I emailed XH asking when his plans to move here had become more concrete and just inquiring about his timeline.
He responded saying that he had no plans to move here and had just resigned his lease. He's not looking for jobs. Basically there are no plans of any kind. So he's lying to DS to placate him. He did say he would try to better explain things to DS.
It seems that his idea of explaining things was telling him that since he'd just resigned his lease, he couldn't be here for at least 11 months. DS hung up the phone and exclaimed "he'll be here in 11 months!"
I emailed XH again and said that DS still doesn't understand, and that it's upsetting him. His response was essentially "then you tell him."
Is there anything I can do here? I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall trying to get XH to understand that what he's doing is hurting DS. DS is starting to ask me a lot more questions about why XH is in CA and why he won't move here and why we can't move there. The truth is that XH chose to go. He just walked away. Ughhhh.
Re: How to handle? Part 2
Thanks, ladies. I'll see if he's willing to say anything else. His last email kind of implied that he'd explained all he wanted to.
I don't think he's doing this maliciously, I think he just thinks this is the easiest way to deal with it.
felles if you know he is not moving back then let it drop. the more it is mentioned/discussed etc the more DS is reminded.
Unfortunately he cannot make it through life without experiencing disappointment. Just continue to be an awesome mom and he will navigate it just fine.
twister: He's almost 8 (birthday is in a few weeks!).
Phantom: Yes, we're definitely not bringing it up. DS asked some questions Saturday but I don't think it came up at all on Sunday. It has really died down a little each day since DS has been home.
Towards the beginning of last week there was a lot of sadness and anger directed at me & DH. I just feel so helpless about the whole thing.
Tell him it's fine if he doesn't want to explain anything else, and if he wants you to do it you will, but you want him to hear the actual conversation (via Skpe or speaker phone or whatever) so there's no confusion on what was said.