Christmas 2008 Not Without Bump in the Road
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Going back for as long as I can remember with the Psycho Ex-Wife, the holidays are a time of ramped-up chaos and maximum disruption. This year would be a little more of the same, however unlike prior years, this disruption was small and ultimately overcome. For that, I am thankful.
As happens with many post-divorce custody situations, sometimes the court-ordered schedule can get a little ornery. It’s one of those years where one parent’s holiday time falls on the other parent’s custodial week. This can cause a logisitcal nightmare, particular if your plans include some travel, as ours did. While I will almost always advise people in a high-conflict situation to “follow the court order to the letter,” sometimes I’ll foolishly take a shot at making things right for everyone and make contact that includes a suggestion for change. And sometimes, when dealing with a psycho ex-spouse, the reasonable suggestion which will actually give her extra time is rejected, even if it means reducing the amount of travel involved for everyone.
Following the court order, we would have had an exhange on the 21st (her custodial week start), an exchange on the 24th (my Christmas holiday), an exchange on the 26th (to close out her custodial week), and exchange on the 28th (my custodial week start), an exchange on the 31st (her New Years holiday), and exchange on the 2nd (to close out my custodial week), and finally and exchange on the 4th (to start my custodial week). Given that we had made some plans to be 4-hours away at the main home for Christmas celebrations, that would make for an awful lot of driving and a tremendous amount of disruption for the children during that period. This is only because both Christmas and New Years fall in the middle of the week.
So, knowing that a suggestion would likely not be received without the usual level of paranoia and negative feedback, I forged ahead anyway with what I thought was a sensible plan. I suggested a switch to 2-weeks on/2-weeks off before resuming to the week-on/week-off regular schedule after New Years. Further, I offered to drop the children off on the 27th at lunchtime, which would give them a full weekend with PEW as well as leave her with 3 extra days during that period. The best part of all? 1 exchange. On the 27th. I would keep them from the 17th through the 27th. She would keep them from the 27th through January 11th. There were some added benefits, too. PEW had to work the few days before Christmas and the boys had school on Monday and Tuesday with Tuesday being a half-day. I was off and could manage that without them having to go to aftercare on either day, and we could leave for our holiday at 1PM on Tuesday instead of waiting until the 24th.
She refused. Repeatedly.
This was fine with me as I was prepared for the logistical nightmare. It’s just one of those things you have to deal with in a post-divorce situation anyway. Further, it also demonstrated her complete lack of consistency in her past arguments regarding all of the driving we used to have to do, the dangerous highways, and most importantly - how much she missed the children and wanted them to be with her during the holidays. You can just click on any of the Christmas labels to see details about that. Future file fodder. He arguments against the switch flew directly in the face of way too many past arguments.
I persisted a little bit over the course of the weeks leading up to Christmas, ignoring the issues she brought up which were irrelevant to the matter at hand, like my relationship with DW, my being a “dog killer,” I must have some ulterior motive, and other tired old arguments that you’ve read about far too many times before on this blog. I remained focused on the driving and exchange nightmare.
She did manage to drag the kids into the discussion, claiming that she spoke to them about it and that they “totally freaked out and refused to do that.” Since the boys are intelligent and since she already dragged them into it, I inquired about their discussion. They told me that she didn’t talk to them about a schedule change. She only told them that we would be going “back and forth a lot” and they weren’t really thrilled about it. So, I showed them the calendar and, as any rational human beings would, they saw no problem with the suggestion and thought 2-weeks/2-weeks with one exchange over the holidays was a “great idea!”
With that, we discussed it again with PEW and she relented after thinking about it, but with conditions. No surprise there, right? She wanted to have the boys overnight on both the 21st (Sunday) and the 22nd (Monday) and then if I did that, she would agree to the switch. Since the kids were going to be at school anyway, I told her simply, “Fine.” It was what was best for everyone involved and the constant upset to spend time each of us was dramatically reduced, even if I did concede 2 more days with the boys and they had to stay at aftercare for a few hours on Monday.
Fortunately, that was the end of it. We had a wonderful Christmas holiday and the children only had to endure 1 exchange versus the 7 that would have occurred otherwise. PEW got to feel like she “won” something in the bargain.
I also had the foresight to check things out a few years down the road… yes, a few years, and as luck would have it - it’s not something we’ll have to contend with for some time to come. Thank goodness for small favors.
We sincerely hope the time you spent with your loved ones was at least as great a time as ours was. It’s nice to close out the Christmas portion of the year-end festivities with children who tell you, “I really believe this was the best Christmas yet!”
The other morning during breakfast and while preparing for my shower, I had another in a long line of regular experiences that was a disagreement between S1 and S2. The subject of the disagreement was, as it often is, just plain silly. However, it descended into the usual sibling joust of yes-it-was, no-it-wasn’t, yes-it-was, no-it-wasn’t, YIW, NIW, YIW, NIW… round and round we go and where we’ll stop, nobody knows!
