Father of the Year? Not Quite Yet.

My ex-husband, for almost four years now, cannot make up his mind. He is not sure if he wants to enjoy the new found civility in our relationship since the divorce, or if he wants to nit pick and argue and continue to lose. (and I don't mean lose the argument either.) I don't have a laundry list of complaints about him like some ex-wives I know. I know that he loves our kids, is genuinely sorry (on most days) that our relationship went so badly wrong, and tries to be more accommodating than most ex-husbands I know. That said, sometimes he fails; in an epic fashion.

The Darling Three spend every Sunday night thru Tuesday evening with their Dad and his fiance. They often bristle about going, but just as often seem to have a good time while they are gone. I enjoy the quiet. It is often the only quiet I get. This week, when I picked up The Three on Tuesday evening, they entered my house as though they had been shot from a cannon. My two with mood disorders were mood-swinging like monkeys at the zoo and my youngest was along for the ride. As I cringed from the noise I unpacked their clothes and made sure everyone's meds had returned only to discover that R had missed four doses of Seroquel while he was with his Dad. That is four doses out of six, and not the preamble to a nice quiet evening at home for any of us. Things were becoming clearer. So while he raged in the background, and his sister sobbed at the kitchen table because her father said, "Why would you do that to your hair? You look like a boy." I called the ex to get his side. That was my first mistake. Thinking that if a mistake had been made, he would admit it was his. To make a long story short, we fought, loudly, on the phone for an hour. I do not need anyone to tell me how bad this is, for me, for my kids, and even for the big bad ex. By the time I hung up, and by hung up, I mean hung up on him, everyone was crying or angry or both and it took until nearly 10:00 to get the boys settled and asleep so that I could console my inconsolable daughter, trying to convince her that her father does indeed love her despite her haircut.

So I let some time go by before I talk to the ex again. Two days to be exact. And then I try a different approach. Hopefully it works. The initial feedback was encouraging. We talked for almost an hour. I explained to him some things I know from personal experience. Things lots of women know, but lots of men forget about. I tried to explain to him that the way a father treats his daughter sets the gold standard for how other men will be expected to treat her for the rest of her life. I reminded him, not for the first time, that criticism from him is almost impossible to erase from her mind, that he is THE man in her life right now. I told him that I wasn't trying to blame him for anything or make it all his fault, but that the way he deals with K is not helping her depression at all. I told him that I didn't want to see him lose a daughter in the same way we have both already lost a son. He told me that he understood, and I am hoping that this time he does.