SHE acts badly then retaliates against us for her own bad decisions!

[Penny Lane]

This is more of a vent, not much to do about it, but feel free to commiserate with similar situations.

So the other day BM was supposed to pick up the kids and I think she slept in, or whatever happened she didn't show up. Both DH and I had somewhere to be so he called her, her boyfriend, her parents, basically anyone he could think of to get a hold of her. Finally I guess her mom woke her up, AFTER she was already supposed to have gotten the kids. And she called DH in a rage. DH told her that if she wasn't there to pick up the kids by the time we had to go, I would take the kids with me to go to my thing and she could pick them up from there.

Well she lost her mind. She "forbade" DH from ever calling her parents again. She texted me a bunch of times about "we all need to work together for the sake of the kids." Ummmm I'm pretty sure I was working with or at least working around your lateness/flakiness by saying the kids could come with me to an event! It would've been pretty inconvenient for me, in fact. But according to her "working with her" is canceling all our plans and sticking around the house hoping that she will show up at some point. She said it was IMPOSSIBLE for her to get there on time and "offered" to "let" us drop the kids off at her house. No thanks, we're already late, we're not going to drive in the opposite direction to do you another favor.

She ended up magically achieving the "impossible" and getting to our house one minute before the deadline. So apparently it was possible, she just didn't feel like doing it until she realized that the alternative was that the kids spend 15 minutes with me during her parenting time. Her parenting time that wasn't even important enough to wake up for. If DH had said he was staying home with them, who knows how long she would've taken to get there!

After things sort of settled down, he and I were doing kind of a debrief and I said "We should be prepared for her to spring on you that you "need" to pick up the kids at the last minute as retaliation." And then I was like, wait a minute, as retaliation for WHAT? She's the one who slept through pickup time! We scrambled to find a solution for her! And it just made me so mad that she ruins our morning, tries to ruin our plans, harasses both of us (I could hear her yelling at DH through the phone, from another room) and then we have to worry about her retaliating! Because she doesn't like the solution we came up with - really the only thing we could think of to do - in response to her bad behavior.

Obviously it was very stressful but we survived and considering how mad she was, she probably won't sleep through a pickup again. I know, it's like textbook PD. It did make me think that in the future DH's attitude should be less of "I refuse to cancel my plans for you, here are the consequences of you not getting here in time" and more of "Good news! We figured out a way to accommodate your rudeness and lateness that's not too disruptive to the kids! You're welcome." She would like that even less. But it's the reality of the situation. WE WERE DOING HER A FAVOR ALL ALONG, both DH going out of his way to contact her and me shifting my plans so that the kids could come along.

Of course she did some stuff that I'm pretty sure, in her mind, was "getting DH back" and it's just like

[athene1399]

But according to her "working with her" is canceling all our plans and sticking around the house hoping that she will show up at some point.

Yup. It's all about the PD. If you aren't bending over backwards to accommodate their irresponcibleness (I'm creating words here lol), then you aren't working with them. The world should bend to their whim.  There literally is no working together, and not for a lack of us trying.

And on the whole "important parenting time": one time BM made me drop SD off at her house on SO's day because she didn't want me with SD while he was at work and BM wasn't even home! She threw a hissy fit that she should be with SD and not me and she wasn't even home. 

IMO anytime one has to speak to a PD it is stressful. We are shocked if BM doesn't blow up after any conversation.

I am sorry BM gave you a stressful morning and I am sorry she couldn't see past her own insecurities to know you guys were trying your best to help.    And I sorry she scolded DH for you guys going above and beyond to diffuse a stressful situation.

[Penny Lane]

Yep, BM really only wants to have parenting time because it means that the kids can't be with DH and especially me. She doesn't actually want to spend that parenting time with the kids and in fact she usually doesn't. Just like your BM being at work.

The really frustrating thing is that when she does show up on time she expects the kids to be all ready to go. Like, if they even take the time to put their shoes on she freaks out. I have heard her say on the phone to DH "I've been here for three minutes, the kids should be outside already." But how are we supposed to know when she'll be on time and when she won't show up at all?