Psychopath and Narcissist Survivors Support Group

withall1sheart · Joined: 16 Apr 2007 Posts: 42

ExNH does not ever call to ask about our children nor does he call our children's babysitter to ask about them. Our 3 year old daughter attended dance class this summer and will be starting pre-school this fall. I emailed to let him know about her participation in dance class and enrollment in pre-school and never heard back from him with any questions, comments, or concerns.

I received in the mail our daughter's pre-school orientation date for parents and children. Do I tell him? Or should he contact the school himself to receive information and be a parent. I really don't feel that I should hold his hand on how to parent. Any input on how I should deal with letting him know about events and functions or wait for him to contact me and ask. Even if he says he'll attend history says he won't.
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With All One's Heart

NancyCT · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 1327 Location: Connecticut, USA

Whatever you choose to do, be sure you're doing it with your daughter's best interests in mind. If it would be better for her if her father was more involved with her preschool, then by all means pass on the info and encourage him. If he tends to be a no show, then certainly don't tell the poor child that he will be attending if you suspect he'll skip it and break her dear little heart.

Remember that your child's activities are about your daughter, it's not something between you and your X.

You might also consider contacting the school and requesting that they put him on their mailing/phone list too. Divorce is common. Schools are used to that sort of thing. That would allow you less contact with him, which would probably be a good thing for all involved.

livedthroughit · Joined: 20 Feb 2007 Posts: 946

What I always tried to do is give him notice in writing about the activity, along with contact information (such is name and phone number of the preschool, etc.) From that point, it's the Ns decision whether or not he is involved and you are 'removed from the equation."

Of course, if you can get along with him well enough to coparent, by all means do so, but I found that if he relied on me to keep him abreast of our daughter's activities 1) It led to increased conflict between he and I. 2) It felt more like he wanted to make contact with me and less like he was really interested in her. If your ex really wants to be involved, he will call the preschool and get more information, etc. I never keep information from my ExN, but he made the choice as to how involved he would be. I tried very hard to coparent, as I felt it was the best thing for my daugther, but it never worked -- he typically never followed through on things, and other times he went through stages were he used the events to put on a "father-of-the-year" show. You could count on the later if he was taking me to court over something. Anyway, our family law case manager finally told me that it was impossible to coparent with him, and I would assume it's impossible to coparent with nearly all Ns.

If your Ex is failing to show up for his parenting time, I'd make him make the effort to be involved because he will hurt and disappoint your daughter as she gets older if he promises to do something and then doesn't show up. A friend of mine who had a dad like that told me that it was his promising to do things and then not following through that was most painful for her growing up.

Oh, yeah, and to me, a parent who isn't particularly interested in his kids, but then calls the other parent and tries to renegotiate the schedule is probably more interested in the contact with you than he is seeing the kids.