u/Personal-Narwhal-184

I get it. Weekends are nice. Monday is hard for everyone. That’s why there’s the whole “case of the Mondays” thing.

But I need to set my kid up for success better on Mondays. She’s been struggling with behaviors and meets expectations 60% of the time Tues-Fri but 0% of the time Monday.

I just applied for a job 10 minutes away from my house, the posted job hours end 10 minutes after my kid’s bus drops her off.

Her bus stop is at the end of my driveway. So she would be walking down the driveway to the front door and then be home alone 15-20 minutes before I got home.

Last year her bus was often 10 minutes late, so this could be as little as 10 minutes and I could likely leave 5 minutes early cutting this down even more.

Would you find childcare for 20 minutes or would you let a first grader spend 20 minutes home alone?

My kid’s dad has OCPD.

We’re getting divorced.

I would love to hear from anyone with an OCPD parent about your experience and what you think would have helped you. I want to do the best for my kids.

My sweet girl got so sad and mad about her dad not living here anymore that she yelled and cried. She said I HAVE to make a plan for him to live here again someday.

But we won’t. He was emotionally and financially abusive. He hasn’t changed. I was dead inside. We’ve been separated for a year. He has had his own apartment where they can visit him for about 4 months.

How do you help your kids process the loss?

I told her I miss things about it too. I told her that we will have good times here without dad and she will have good times there without me. I told her I understand she wants daddy to live here again but there are things about it that didn’t work, even though we have good memories.

It’s heartbreaking. I cried. I wish I could give her what she wants but I can’t.

I’m talking prescription refills, pick ups, reminders… school dress up days… dentist appointments… teacher appreciation week…

I’ve been doing all of it. But now that we’re splitting it doesn’t seem right that a larger portion of my parenting time be taken up with the administration side of parenting.

But it’s not like you can do every other month prescriptions.

So, how do you do it?

I am a teacher, so I can have the kids all summer and we do not need childcare. When we were married, I was happy to do that.

How do you handle that in a divorce?

Does he get childcare on his parenting days in the summer?
Do I offer to take the kids for him to work in the summer and the kids to not go into daycare?

I don’t like him, so I’m not thrilled about doing him a favor so he doesn’t have to figure out childcare on the days he has the kids for school breaks.

But I do love my kids. So I’m not thrilled about sending them to daycare when I could be with them.

What’s fair? What have you seen/done?

Has anyone dealt with significant anxiety from their kid around spending the night with their other parent?

I’m talking physical aggression, regressive behaviors, property destruction, weight loss…?

How did you handle it?

I met my soon to be ex husband in our teens.
He did value rules but he wasn’t rigid yet. He could accept blame. He could change his views.

18 years later the man I feel in love with has been completely erased. All that’s left is the deflection, blame shifting, criticism….

It feels like loving someone with dementia. I can remember how it was but he isn’t there anymore.

It’s such a painful loss. And so confusing until he told me his therapist said OCPD.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I understand that he’s their dad. I understand it’s good for them. I understand that they’re having a great time tonight at the movie in the park with their dad.

But I can’t just stay home crying.

What do you do?

I’m mid-30s. I’m not gonna go clubbing. My friends are all moms. I don’t want to hang out with kids who aren’t mine while I’m missing mine.

Right now I’m folding laundry and watching TV and that’s fine for today but I know I need to find something to look forward to while they’re gone.

I’m sitting here watching TV with my kids and remembering watching TV together with their dad. We had some really lovely times.

And it isn’t fair. I wish he’d just been a monster. That would’ve been easier.

My sister in law (STBX’s sister) had a baby. 8 months ago when she told us she was pregnant and we hadn’t filed for divorce yet, we planned that I would go for an extended visit in the summer with the kids and he would go for part of that time because of his work schedule.
We had done a similar thing visiting my sister last summer.

We filed. I booked the trip. I still offered for him to overlap his trip with mine and the kids because he could see his niece and his daughters together. He was noncommittal.

Two days ago he said he is going, he booked the same flights, and he is demanding all this time including taking over my spot on the return flight with the kids. We leave tomorrow!

I explained this trip has been in the works, I already made plans. My brother lives in the same state as his sister. I offered him times he could visit with the kids and his sister and asked him to send me plans for any other time he wants and I would let him know if that worked in the plans we already had.

HE JUST SENT ME A MESSAGE ON OUR FAMILY WIZARD SAYING IF I DIDN’T AGREE TO HIS DEMANDS HE WOULD ‘CONTACT LEGAL’.

His demands about disrupting a trip I’ve had planned for months. Where I’ve done the bookings, the rental car, the Airbnb. Where I’ve coordinated with family in the area. Where I’ve researched activities and places to visit. Where I’ve packed their clothes, made sure to get refills of medications, gotten documents, prepared in-flight entertainment, made accommodations for my oldest’s specific food needs… where he has done nothing and knows nothing about our plans he wants to swoop in the day before we leave and demand that we change everything to fit his plans??

I have a few ideas but I would love to hear from locals. We have family in the area but I’m doing all the planning.

What are the best family friendly attractions and sights?

Sometimes I think maybe I blew up my life for no good reason….

and then I remind myself that while we were in marriage counseling my husband was making verbal agreements in session and not following through with them. He continued even when I told him I recognized that pattern and asked him to follow through.

And then when we stopped marriage counseling he got worse and worse toward me. In the time when he should have been putting the most effort toward showing me that he really meant it and he would genuinely change.

And then when we separated he got more and more petty, rude, and cruel.

And when he entered an abuser recovery program he got even worse and actually directly threatened to weaponize the kid’s emotions to get me to do what he wanted or punish me for not doing what he wanted. He had weaponized the kids before but had never bluntly threatened it.

And then when our girls were struggling with his parenting time, his only concern was his imaginary threat to his parental rights.

And then I remind myself that during marriage counseling he disclosed that he was lying to me from the beginning and I just didn’t know.

(Generally speaking. I know there are tough, capable dads out there. This is mainly a rant about my kid’s dad.)

Yesterday my kid’s dad sent me a message saying he is canceling his therapy appointment with my 4y/o because he is sick.

Later, 4 y/o vomited and I sent a message asking if he was vomiting too since she was. His reply was 100% self centered, not a thought to check on 4y/o. He sent “No. It’s probably stress induced.” 🥺

Stress induced?? I had to take my kids to an appointment within 10 minutes of finding him in my backyard having picked my lock. Don’t talk to me about stress, sir.

Anyway, I replied with “No, I don’t think 4y/o is that stressed.”

Then he thought to ask about her. Then he tried to cancel his parenting time tonight because he’s “super drained”.

Little does he know I ended up sick with 4y/o last night with such excruciating stomach cramps I was considering urgent care, but I still propped her up while she sleep-vomited and didn’t even consider asking him to take the kids since I spent the night sick with a barfing kid.

Regardless it’s not even his night with the kids, so he tried to cancel time he didn’t even have because he’s so stressed and drained.

Did I mention this man ONLY does dinner Monday and Wednesday and has the kids 10am-3:30 Saturday and that’s it? Even though I’ve asked him to increase his time so I could get a break AND the kids want more time with him. He won’t take more time. He just added Monday dinner two weeks ago after I’d been asking him to take more time for months.

But he’s asking for 100% custody because he thinks I’m an unsafe parent.

UPDATE: He just told me he doesn’t want to take them for his 5.5 hours of parenting time tomorrow because he is still too stressed. 🙄🤪

I’ve had an idea for a while of a Podcast with the premise being Buffy sometimes has a hard time sleeping cause of nightmares and the horror of her life, you know?

And then Spike, who was a bookworm back in the 1800s picks up some of his favorite literature and reads her stories, obviously with commentary because he was also a poet and has thoughts.

I think it could be sweet, silly, thought provoking… like, imagine Spike with all his 19th century experience sharing Pride and Prejudice with Buffy!

Anyway, I finally got the guts to get a cameo and tell James Marsters my idea and look what he said!!! He actually considered Spike armor for William and how his armor could slip and how Spike would respond to that.

I’m dying. He said it was a really good idea. I’m so happy he enjoyed my idea. Maybe you’ll enjoy it too!