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evilstepmommy07

Advice on how to communicate better

evilstepmommy07
14 years ago

My husband has custody of his two children. However, they have been splitting time 50/50 recently between our home and their mother's home. While I think it is great that they are getting to spend equal time with both parents, some issues have come up.

I will preface this with, I am of the belief that we are in charge at our home and she is in charge at her home.

These are the problems:

1. she has started working at night and cannot take them to sporting events, practices, school activites, etc.

We are expected to take care of all of that even when it is her time. (Don't get me wrong, I am SO glad she is working now!)

2. Grades are slipping. And I mean slipping badly, Fs and Ds are coming home from the weeks they are at her house.

My husband tried to propose a new arrangement to her. They stay with us on school nights and go to her house every other weekend. He only wanted to do this until the end of the school year and then during the summer we could do the opposite. This way she would be able to spend time with them during the day while they are out of school and she is not working.

She really freaked out and would not even listen to him. He tried to explain that he thought it was best for the children, she said that this was about her and that he was not going to steal them from her??? She would not even let him talk to her about it. She said NO and that he WAS NOT going to do this to her and that there was nothing left to talk about. This is the type of reaction he gets from her about everything. She gets very defensive even though NOTHING has ever been said about her, her household, her abilities or anything. She reacts very irrationally and emotionally to everything and makes it difficult to discuss things about the children and their well being.

My questions are: 1. Has anyone out there found any successful ways to communicate with people who don't really want to listen to you?? He has tried email but she says that they cannot communicate through email that they have to talk. We are kind of at a loss about how to deal with her.

2. For us, it is really about the children and what is best for them emotionally, physically, their education, their health and overall well being. How can he get that across to her?

3. Any advice on dealing with the above mentioned problems?

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