse required to have a firm hand with ExWife while not undermining their attempts at communicating.
Husband needs me to be more supportive. I need him to be more assertive.
No doubt the way with which I expressed this need was not the most effective. My anger and frustration got the better of me putting him on the defensive.
I am trying to pick my battles. And I can't battle with You and ExWife at the same time.
I need you to support me and trust that I am making the best decisions for everyone.
Back to 2001. It's deja-vu all over again.
It's times like these that I wish I could be more like the comedian
Steven Wright and suffer from amnesia and deja-vu at the same time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your are living my life!

Oh HOW I feel your pain!

If I had a dime for everytime we had to wait for Ex-Wife Mom to show up, or call, or drop off our own Cinderella who I will call "Precious"... I'd be rich.

What drives me batty is how consistently inconsistent Ex-Wife is about pickup times, drop off times, and shared custody. We will have Precious for almost 2 weeks because Mom is stressed, and then Mom will turn around and want us to change our schedule AGAIN because Mom has decided she misses Precious. This affects us, but ALSO Precious who has complained to counsellors her frustration at the schedule changing without her knowing. It's tough enough for Precious to live in a life with 2 homes, we as parents should stick to the rules so that she can at least have some control of her own life.

Hubby doesn't want to rock the boat because it unleashes the lunacy, and manic depressive behaviour in crazy EX, which then in turn affects child. What a wonderful vicious circle.

Hang in there.

Some day it will all work out... like when Cinderella and Precious go off to college. :)