[Flummoxed]

Three cheers for Helpnewc!! I agree with forthetrees- you sound great! Keep up the amazing work- no doubt there will be so much fun and joy to come as you continue to experiment in the kitchen. And 100%- there are folks there to help in our more challenging moments. One step at a time, but this was amazing update!

[Biscuit]

Helpnewc,

The cooking for the family aspect, is one I've found really fruitful, it's really great to cook (with or without the kids) then sit down to a family meal. I used to cook a lot before, but now I obviously have to plan every meal when the kids are with me, and it's really fulfilling when we all sit down to eat. I'd suggest making some things that W never did, and make some new family favourites which  are all about you and the kids, rather than trying to recreate stuff that she did brilliantly.... Get an air fryer if you can - they are quick, and easy and healthy!

[Helpnewc]

Thank you all.
It is good to do it together. Involving the kids has helped and I all improve. She is just an excellent chef but my girls now say I have moved to being decent.

I do feel fortunate that when ever I have been overwhelmed help has arrived. Letting go and accepting the help has been great.

I am a much better person than I was. I suspect all of us who go through this tend to be.

Thank you all for your kind words.

[Helpnewc]

To everyone here, old hands, medium hand and newbies I wish you the best for Christmas.

I ended the year with a new piece of MLC gobbledygook. I was told that she does not ignore me, she just says nothing as she feels she gets criticism. I politely pointed out that is ignoring me and it is how we got here.

It remains the strangest experience of my life. And the most instructive one.

But few I wish I did not have to go to Court to get my kids. But wishes are useless things.

Merry Christmas

[Flummoxed]

Merry Christmas, Helpnewc- wishing you the very best as well! I would like to counter by saying wishes aren’t useless- they’re a sign of imagining better times. May better times be manifested in the new year!

[Baxter1]

I wish the best of the season to you as well!

[Helpnewc]

Thanks Baxter.

A tough Christmas. My children’s cousins were up from Melbourne and my wife did not communicate what was happening. So when they came over in New Years Eve and I mentioned they were coming back on Boxing Day my eldest lost it and screamed for 40 minutes how she hated her mum.

I drove them back and got out of my car and was a bit direct with my ex wife. I sounded the horn and asked when after 2.5 years she was going to talk to me about the kids. She turned her back on me and walked away.

I ended up alone at Christmas because I was so stressed and I did not want to drive to my family feeling like that.

I do regret losing my cool. But I struggle more with how she is never accountable for anything she does. At all. I apologised and expressed regret but she does not ever apologise.

[Treasur]

Battles vs War, my friend, is my first thought.

I’m sorry you had that experience and all the feelings that went with it. Not very Ho Ho Ho, is it? I hope that you are feeling better today.

Lots of us here have had a time when the gap between our ex/spouse’s behaviour and our expectations of their behaviour is consistently and relentlessly huge. I’m going to suggest you consider changing your expectations for the simple reason that a) you really can’t control anyone else’s behaviour and b) your current approach is hurting you. Is that fair? Probably not. Is it practical given the evidence you see? Perhaps. Is it doable? Yes, bc a number of us have done it with a bit of effort and practice.

From what I read, you want and expect your ex/wife to communicate with you about a bunch of things including your kids, to acknowledge when she is at fault and to say apologise when she has done something you think is wrong or hurtful. And that is not happening and hasn’t been happening for quite a while. In fact, you feel she ignores you to the point of behaving as if you don’t exist or matter. And if I remember rightly, she has been consistently trying to reduce your time with your kids and you are going to court to secure that. Fair summary?

What if you stopped expecting anything different? Thought parallel parenting instead of coparenting, and focused on the court case? Started assuming that she will ignore you and not provide information and will never apologise, so start to believe there is very little point in communicating your feelings or wishes at all? Or indeed speculating about why or thinking you can do or say anything that will change her behaviour? If you started to assume that any contact beyond your basic legal obligations and facts like drop off/pick up times was a waste of breath?

What would you do differently in your situation if you radically shifted your mindset and thus your expectations? If you approached things as they are, as opposed to how they you think they should be or want them to be? If you created ways to work round her as opposed to trying to work with her, and modelled that kind of calm detachment for your kids too? That not everything in the world is about her 😝?

We talk a lot here about detachment and usually the essence of that imho is a process of letting go of our expectations of different behaviour than we are seeing. And consequently freeing ourselves from that rollercoaster of thinking we should get x when we actually get y, and all the inferences we make from that and how it makes us feel. If only bc hitting our heads repeatedly against the same brick wall tends to use quite a lot of energy and get a bit tedious after a while lol.

What if you stopped? What would help you to stop? What would the result of stopping be for you and your kids?
Worth an end of year muse perhaps as setting up some new goals for 2025……..if only bc most of us LBS learn the hard way that doing more of the same usually generates much the same, and that we really can only change our behaviour and approach if we don’t much like how things are. That’s a tough life lesson for most of us, but still can be a helpful one! Jmo of course!

[Reinventing]

And consequently freeing ourselves from that rollercoaster of thinking we should get x when we actually get y, and all the inferences we make from that and how it makes us feel.

Yes, unfortunately it's not fair, and yet is freeing in the end.

Sorry Helpnewc, tough thing to go through.

[MadLuv]

Don’t feel bad for losing it. We all have. It’s hard to handle all the insanity and when you have kids and it’s just not you that is a concern it can make you insane. Thank goodness for us it is temporary and A result of what we are being put through.

I wanted to add from an earlier post where you put
My lawyer thinks once she is spending her money sense will prevail.
My mother left when I was 14 for an affair. She took very little with her, but she did spend all her settlement on a house and then had to go back to work after decades of not working. She got fired a few years in and we believe she was taking money from her retail management store position. She then wrote my father a letter asking to get back together for the kids. She was still with the affair partner who she remained with until her death, but she realized life wasn’t what she thought it would be. My dad never read the note and threw it away with no response. It was 10 years after she left and we were all married . Crazy!!

So, you never know when they will figure it out. Could be tomorrow, next week, next year or a decade later. Keep moving forward and let her live with her bad choices.