Sometimes your ex just loves bending those "grey areas" you often find (or not find) in custody agreements.
Last time I had to go to court, I asked over and over and over again for very specific things to be written out in several sections of the agreement. Why? It gives a person who loves making false accusations less room to make certain types of accusations.
I didn't get my wish, but that didn't stop my lawyer from charging me for every email, every request, every phone call and every form to fill out.
Recently, my ex complied (that's a good thing), by letting me know that our son was being flown out of state to visit a family friend prior to coming visit me.
Fine. Not a huge deal.
Except, that I wasn't given specifics.
What are the Specifics?
At this exact moment, I should be video conferencing with our son. It's a set time and if we need to modify it, we generally let each other know. Our son being a teenager, as much as possible, I let him know directly, when that time slot will change.
It's not the first time we've made arrangements for that. Everyone has an actual life (or so we like to believe).
This morning I sent a text to my ex and the spouse of my ex asking when a good time to talk to our son would be today. I let them know I had been notified of his travels but wasn't given specifics.
Crickets.
And that happens sometimes.
Ignoring Communication from the Other Parent Often Gives the "Power-tripping" Parent a "High" of Feeling in Control
These are the moments that at least one adult in the equation likes to feel a power trip. Simply by ignoring my once a week correspondence.
The parent in me wonders:
Did our son know he was flying out of state to visit this friend? If he did, it wasn't brought up in the two hour conversation we had last weekend.
Are they en-route now? Would it have been really that difficult to let me know a better time to call our son?
Did they let our son know I wouldn't be able to talk to him right this second as normal?
What did they tell our son?
All very interesting questions. All unknown answers.
Certain personality types need to feel this type of power. Whether my ex knows it or not, it's completely predictable behavior and has been (at least for me) for over a decade now.
Now, I just trust that my son is indeed healthy and in one piece. Yes, there are a million other little, but probably not likely situations that could be very much happening. I know I can choose to dwell on those images or not. I choose not to and in doing so, giving my ex very little emotion control.
My relationship with each of my kids is solid enough that I know that my kids know that I love them, that I'm consistent in my efforts to be part of their lives and that if for some reason we miss our regularly scheduled speaking times, they know it wasn't my fault and I also know it was obviously never their fault.
So, What to do Instead?
Trust that everything will be OK.
Trust that I will get to connect with my son here eventually.
Choose to do stress-reducing, but productive things (contribute to Steemit in this case).
Make healthy choices as I move about my day.
Pray. For me that's always been the ultimate secret weapon, that a lawyer can't charge me for, the IRS can't tax me on (so there!), a department of [fill in the blank] can't seize by court order, and something (at least for now) I can't be arrested for fined for.
My Apologies
This particular post could have gone in more one direction. I know that. And maybe I will add it to a list of topics that need to be fleshed out (but doing that at the moment feels to stressful - and I must get my health back on track.)
I'm sorry if you were looking for a more technical, in-depth, step-by-step "how to" when dealing with this type of thing with your ex. I guess I just needed to write about this one time it's happened for some particular reason.
With that, I will find some good pics for this and then place a cordial phone call to the ex and the spouse of my ex. I send a text and when it's ignored, I follow up with one phone call to each line. If that is ignored, I have to revert to doing stress-reducing positive things. Doing that removes the emotional power the ex likes to try and wield from time-to-time.
How have you dealt with behaviors like this from an ex in the past? What helped you and why?
Image Source: Unsplash
UPDATE: My ex replied to my text over an hour later and I'm paraphrasing for confidentiality reasons, "When they've arrived [at their destination], I will text [my spouse] so that that [my spouse] can make [our son] available to [video-chat] with you."
I dunno about you, but I'm laughing. Still no specifics. In purporting behavior like this, my ex things he's wasting my perfectly good day by forcing me not leave the house.
What my ex doesn't know? I planned on doing EPIC STUFF at the house today anyway.
By removing the ability for my ex to emotionally control me, this predictive behavior makes the attempted Tarzan roar, sound more like:
And that just makes me feel sorry for my ex. (sigh).