Controlling ex, coparenting, ongoing issues

[Cancin]

I'm struggling a bit to get my head around this. ExH and I split up several year ago. He was very controlling and manipulative and I initiated the divorce. During the divorce and afterwards I found out he had lied about the separation saying I had an affair (even telling my own family this) and in court trying his best to make me look like a bad mother. All lies! At one point I thought I was losing my mind and it took a very long time to establish boundaries/gain confidence again. I am now the primary carer. Despite all of this I could not bare not to see my children at christmas or birthdays so always invited ex into my house for shared birthdays and celebrations. My ex has been civil (and overly fake and friendly towards me) in front of the children and other people but still always criticises/argues with me in emails/text messages and has zero respect for me. I have tried very hard to maintain boundaries/be civil for sake of the children.

Since he started seeing a new girlfriend he has decided he doesn't want to do any shared celebrations and instead split birthdays and Christmas. In one way I think this is good because I hate being in a same room as my ex but I cannot fantom being away from my children at christmas or birthdays. I also feel a bit bitter as I tried so hard in the past to have these days together for sake of DC. Now he has a girlfriend he has decided he wants to split these days.

We didn't make any plans for DDs birthday which is in 3 weeks time. Today a friend (one of my oldest friends) messaged me to say my ex has messaged her about my DDs birthday party inviting her and her DD. Basically ex has arranged a party for DD while she is with him and is inviting the children of my friends to his party. This is the first I have heard of it and obviously I am not invited!! He hasn't spoken to this friend in years except at DD's party last year at my house when I invited her. She accepted as she thought I would be there too. I messaged ex and he said yes he is having a party and it's none of my business! Divorced parents having separate birthdays is one thing but isn't inviting my friends taking the piss? There are no boundaries with my ex. And what about lockdown?? I have only met up with a single friend in lockdown without my DC.

My sister also said recently she had some messages from ex via Facebook asking how she is and that he'd like to see her again. My sister thought this was a bit odd as she hadn't heard from him in years as well. I think it's bloody odd too. If he were a nice person it would be a different story but he's not.

So, basically how do I deal with this? This sudden contact with friends/family is weird and seems another attempt at somehow trying to control me. I don't know who else he has contacted about this party and I'm pretty sure he will not be mentioning to these people (and probably many of my friends) that I will not be there. It seems an attempt to push me out of my life which has happened in the past (he has actually stolen some of my friends from me and tried to push me and my family apart!). I realise this is quite complex as ex is highly manipulative. How to deal with this?

For your sanity step back, grey rock him and don't give him an inch anymore.

You can't co-parent with controlling and abusive exes.

I'm sure your DC are switched on enough to know what he is really like even if they don't voice it are can't put it into words

Grey Rock is something to be very careful with. There is being obstructive, then there is grey rock. It is a strategy focused around you, not around your children.

I actually don't believe he gives a flying monkey about what you think based on his actions, so he certainly isn't trying to control you. It's over analysing him.

He's doing a party to introduce everyone to his new girlfriend and play happy families. That's why you have 'introducing new partners' in any child arrangement order to protect your children. If that isn't in place, then he's not doing anything wrong. Your friends/family are their own people and can make their own judgements on whether they want to attend.

I don't really understand. If this is her "main" party then you should be invited. If it's the party he is throwing her with you planning something different when she's with you, then I'd email your close friends and family and say that ex has DD for her actual birthday but you're going to have her on the weekend instead and are planning to do x,y,z. If that's a party, great, invite them but if it's something more low key because of Covid, then explain that. If you had hoped that friend x or family member y would come over on that weekend to give gifts/ do social distancing tea or whatever, then explain that.

You know your friends and family better than me but if it were me, I would not specifically ask people NOT to go to ex's party but I'd be pretty confident that they would understand what ex was doing. But if you don't feel they'll get it, then spell it out. It's a bit tricker with the children's friends from school or whatever and really you and DH should decide how this is handled. In my experience, a friend party usually involves both of the parents but if he wants to alternative years, you may have to accept that. But YOUR friends and YOUR family should be celebrating her birthday with YOU.

@RandomMess Thank you, you are right! I will lose my mind if I give it much further thought.

Exactly @BlingLoving but my ex acts like he hates me and is highly manipulative so has left me out while inviting my other friends and possibly family too.

It does all sound like a willy waggling show off with his girlfriend- I wonder who will have done most of the work for it

Be the bigger person speak with DD earlier in the day wish her a wonderful party. Already arrange something to do to celebrate with you - we would let them choose the meals, what games they wanted to play, favourite cake etc.

He acts as if he hates you because he is adopting the victim stance.

When they can no longer control you, they try to control how others see you.

The thing is, your friends and family might feel they should go for your daughter's sake. Manipulative ex will take that as a personal high 5!

Grey Rock is something to be very careful with. There is being obstructive, then there is grey rock. It is a strategy focused around you, not around your children.

I don't understand what you mean by this. Can you explain more?

He is indeed waggling. Your best bet is to rearrange how you think about it, laugh at the effort he is putting into making himself look good.

Grey rock is for you. You detach him from his actions and any intent you perceive and you deal with it all at face value for the benefit of your daughter

It's not so much rising above it more just refusing to see it.

It's as likely that his posturing is for the new woman in his life anyway. She gets to be the mirror that reflects his grandeur now! Let them get on with it.

If friends mention it you can smile and say something like 'you were surprised, but hey, we all move on. DD is looking forward to it'

Don't get sucked into any game playing. From what you have said he is good at it. You won't enjoy it...

Grey rock means not reacting and not giving a narcissist the reaction that they want.

E.g. they do something shitty and want you to be visibly upset, to text and email and get riled up and engage with them. Grey rock means exactly that - you don;t do or say anything. You just direct the conversation back to your child.

It doesn't mean obstructing access, but it does mean not giving them the attention and reaction that they want, and essentially training them that the only way you will speak to them, is to discuss child access arrangements.

Thanks @Tappering I know what grey rock means. I have used it to great effect with my own abusive ex who I could have written this thread about, especially the blackening of character and charming in front of others abusive in private bits. @Vretz seemed to be saying it was a negative thing to do and OP wouldn't be putting her kids first if she did it and I wondered if I had misunderstood them?

No I think what she meant was that grey rock is completely different from being obstructive. The latter means refusing to engage at all on anything. Whereas the former is only engaging on the necessary stuff - I.e. child access and ignoring everything else.

I would be rejoicing that you never have to share another Christmas with him ever again!! You can choose to spend the day how you want whether it is with or without the DC...

I 100% get it @Cancin. It would seem he is deliberately excluding u from your daughters birthday party. It is a shit thing to do. However as hard as it is for you to do you have got to rise above this. Do not give him the satisfaction of showing your annoyance at this. At the end of the day if Dd is happy that's the only thing that matters. I would mark her birthday in another way yourself when she is with you. I know it's tough. I am separated also and it is so bloody hard not seeing your children all the time. But look at the bigger picture. If you put your children's needs to the fore all the time, as hard as it is at times, your conscience is clear. Best of luck.

@Tappering in one.
Deal with a lot of divorces in a professional capacity.

Sometimes we get 'grey rock' treatment if acting for the 'abuser' when we need the ex to do/say something which they don't believe relates to the children. It just becomes obstructive at that point. I had 1 woman refuse to send me a P60 for 6 months as proof of earnings when we were calculating if she could afford to feed the children. In the end, we had to get her solicitor to convince her who told us the reason! The father was pleasant enough and ended up seeing the kids 3 days a week despite being labelled 'abusive' and being 'grey rocked' as a 'narc'. His solicitor just cited the situation we had, and sadly we had to confirm it was true, as she was obstructive by holding everything up on the financial side for months.

As I say, be careful, as this particular woman got it so very wrong. I am a bit cynical as a result on its effectiveness.

I suspect his actions ie the birthday party, have actually got very little to do with your daughter. It’s all about revenge, retaliation and one up man ship. It’s what spurned men do. He knows how much this will hurt you, he’s still playing the control game from afar. Doesn’t he have any friends /family of his own, to invite..... doesn’t sound like, that’s why is he approaching yours, as well this makes it doubly certain you get to hear what he’s doing. What a nasty piece of work he sounds, but if nothing else he’s predictable!
Sadly this is part of separation, sharing the children. The only thing you can do, is as others have suggested, is draw up a plan whereby you take turns sharing these special days year about. Yes it’ll hurt like heck for the first few years. I wouldn’t show him one ounce of emotion, but don’t let I’m walk over you either. Just be so so grateful this is the only aspect of your life he has any involvement in. Good luck, it will get easier.

Is the party on a day he would usually have her? If yes, just let her go as normal and let the party run its course. Your friends will soon suss him out when your version of events doesn't match his.

If it doesn't land on a day he usually has her then tough, he'll have to rearrange it.

The more you kick off at him, the more he has achieved his goal. This is nothing to do with your dd enjoying a birthday party, this is all about him.

I would send a message to the friends and family he has invited and ask them not to go and say you will celebrate with them later.

It is difficult being apart from your DC on special occasions and I'm not going to pretend otherwise but you get through it by talking to them on the day and making arrangements for another day to do something special.

Don't engage in unnecessary conversation. My ex was brilliant at ranting at me, pages and pages of text messages telling me I was a shit mother, what I did was wrong, how great he was etc etc. When I actually looked at the messages objectively, he was just ranting. He didn't ask me a question, but he wanted a respond, so I didn't respond. Or if I felt I needed to, I found 'ok' was a suitable response for most things. The only time I would respond was if he asked me a direct question about the dc. It got worse before it got better, but it's great now as I rarely have to speak to him at all.

Remember 'no' is a compete sentence.

would send a message to the friends and family he has invited and ask them not to go and say you will celebrate with them later.

I wouldn't bother with that, the op has told her friend that she wasn't aware that there was a party going on. It'll soon get round to her friends that the ex is playing games. Trust your friends to understand the situation.

Chances are the ex will tell everyone that the op was invited but chose not to attend. But her real friends will know/find out the real reason. He'll only be able to pull this stunt once

I wouldn't fight your ex about having the DC on special dates without you. You can't change him, but you can change your mindset about dates. It's all just symbolism, and you can adapt your own symbols.

I'd also relax about him trying to win over your friends and family. If you go around saying that to them, it's very easy for him to paint you as paranoid and bitter - don't play into that narrative. Let him do his thing, and you do yours.

Could you suggest that you wish birthdays and Christmas to continue as they were but new girlfriend is invited to join...then sit back and see what happens?