We Need a Visitation Schedule
Just got back from the wedding without Mr. Kate.
Recap: I drove to my parents for a wedding by myself because Mr. Kate's daughter wanted to visit him on Saturday and I didn't want to take her on the 10+ hour drive, or add an uninvited guest to the ceremony 3-4 days before showing up. I told Mr. Kate that a 10 year-old shouldn't be dictating his (and by association, my) schedule. His argument was that with the start of the custody battle, he's only able to see his daughter weekends and Wednesdays now. Previously she came over whenever she wanted (weekends and 2-3 weekdays)...
So, I left yesterday morning. Last night, Mr. Kate tells me that that night when he went to go pick up his daughter, her mom said that she wasn't allowed to go. So Mr. Kate is now home alone, and I am at my parents without him for no reason. I told him that I was pretty ticked off that my plans were screwed up because of all this. His reply was that if he gets custody (and I don't see that happening) then he can have his daughter whenever he wants. Then I tell him that its not really BM changing things up that ticks me off (though it does, a little), but that its not going to matter if he gets custody or not because it appears that he's going to run all of his plans through his daughter anyway.
As far as I can tell, BF is pretty much only communicating with BM at this point through his daughter. I'm 95% sure that BM didn't know about my plans...some communication between the two may have cleared this whole mess up. I just think he is, and will continue, to give his daughter too much say in our plans.
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I'm not sure why there is
I'm not sure why there is nothing official, though I will make sure that, at the very least, Mr. Kate does get a schedule in place by the end of his custody case.
Up until this point, I have been looking at things as though he has a situation in place that works for him, his daughter, and BM, and it is my job to either fit in to what is already in place or leave him. Especially now that BF is talking marriage, I think I'm getting more to the point where I believe that he should be making changes too...not just me. I'm thinking more and more that he needs to look at the two of us as partners, instead of grouping he, I, and his daughter all as a team.
If he can't do these things, then I need to move on, because I will not be asking a 10 year-old what her plans are. Or an eleven year-old, or a seventeen year-old, either.
Here is what I established
Here is what I established w/my dh when we were living close enough to the skids to have visitation (as ours was not on a schedule)..
If we have plans that do not include a child, and the bm or child calls up wanting that weekend all of a sudden, the answer is sorry, I can not do that weekend. I dont care if you tell them you are working or if you tell them the truth, that you already have plans, but you are no longer backing out on me last minute.
And well.. we held to that, and things started going much smoother.. he would always tell him he couldnt do that weekend if we had SOMETHING planned, but that the following weekend he was wide open.
Sorry about getting ditched.. that S*CKS!
I'm going to have to lay it
I'm going to have to lay it out to him that my plans aren't dependent on what his daughter feels like doing.
The problem that I'm going to run into when bringing this up, is that he will try to guilt me into seeing his side. I recognize a pattern where every disagreement will be made out to be about me depriving his daughter of something...when he wanted her to sleep in our room and I didn't, I was depriving her of air conditioning (which she doesn't have at BM's house, and this is after I suggested he move the AC to her room)...when I thought that cable was unnecessary because I wasn't working, I was depriving her of that because it was 'a necessity' and 'my daughter needs cable'...in this case, I'm depriving her of time with him. This is why we had a blow up on Wednesday. After he laid the guilt trip about not getting to see his daughter enough, she came over and...he fell asleep, leaving me to look after her.
Then it was 'but my job is soooo hard'...