Awkward age

[Associate of Daniel]

Ds is 15.  He's at an in between age where he and his parents (me and uNPD exH) are juggling the teaching of independence and autonomy to him, giving him more decision making and communication responsibilities, and him still being technically a child under our care.

UNPD exH of course is livid that I now, a lot of the time, communicate with ds instead of him regarding arrangements.  In the process I've caught uNPD exH out in various lies etc..  Of course, I've made mistakes where I should have communicated with uNPD but they're just that - mistakes.

How have you all managed this, those of you who have been through this stage, or are going through it?

AOD

[Penny Lane]

Yes DSS is 14 and is right there with you.

In our case though, BM is becoming more and more checked out. She likes that DH goes through DSS because then she has to do less.

It's GREAT for us because it removes BM's ability to triangulate. DH will arrange something with DSS. He will message BM and say "this is the plan, let me know if you have any objections." So she can't tell DSS "it's your dad's fault this isn't happening."

I know that she feels like DH is shutting her out of decisions, but the reality is that she's removing herself from decisions. DH is just removing her ability to stall everything.

So, same situation but different response by the ex. I don't envy you dealing with this aggression.

I'm with you that a teenager should be taking on more and more of the decisionmaking and communication - this sets them up well for real life.

[Associate of Daniel]

Thanks, PennyLane.

I WISH my UNPD exH would check out.

In a way he does - because his UNPD wife is extremely willing to take on the role of father and mother.  So if he doesn't have to do the parenting, and if his UNPD wife doing it keeps his ex wife (me) from being involved in her own son's life, all the better.

I have 3 single mum friends whose husbands essentially just checked out of their children's lives.  The mums are bringing up the kids on their own cos the dads are not in the picture.

I know it's a really tough ride for the mums and the kids, but it's very hard not to be envious of my friends.

They don't have any help with the decisions about and the running around of their kids. They don't get a break from their kids.

I have to fight more and more to be able to see my beautiful boy on the limited time the court has allotted to me.

I feel bad feeling jealous.  I wish there was a way to even the stories up.

AOD

[Penny Lane]

It sounds like you'd be in our boat (or better) if not for the stepmom. She has the energy and the willingness to continue fighting.

I also agree that it's better to have your kid all the time with an absent coparent, than to have to fight your coparent for even basic things like custody time or decisionmaking.

There is no winning with a PD, you just carve out as much peace as you can.

[athene1399]

I like Penny's idea of once you arrange something with DS you shoot a text to xh to let him know what the plan is. Once we started communicating more directly with SD, we didn't update BM though. She didn't seem to have too much of an issue with it, but SD I think would change plans with us if she ran her plans by BM and BM said they had to do something else together.

Acceptance maybe helpful. Like xh may throw a fit whether or not you let him know what you and Ds have planned. That may be unfortunately unavoidable. Unfortunately you can't control how or if he reacts to things.