To expect STBXH to respond more quickly to simple questions?

[ScoobyCan]

CHSESTBXH (can't happen soon enough soon to be ex husband) and I haven't had a civil conversation since I chucked him out for unreasonable behaviour last year. Emotional and financial abuse / control amongst other things. Oh, and he decided August was the month to stop maintenance payments so I've had to go to CMS.

We have two DCs. I put forward on a quarterly basis the EOW plan, and he has generally accepted the dates (by not replying....) however if ever I have a question about times / drop off / pick up and I Whatsapp him, he can take days to reply despite reading the message.

MN has been awesome in teaching me the "grey rock" technique, my goodness thank you mumsnetters - it helps me daily, but is it THAT difficult for him to respond yes or no within minutes of receiving a message? Why does he take three days? Is he really going to carry on being this petty?

Any hope that I had for civil and effective co-parenting just flies out of the window each time he does this. He recently suggested via his solicitor a JSM. On my birthday. He finally sent his slimline Form E through (first deadline was end of last year) on our son's birthday. He won't have a civil conversation with me, but he is showing himself up to be mean spirited, spiteful, vindictive, and although I work hard to let it all go, it shouldn't have to be like this.

Am I being unreasonable to think he should just get over himself and respond, so we can move forward in our co-parenting? Or will it always be this way? Any tips or advice would be really welcome.

No tips op except it’s control isn’t it and I guess the more he knows it upsets you the more he will do it. What a knob!

Does he have siblings/parents/friends who could mediate

You put each question asked as answered your way unless a response is had

So

I’ll be dropping the children at your place 10am on Saturday, if this isn’t acceptable let me know by tomorrow tea time

Job done

Or

I’ll drop children at 10am Saturday, if I haven’t heard by tea time tonight I’ll make other plans for the children and me and they’ll see next time.

Always have same drop off times. Dates arranged 3 months/6 months in advance.
Communicate only in emergency.

ivykaty that’s a really good idea.

OP - it’s all power based. Of course he could reply - he just likes you being on the back foot and not knowing.

WhatsApp is ideal - you can just pull the message over to the left and see if he has read it or not.

I would actually be more specific than “tea time” (if I haven’t heard from you by 6pm).

@apriljune12 - thank you. Yes I believe he is continuing to try and exert control over me, and I can tell you it's exhausting. It may seem like a small thing to an outsider but after a decade long marriage, now the wool has been pulled back I've realised just how bad it was - trying to extract myself from his clutches is mind-blowing from the freedom aspect, but to not slip back into "facilitator" of his behaviour is really, really hard.

Thanks @ivykaty44 - I have tried this. He then just waits until the 11th hour to respond which is also hugely frustrating. I try too, to keep the children's arrangements very separate from the divorce too, as they shouldn't be penalised for my poor life choices.

It's so pathetic - a great friend said "he really has become the pantomime villain hasn't he?" I suppose I must laugh about it otherwise he will "win". It's all just a game to him it seems.

Thanks so much to you all.

@Permaexhaustion - the question raised this weekend is that I was going to drop them off with him (same time, different place). I overheard the children on the phone with him and he told them he is taking them away for the weekend directly, which would mean he literally passes by the front door. I've therefore asked if he can just pick them up instead.

No response as yet. He read it immediately. It's not a difficult one to answer....

God it sounds a nightmare

Send another saying 'as you're passing my front door, I'll keep the kids here for you to pick up on the way'.

Just don’t take them to the drop off point. You’ve said pick them up he hasn’t disagreed.

If he texts at the 11th hour just reply, ‘ah if only you’d replied sooner I would have been happy to drop them off, it doesn’t suit now. They will be ready for collection at X time’

No. This is the one thing that 10 years later hasn’t got any better for me. The easiest thing to do is just not bother. Drop off/pick up at the same time, every time. Never expect him to do the logical thing, particularly if the logical thing means your life is make the teeny tiniest bit easier. Never rely on him and always have a back up.

Scoobycan

If he waits till the 11th hour... just make sure the time frame for you is so well in advance it doesn’t matter

Tbh my ex did Friday pick up from school club and then back to breakfast club on a Monday so we didn’t have all this

@Butterymuffin - I got an immediate response along the lines of "nothing yet organised. I'll keep you posted."
facepalm

@ohreallyohreallyoh - it doesn't give me much hope if you've had to deal with similar for so many years. It is so boring and so childish...

@ivykaty44 - how old were your DC? This was his suggestion but my DC are so little and have such busy weeks during term time I'm loath to give in to a Sunday night too....

OK, so now send 'OK, if you want me to drop them off at yours let me know by (day and time, well in advance) otherwise I'll keep them here for you to collect'. He did say he'd keep you posted.. just make sure he does so by your timetable not his, and make it so it's him who gets disrupted if he doesn't reply.

I left a very abusive relationship 3 years ago and have 3 ds's with ex. His attempts at control (through maintenence or lack there of, and contact of the boys) it's been very very difficult and I've had complete meltdowns and been hysterical many a time, i still flinch if my dp touches me on occasion! But all this has been kept from ex and I've had to constantly act as though I'm not bothered by his back and forth attitude and just settled with 'whatever just let me know in good time. Oh you want them an extra day - great I can go to a friend's for coffee or oh you're dropping them off early great I've been missing them' it's caused a lot of disruption but has been worth it in the end. One slight sniff of his actions directly affecting me and we have and would go straight back to square one!

I'm in Ohreally's boat. Never got any better.

I blocked him, told him to make arrangements via my mum. But then he just built up the same abusive crap to her and she couldn't handle it either.

So I absolutely stick to exactly same time and dates. No deviating at all. And swaps took place in a public car park and I was always accompanied.

Anything that needed to be changed was done by email.

It's a grey rock the size of Ayers Rock !

I have tried to minimise the need for ad-hoc communication as it all presents opportunities for conflict on both sides.

• I do the calendar almost a year in advance, and make sure the new one is ready 3 months before old one expires.
• All drop off and collection times and locations are consistent, even when this is inconvenient for me, it's less inconvenient than playing the dance and means no discussion required.
• only urgent/time sensitive, child-related topics communicated by text e.g. traffic delays, medication query
• everything else by email, with no same day responses expected on either side.
• i use the same assumptive close other people have i.e. if I don't hear back within the next week i'll work to this plan

I share this in case it's helpful as although it means my life is more scheduled than I would choose, I am never left dependent on waiting on a response from him.

The thing I remind myself of regularly is this.... You can't change him or how he behaves. You can only change how you react to it.

Some things about my ex drive me around the bend. In other ways, he is fine. It baffles me how he can be the way he is, but I'm never going to figure it out, so I no longer try. I just have to accept it and work around it.

To be blunt, you won’t ever have the co-parenting relationship you’d like to have with a man like this.

So keep things as straightforward as possible and don’t deviate from any plans unless it’s an emergency.

Asking him to collect DC from you would make life easier for you, so naturally he is going to say no. Don’t put yourself in the position where you’re seen to be asking for these ‘small favours’, save any asks for where it’s materially important to the DC.

I truly appreciate all your responses. Ultimately you reassure me that I am not alone in this situation (I was going to say "battle", and unless I remind myself to lower my expectations to zero time and again, it would be a battle more often than not - grey rock grey rock grey rock).

It saddens me that so many of us find that this is the tactic used - it is ridiculous that I will probably have to engage the Mediator (at huge cost) in order to progress things like school holiday arrangements.

Sadly he is displaying all the characteristics he despises in STBXFIL (who he "divorced" 8yrs ago as he was sick of being bullied / made to feel inadequate since his horrific childhood - yet another thing for him to blame someone else for - at least I had no part in that so is one thing he cannot chastise me for). Thank goodness I'm giving my children a chance to remove themselves from such a vicious cycle.

Thank you.

My ex was very similar would just completely ignore me , I used to get very wound up by his stupidness, it is most definitely a control thing ! You definitely need to give instructions not questions and time limits for a response. It took me a long long time to learn how to react to his behaviour in a different way as all I was doing was winding myself up and getting angry. I could not change his behaviour I just had to learn to live with it and be grateful I had got out of the marriage. He even ignored all solicitors letters, the divorce papers were served on him by bailiffs!

Thanks @TheBlueDot - you are so right. At the preliminary Mediation appointment we discussed how we see our family unit in the future. I said I would like to be able to attend parents' evening, school events, and in time, graduation / prom and weddings "together" in order to represent a civil co-parenting partnership for our children.

Each time he's a complete dick (oh and he is) it chips away at the possibility of ever being even slightly civil. I know it's a long time in the future but judging by his own parents' example, whereby they cannot be in the same room over 25 years on, I felt it would be important to work on this dynamic from early on in the process.

Brick wall, hitting head. AIBU to say actually I just CBA as I think you're right: he won't ever change.....

If it helps at all, while there are things that annoy me greatly, I can generally communicate with my ex and deal with things without a bunch of nonsense now - mainly because I know better than to expect certain things. It's taken a good 5-6 years to get to this point, but it's better than outright arguing. I think you have to form your own personal "Rules of Engagement" and decide what you're willing to overlook and what you're not and stick to it. But choose your battles. It's not worth fighting every annoyance.

Op my youngest would have been 4 and the eldest at school originally, so I’d usually pick up youngest or she’d be dropped back on Monday morning or taken to play group