Last time ex had a weekend it was 74 degrees but raining. I put DS in the clothes ex had put him in shorts, tennis shoes, a tee and a thick sweatshirt less than 5 minutes later I get text nessages from ex stating the clothes are not appropriate for the weather and its to cold for shorts. FF to this last Friday. Its 61 degrees so I put DS in jeans a shirt and a coat. I ask ex to send his coat back and less than 5 minutes later I get messages about how the clothes are not appropriate and how he needed to be in the shorts he sent him in and the hoodie he sent him in. Uh.. what? 74 degrees is to cold for shorts but 61 degrees he needs to be in shorts? Sunday I pick DS up and ex yells at me that hes keeping DS coat...again.. what?
We have these arguements all the time.Ive come to realize that Iin order to make ex feel better about himself he will always pick a fight. Im frustraited and realize I will never get along with ex based on his flip floping around. One day he wants to get along mostly based on him wanting something the next day he thinks im a horrible personbased on him not getting his way. He throws a fit like a 2 year old and claims woe is me to anyone and everyone who will listen. His main argumwnt about how im so terrible...I tell DS I love him and will miss him while hes with ex...what? He makes no sense to me.
I better stop before this gets longer. Ive taken a lot of your advice about what to do when they start trying to fight. Tell him I will no longer respond as he is trying to start a fight and cause drama. Ex has to get the last word in so he usually tries to stab at something he knows will hurt mecalls me a name or states that "im a terrible parent" ect but when I dont respond he quits. It works pretty well.. just sucks when that ex wont allow DS and I to speak when ex is all pissy because he "didnt win".
ETA I tell DS I love him and miss him and say have fun at the end. The reason why I do this is because there was a holiday last year when ex took DS to the pickup spot and he wasnt supposed to. Then told DS that I hated him and didnt want him anymore when he asked to call and I tried to call the phone was silent and then right when ex got to DS he hung up and told DS I didnt want to talk to him. DS got very upset and would freak out if I didnt tell him when id be back to pick him up. Ex also tells DS he loves him and will miss him when I pick DS up so its sort of he can do it but he whines when I do it situation. Ex also twists it to make it sound like im a blubbering mess when Im not.

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Re: clothes vent
Your ex sounds a whole lot like our BM! The clothes thing is ridiculous. She keeps what clothes she wants and sends them back in clothes too small. She calls non stop sometimes 20 times in a row demanding that they be dressed in pretty dresses and shoes bc they have plans. It is in DH'S C/O that he does not have to send them with anything due to her saying in court that she has everything she needed for them. And it's up to her to provide what they wear while they are with her. BM doesn't pay child support and we have 6 kids all together so we can't afford to buy them nice clothes constantly. BM calls just to fight. The clothes thing would be different and we wouldn't mind sending them in nice clothes but she keeps them so we send them in play clothes... not that she ever keeps them the whole time anyways. She just recently started showing up to actually utilize her PT. She left one msg saying they look like pieces of sh!t when they leave here!
So... we stopped responding to everything to see if that would work.. NOPE.. made it worse. She calls constantly and leaves a VM each time getting more irate! Which is a good thing b/c I document everything and it gets sent straight to the atty. Not a good thing for the kids though =(
sorry for the long response. I hope you're situation gets better!!
My Loves= SD 18 SS 16 SS13 DD13 DS10 SD6 SD5
Two things
1) Go to GoodWill or Salvation Army and get two pairs of pants, two shorts, two tshirts and two long sleeve shirts and a hoodie. Then when you pack his suitcase he will have a variety of clothes to cover all of the weather bases. Then ignore any subsequent texts.
Then at the end of the weekend, forward said text messages to your attorney, with a message that you sent your son with the above suitcase full of clothes, and ask him if that is ok.
CC your ex.
I would suspect that as soon as he realizes that you are actually going to play is ball-game with a bigger bat, he will stop the histrionics.
2) As for the commentary of "I love you and will miss you while you are gone"...I suggest that you stop that.
While I understand the feelings, it borders on Parental Alienation. By telling your son that, he could worry about YOUR feelings going into his time with his father and not have a good attitude.
And that is not good for HIM.
Why not change up the wording somehow. Yes, say that you love him, but try not to say something that makes him feel bad about leaving you.
Fully Agree! Esp. with the last part. That was really good input for me as well. We were saying that at first but changed it to " I will miss you but I know you will have lots of fun!" (The kids often ask if we miss them if they are going as well)
Another thing that is good to have for documentation is pictures with date and time stamps on them if possible. We had to start doing this recently because BM keeps accusing us of keeping her clothes even though we don't. We have the girls change into clothes at our house when she drops them off and send her clothes back with her. I take pictures of what they are wearing when they are ready to leave for the simple fact that BM says their hair is matted, They wear stupid clothes and we just want to make BM look bad. So BM "is writing the judge". Ha.. she has said this so many times.. DH told her to please write the judge. but yeah.. pictures are good in my experience.
ETA: The judge or mediator may not even look at the pictures or anything but they are great to have just in case you need them for proof!
My Loves= SD 18 SS 16 SS13 DD13 DS10 SD6 SD5
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"Karma1969: If baking someone a birthday pie/cake is romantic, I must be a slut."
Ignore the texts. He's being ridiculous. Dress DS how you would normally dress him, and don't worry about it. And never send DS in something you want to get back. Just get clothes you don't care about at a consignment shop.
Or do what Illumine suggested and send a suitcase of clothes and then email your attorney and CC in BD asking if that's acceptable.
^^ This. I'm sure you are not saying it in a way to make your son feel terrible about leaving you. As parents we always want our children to know we love them.
BUT, when "I'm going to miss you" is thrown in, kids start to feel responsible for their parents' happiness. I speak from experience, it's extremely difficult having a child come to your home and say, "Mommy misses me when I'm here, maybe I should just stay with Mommy". BM does this to K all the frigging time. Hell, sometimes she even cries when K comes to us for vacations and weekends. When K was 4 I picked her up from preschool and she told me, "Can you take me back to my mom's? Mommy was crying when she said goodbye to me and I need to cheer her up." Now, BM in my situation is incredibly emotionally manipulative of K. I'm not saying that you are anything like BM, I'm just letting you know that kids do pick up on stuff.
Maybe next time say, "I love you and have a great time".
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I too have seen first hand how my step kids react to their mother hanging on them, crying about how much she is going to miss them when it was dads time.
we don't do tearful goodbyes, we hug and say have fun, see you sunday
As for the 'I'll miss you,' I have to agree with the posters that say you should just leave it at 'I love you and see you on Sunday.' My SS would cry because his mom missed him too much and he felt like it was his fault. When we would pick him up she would run out to the car for once last goodbye, making him more upset. He felt bad because he was excited to see his dad but dint want his mom to be lonely even though she is married with 2 other kids. He did outgrow her antics eventually as one day during pick up he told her to stop being selfish. Since then she just hugs him and says I love you.