xPD acting somewhat 'normal'... should I be concerned?

[cgr68311]

After a tumultuous start of the year, and setting up boundaries left and right, my child's PD mother seems to be less vicious, still acting bipolar, but definitely less vicious. Thus my question for you with more experience, is this a normal phase? When can I expect the next shake up?

I am learning to not react to her petty provocations, that's helpful. For example, back in January some of you may recall she was furious and had blocked me after failing to appear for a weekend exchange (she went skiing and 'forgot'). After she had unblocked me she was still very upset and came up with "I cannot send you any pictures of our child because my (new) phone ran out of space". So she has not been sending me any pictures if at all, which is fine. However the other day at exchange, she wanted to take a pic of our boy and said "hey can you take a picture of him send it to me?" I said "sorry I left my phone in the car". So she pulls out her phone and says "please my phone can't take pictures, it's out of space", yet she takes the pictures. I said nothing.

Then yesterday  out of nowhere she says "You know, I haven't been sending you pictures because my phone has no space, and when I try to send them through Facebook, I can't, did you block me?"

My counselor has taught me to give people the benefit of the doubt, and suppress myself when my gut tells me that she's lying. Sure, I can do that, but that doesn't mean I'm going to play along with her potential lie or nonsense conversation. So instead of reacting like I would have done in the past and writing her a lengthy list of the facts (she recently upgraded to a new phone, saw her take pictures, etc), I just say "it's ok, just let me video our boy when you can". Very simple, I don't feel I compromise myself, or our child.

Five minutes later, however, she sends me another text and says "I want to take our (2 year old) kiddo to Europe (where she's from), is that ok?" Again, no need to send her anything lengthy when she clearly knows our court order says no overseas until he turns 3. Then 5 minutes later she sends another text that she wants to go back to our old court schedule. Respectfully I tell her, I'm busy, but I will look at our court documentation when I get home and get back to you. Oh boy, then she started bombing my phone with phone calls.

This may seem like a lot, but it's actually very small compared to her regular viciousness, threats, wanting to change the parenting schedule every other day, etc. Her last vicious episode was on Valentines' day when she put up a huge fight and threats because both I and our boy came down with what we thought was covid and her hot date got compromised because she had to care for our boy instead. Also this week our daycare person told me that mom harasses her via text message, telling her the same thing (potty training), over and over again, and wanting information about other children that go there. Her other recent acts in addition to medical neglect (untreated ear infection), have been to introduce him to different nannies at home, which has been detrimental and made our boy regress with stranger anxiety. Technically we have stable day care arrangements M-F but because she's PD, she wants him 'home' at least a day a week (she works from home), but because she lives in an apartment, it's proven to be very unpractical, and she gets upset, boy cries and gets upset, and more upset because ultimately she takes him to the daycare late after nanny could not manage our boy at her place, then daycare gets upset because our boy is late and disrupts the routine, etc. She has done this several times, always with the same results. Apparently she has finally accepted that he's regressing because of these abrupt routine changes, only because she wants her 'fill'.

Now she's bothering her boss (this is why she was trying to call me yesterday), about letting her change her work schedule to 12 hour shifts, this way she can have more days off with our boy but still thinks he will need to go to daycare on those days so she can rest.

There are also days when she literally changes her mind 1-3 times between back to back text messages. I am thankful for this group and my counselor for learning to filter out some of this noise, not reacting to it.

Coming up, her mom (whom she was supposedly 'estranged'  with),  is coming to visit. I say supposedly estranged because deep down I knew they weren't (her mom would tell me so, but then she would exactly call or text me after her daughter and I had an argument, or an exchange etc). I had in the past reimbursed her for her airfare, let her borrow one of my cars, etc and also allowed her to visit and stay at my place. However, this time, she's visiting on mom's weekend, so I was very clear that I'm still willing to reimburse her and she can stay at my place on my days, but absolutely do not want to have her daughter around my place on her days or on my days. I'm a little smarter these days and I know this would all end up in drama. She was ok to stay somewhere else for the weekend.

[cgr68311]

Btw something that's been helping to deflect her, has been to either fully ignore or let her know I'm busy and I'll sleep on it, or get back to her later. Then she forgets or moves on to another topic or changes her mind on what she had previously asked me, etc.

[Penny Lane]

Btw something that's been helping to deflect her, has been to either fully ignore or let her know I'm busy and I'll sleep on it, or get back to her later. Then she forgets or moves on to another topic or changes her mind on what she had previously asked me, etc.

This is a really good strategy. I think I've mentioned that over the years DH's relationship with his ex has gotten a lot less tense. I attribute this in part to a rule he made a few years ago. If there's a discussion that is not productive, but he feels he has to respond, he will wait three calendar days to send his answer. 1. That allows him to calm down if it's tense and 2. she often doesn't even care about the issue after three days. It used to be that they would go back and forth for 20 emails on a totally unproductive topic, with him trying unsuccessfully to de-escalate. Now maybe they'll exchange 3-5 before she gets bored and stops responding. Sometimes he'll even write up a response and let it sit in drafts so he doesn't have to deal with it later. Obviously this doesn't work on a time-sensitive issue. And if it's something DH wants to move forward, it doesn't make sense to delay it like that. But for the "I want to take him overseas contrary to the plan" or demands to change schedule, waiting a few days forces her to take a beat and she probably will forget or change her mind as you pointed out.

To answer your question, no you shouldn't be worried that she's less combative than usual. When our BM does this it's usually because she has a new boyfriend. It sounds like your boundaries are starting to work too. Don't get too used to it though, it has not (so far) been a permanent state over here. Though things have improved on average, but her level of vitriol seems to ebb and flow based on whatever is going on in her life. Enjoy it while it lasts!

If you're like me, you might be looking for how do you spend that energy that you had been using to fend off your ex's velociraptor attacks? My advice: Fill up your own cup by doing some self-care. Work on your healing from the divorce. And then use that energy to become a better parent to your son. He will need you to instill resilience and good emotional coping tools - he's not going to get that from his mom. And enjoy yourself and your time with him! The next drama bomb will come soon enough.

[athene1399]

I agree with everything PL says. Waiting before responding worked wonders for us as well. I think some of what caused our BM's behavior to improve was us limiting contact and sticking to the facts. Or empathy: "I am sorry you feel frustrated. I know you want an answer right now, but I need to take some time to think on it."

I would also advise not spending too much time on figuring out why your ex has changed her behavior. I used to waste a lot of energy on that, and looking back I don't think it mattered. No matter what the reason, we can never change how she chooses to act. There were days where the effective communication skills we learned didn't work because she just wanted to pick a fight. It is what it is. I try to accept that she can be unpredictable and I can't control her.