Tired of the games
Yesterday was a rollercoaster for me. I wasn't able to reach my lawyer to ask questions and XH kept emailing me with his demands. I did my best to keep to my "technique" and respond minimally, but he keeps throwing threats my way: "I won't go to mediation if I suspect that the daycare has been told not to let me pick up the baby", "If you don't respond to my email RIGHT NOW, I'll consider that we don't have any agreement at all", "If you want to be "informed" ahead of time of when I pick up the baby, then you'll need to find a way to prove to me that we legally have shared custody and equal rights to her"...
This is just exhausting. And confusing to boot...
In the afternoon, XH picked up our daughter from her daycare and brought her to his place. I managed to leave work early to try to meet him at the daycare, but just missed them. I drove like mad to his place so that he wouldn't be alone with her for long. I had already left her alone with him for 20 minutes on Saturday, and I'm trying my best to reduce any alone time she has with him. At least last night's alone time was on the subway.
I get to his place and baby is fine. She knows the apartment and she's happily playing. Thank goodness. Of course, XH already has a beer in hand. It's like it's attached to him, like a growth or something.
The evening went well overall--there were no video games on the tv, the vaccum cleaner was out, almost for show, and XH was generally nice and played with the baby. The only issue was that he hadn't planned any dinner for her; I didn't expect him to feed me, but she's 16 months old and needs a solid dinner with protein and carbs. He said he planned on just giving her Cheerios and apple sauce the whole night. Hmm. He also didn't want to give her a bath. Double hmm.
And yet, he's being so nice and so reasonable. He's playing this Perfect Dad role and it's confusing me. He keeps telling me he wants a "good relationship" between us, and that he wants us to parent our child together. He printed out all these articles about how daughters who come from homes where the mother has sole custody are three times more likely to become pregnant as teenagers...It wasn't 3 months ago that *I* was printing out the same articles, about the benefit of a father's input in a child's life, and he was brushing me off, telling me he "only wanted the fun stuff". NOW he is trying to prove to me that shared custody is best for a child, and I DO believe this, but both parents have to be functional for this to work! How can I trust this man after everything he's put me through?
Ugh, I'm just so tired of this. Nice one day, all the while sending me threatening emails. The plain nasty the next day. Random texts in between. Detach detach detach I tell myself. I don't answer emails or texts, but I'm still in turmoil inside, I think because my inner defenses are pretty weak and I'm generally exhausted. Some days I'm afraid that I won't be able to get out of bed; I'm not there yet, but some days, I feel the threat looming. Why does he put me through this rollercoaster?