Please don't feel you have to reply to this but I need to write it down.

[fuckmepinkandcallmerosie]

I can't be arsed to name change to my other name for this. I need to write this down to see if getting it out of my head helps me to make sense of it.

I have an ex husband. He was abusive, controlling, and all kinds of a bastard. If you search for my other name it's justforthisonepost and some of it is detailed there but it might have been in chat and it might have gone. I am out of the situation now, have a lovely DP and all is good.

Except that the ex is still controlling me through the kids and it is driving me slowly insane. For example, he sees the kids one night a week and every other weekend and takes them to school on the morning after he has them. This is going to sound really petty but it is really annoying - he keeps their clothes. If I send a coat or anything I don't get it back. DD2 goes to school on the morning in joggers and trainers with her uniform on the top, I never get the joggers and trainers back and end up having to text him to get them back. When I text him, he ignores the texts.

For example, I texted him and said "I need trainers for DD2. She has 3 pairs, all at your house please can I get a pair she can't get out to play tonight because it is wet out and I only have school shoes or sandals". That text was sent at 4pm. he doesn't reply. So I text again at 7, please can I have trainers. Still no reply. I ring at 9.30pm and say I need trainers for DD as she can't get out to play and he is totally passive aggressive nasty with me.

It's hard to describe, he doesn't shout or yell but it's all contained aggression and "I have not got time to be replying to texts that you send I'm busy".

Yesterday I texted him "When suits tomorrow to meet to swap xyz" (ie trainers and coats and other stuff. The reply I got was "I will be there at 3.15". This has really upset me and I can't explain why very well. It feels like he's ordering me and treating me like a second class citizen, that he is more important than me (which is how he treated me when we were together) and that I have to do what I'm told and be dictated to.

I know I'm being unreasonable but I'm not up for posting there. Please don't feel you have to respond I just need to get this out and see if I can work a way of making me not feel so crap.

BTW the "communicate" wasn't me being arsey - he'd pulled me up when I said I spoke to DD1 about getting stuff back and he said no you didn't you sent her a text message.

Oh and if he wants to get pedantic with me he's on a hiding to nothing because I am Queen Pedant.

rosie, i just had to laugh at the bit where it's your responsibility to remind him.

they take the absolute piss don't they. I know thru exp it's very very hard and frightening to change your own behaviour to them, but you can do it.

Bit by bit. Then you start ignoring them, becuase if you don't you will get ill.

My ex was a lovely lovely man, and it took me such a long time to realise he just wasn't going to give me any respect anymore. That bit i couldn't understand. So over time I had to adjust my expectations, and god it was hard and it hurt. Yet it's worked. He is no longer in our lives becuase i couldn't be bothered to explain, sort out, anything anymore.

I so hope this is the start of your confidence growing and you realising you are being entirely reasonable. Just DON'T start feeling sorry for him tho, or let him in emotionally if he starts turning it round. All the apologies, about the clothes etc... listen then brush the comments off.

oh and i think your reaction to euro's post came from the fact that the worst thing you want anyone to think is that you are not doing enough for your dd's. I don't think euro meant it like that, i do think tho, that being a mum in this situation entails feeling guilty all the time and when the responsibility for them, for you and from you've said, your ex is all consuming you feel like you aren't doing enough.

Yet you are doing more than you realise. Remember you are human, and can only do your best. x

That sounds like the perfect response, Rosie. He was trying to make it personal so you would argue and he could throw a strop and/or flounce off, but you didn't bite. It's pretty much exactly as recommended in assertiveness training.

Agree with Shirley, don't worry if some posters are a bit unsympathetic or haven't read properly. This is an open forum after all and you'll get all sorts of responses, some from people who may be having a bad day or got the wrong end of the stick, and of course the odd stirrer which fortunately you haven't had on here (yet?). I suspect it touched a nerve because your bastard ex and his mad mother wouldn't let an opportunity pass to imply you are a bad, selfish parent, so you're all geared up to lash back. The irony is that if you didn't care about your DDs' feelings the ex couldn't use them to beat you with.

you have done brilliantly rosie - really really well . It's so bloody frightening and upsetting confronting bullies, but it's working. As Jonesy on Dad's Army would say, they don't like it up 'em...

The thing that has stung is that I have bent over backwards and put myself out of shape to do the right thing by the girls. I believe that it is in their best interests to have a relationship with their dad and I have done my best to maintain that. I just don't know what more some posters expect me to do. And to comment not having read a thread is not very wise.

And the implication in the post was that I was self absorbed and not putting my children first when I am.

Please can someone explain to me what would be achieved if I decided to go in all guns blazing, no you can't leave the kids with your mum, I am stopping all your access until you do exactly what I want?

AFAIK because he has access to the kids, and it's not unsupervised or anything or in a contact centre then its up to him what he does with that access?

hi Rosie---have to admit that i havent read all the posts but something that jumped out at me;

wouldnt it give your X less opportunity to mess you about, if you stopped trying to communicate with him by text? i think phoning him directly would lessen the stress

Bejeezus - I've said before up the thread, tried phoning him, we would agree something and he would come away thinking we'd agreed one thing, I would think something else and it would cause conflict.

For example, I would think he would be dropping the kids down at 10am and then at 10.05 he would call and say where are you why havent you dropped the kids up you agreed to drop them up.

Totally different perceptions of the same phone call iyswim? So at least with a text there's an accurate record.

I don't know tbh if it's any better, but it definitely stops that level of misunderstanding.

Well done Rosie! Sounds like a really assertive, powerful start to your day. Good luck with the rest of it. I can understand why you felt hurt and stung by Euro's post, because it IS clear from the thread that you put you children first and think about them all the time. However, I don't think it was intended to be hurtful in any way and to an outsider it doesn't read like an attack at all.

I do understand your desire to make everything as good as it can possibly be for them. I know that I had a desire to "make it up" to my children, to somehow try to compensate for the separation/divorce and I bent over backwards to encourage and enable my ex to see the children and tried never to criticise him. I used to make excuses for his forgetfulness etc. In the end, I realised I wasn't really doing them any favours. It was less confusing for them if I was truthful (on the positive side of truthful, but still truthful). So if he had forgotten them, or was late, I stopped making excuses for him. "Why is Daddy late?" used to be answered by "I'm sure he has a good reason, he works really hard" and I learned to change it to: "I don't know, you'll have to ask him when you see him, hopefully he'll be here soon". That way, he had to answer for his forgetfulness, not me!

I was much luckier than you because my ex is fundamentally a decent man with a kind heart and he didn't try to bully me. However, I came a cropper in later years when I kept trying to protect the children from the knowledge of how he had behaved - when the truth about his affairs came out, my dd was angry with ME for not telling her about it!

It is natural for you to want to protect them, but in your current circumstances, the most effective way to do it may be to empower them and to show them how well assertiveness works!

More power to your elbow! Or something....

If your ex is keeping the stuff then stop sending it over!

DP's ExW used to keep everything we sent DSS (6) back with including toys, books, shoes that some how "fell apart" (their dog ate them) so now we dont send him with anything but the clothes he is standing up in. He has toothbrush etc at both houses and its not like he wouldnt have any clothes at the other house because he has the stuff that we had already sent him with and not gotten back.
it got to a point where we had nothing left for him at our house so we demanded some stuff back and have been very careful what we send DSS back with ever since.

Hurrah! Well done for a great result in getting the stuff back. And he does sound like a prize dick who's incapable of taking responsibility for the simple things. What a prat.

I see what you mean about the 'exclusion' bit of Euro's post, but as other posters said I honestly don't think it comes across quite so badly to an outsider, because we're more distanced from your situation and don't have a history with this dickhead xp.

I hope this positive outcome begins to signal a change in the way you both respond to each other. I hope he begins to treat you more like a human being and that you feel less subjected to his manipulative games (this is what I meant by 'being on the backfoot', btw).

And FWIW I agree with you that a guns blazing attitude would aggravate the situation. When I posted earlier about you feeling vulnerable, I was referring back to when you wrote that he still has the power to make you stressed and upset, make you feel held to ransom, etc.

Well done you. This stuff is always very hard to work through, not least because of the history that goes with it. But you're taking the first steps to break away from it. Long may it continue.

waspbee - you need to reread my post. You mixed up my words.

Sorry, meant to add to the 'guns blazing' paragraph that what you are doing is taking steps to deal with him assertively, not passively, which is how I presume you behaved when you were with him. So good on you. He will eventually learn that the goal posts have moved. And your girls will see through him one day, if not now, then one day. Mark my words.

The clothes in the bags are dirty. I just realised. FFS.

But of course they're dirty, what did you expect?

I don't know. I just looked in the bags this morning and stuck them in DD's room. She's going to a party shortly and I asked her what she wanted and she wanted jeans and a top out of the bags. Went to get them and they're dirty. Grr. Not a big deal she can wear something else. But still Grr.

Ach, that's annoying. Good thing you've got more stuff, and no doubt she knows whose fault it is!

DS4 had a summer camp with his school once, which I didn't know about until the night before because for some reason they hadn't given me a copy of the letter. It was his week with me but the clothes I'd bought him for that sort of situation were round at his dad's, so he popped over there to pack. Like an absolute twit I kind of assumed his elder, fairly sensible brother had had a hand in the packing so I didn't even think to look in the bag when he came back. He duly went off to camp but the school support had gentle words with me afterwards. He'd packed something like three musty jerseys and a slightly torn T-shirt, a corduroy/fleece cap (dirty), no clean underwear, no toiletries, no summer hat. One of the helpers bought him a packet of pants from M&S, though they assured me the school had reimbursed her. Mortified doesn't begin to describe it. Mind you this wasn't my somewhat off-the-planet 11-year-old who'd packed this things, it was his father. One of many reasons why DS4 lives with me full-time these days.

I've been lurking on this thread - well done for yesterday afternoon and this morning. His subsequent behaviour looks to me like a rather surprised attempt to re-gain the initiative which you took away from him yesterday. You seem to be holding your own, though - keep it up!

Regarding communication, I'd tend to think phone calls are not the best way to handle him if his recollection is different from yours (or he says it is, anyway). It's not worth the effort of proving him wrong. I would continue with texts, but change how you phrase them a bit. Instead of saying "when can you come over and pick up stuff", say "You need to collect stuff. I can be available either between 2 and 3 tomorrow or 5 and 6 on Sunday. I need to know by 5pm today which you would prefer." If he replies by 5pm (even counter-proposing another time, if it happens to be convenient for you), fine. If he doesn't, you've given him a chance to act like an adult and you can send him another text at 5.10 saying "Since you haven't replied I've had to make arrangements without your preferences. I'll be in between 2 and 3 tomorrow for you to collect stuff."

You can modify the technique for other circumstances. The key things are a short-but-not-unreasonable deadline, offering options, and texting again a few minutes after the deadline if he doesn't respond. Replies after the deadline but before your second text don't count if you don't want them to - that's when you are "on the phone making arrangements" and he was too late. Don't engage in why you can't do Sunday any more, just ignore or tell him it's none of his business. Also, once it's arranged, it's arranged - no messing around with "that time isn't convenient any more".

This way, you are being reasonably flexible about the arrangements but remain in control of the communication. I think that you would have the moral highground even if he were genuinely just disorganised.

He really is trying to control you, isn't he? And in such moronically childish ways. Good grief.

If I were you I'd follow the 'so kind' approach witnessed on a previous thread with a mad speed demon driver...don't know if you so that thread? Anyway don't let him see the impact this stuff is having on you, just be gracious ("thank you so much for returning the clothes. So kind. ") and continue making your reasonable requests in your usual assertive way.

You can't change him, but you can certainly change the way you respond to him. And you are going great guns with it so far!

I meant "don't know if you saw that thread"

He claims he's just disorganised and he can't get his head around what they need/have etc. He claims it because he has to work and he can't sweat the small stuff. And his head is so full of work he's unable to keep on top of what they have or don't have at his house.

The deadline idea is a good one that would stop the hanging about not knowing waiting for a response things that go on.

I'm just tired of it. Tired and fed up and sick to the back teeth.

Rosie, he is not just disorganised. He is trying to control you for whatever reason. If he were disorganised he'd be apologetic when he forgot something. He wouldn't ignore practical text messages. He wouldn't make it sound like he's doing you a favour by deigning to show up to collect things.

I think that you've taken a couple of big steps towards it being over in the last couple of days. I suggest doing whatever you're planning with DP and forgetting X for at least this evening.

I hope somebody better at writing comforting words (or your DP) shows up soon because you sound a bit down compared to early. In the meantime, have an electronic hug from me - best I can offer, I'm afraid.

I have been told by MNHQ that they are not prepared to delete the post I find so offensive. When I think of another thread recently when I had posts deleted I feel very sad and alone. There's one rule for some on here and different rules for another and it feels unfair.