I used to wonder why BM3's ex husband was completely unwilling to make any attempt to coparent with her whatsoever. She's been difficult from the get-go....mostly just self absorbed, but not necessarily dangerous.

Now I'm starting to see why.

This past week, DH refused to "swap time" with her after she scheduled an out of town vacation. He didn't want to give up his weekend this past weekend because a)SD6 has been asking when she can come back to our house (she lives her every other week) and b)he gave her up early last week on an inservice day so she could start her weekend with her mom early.

As SOON as DH said "No", BM3 started in with the guilt tripping of SD6, PASing her, and sending texts in "legalese", which she does with her ex any time she's fired up and considering dragging somebody back to court. She wanted to come visit SD here this weekend, since DH elected not to give her SD for the weekend. DH initially considered this, but after getting several texts about how traumatized SD6 had been over having to say goodbye to her mother (in other words BM3 got her all worked up before she dropped her off at school on Friday by saying that she was really going to miss her, and that she would be gone for a loooooong time, and that it was too bad that DH wouldn't let her go with her mom for the weekend, and that maybe SD6 could change his mind) DH decided that it was too disruptive to SD (who was happy as a clam except for having been badgered by her mother for 3 days straight) and he told her she couldn't come over and visit SD this weekend at our house. She starts blowing up his phone with these texts about how she's SO concerned for SD, and that the only thing that had consoled SD about coming here for the weekend was that she would be visited by her mom.

Totally not true AT ALL. The interesting thing about this is that SD6 has been talking about wanting to live here to other trusted (neutral) adults, all of whom were very concerned by BM3's backhanded attempts to misconstrue the source of SD's stress. BM3 sent several texts to DH and before he could even respond she started ringing his phone off the hook. He answered because she will just call over and over and if that doesn't work, she'll drive over here. He realized 10 seconds into the call that none of this had anything to do with her seeing SD, and everything to do with not getting what she wanted. She continued talking over him until he raised his voice. He's at the point now where they are probably going to go from successfully coparenting pretty well to communicating mainly by email because she obviously has an agenda.

DH is at the point where he feels that it is pointless to try to talk to her other than at the counselor's office, because she simply doesn't hear anything other than what she wants to hear. She literally texted me one thing on Friday, which I texted to DH, and then texted him something else, as if we don't communicate or share EVERYTHING.

The really crazy part of all this is that she's getting geared up for court over nothing. DH doesn't want to change the arrangement. 50/50 isn't bad for SD6, but PAS is, and if she keeps it up, he WILL take her to court for primary custody, but he doesn't want to. All he wants is for the PAS on her time to stop. It's normal for a 6 year old to talk about wanting to live at one parent's house, but DH agrees that she is nowhere NEAR old enough to weigh in on that choice for herself. It's the way BM is handling it that will push him to take action, if anything does. Cutting off your nose to spite your face. What's that feel like?