Reply to Am I expected to set up my kids’ rooms at STBX’s house?

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Reply to "Am I expected to set up my kids’ rooms at STBX’s house?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, you are hostile and uncooperative.  You need to find a way to work with him and communicate with him for your children's sake.  If you want to use their rooms as an excuse so they cannot have overnights or visits, that's hurting your kids.

Send him to pottery barn, crate and barrell or a company with free design services and tell him schedule an in-person or online appointment and they can guide him and the kids through choosing furniture, bedding, etc.  Tell him the kids sizes and what stores to take them to.  Its about your kids not you.

My husband's ex was horribly hostile to him and used the kids to get at him.  (she had the affair, not him, he tried to stay for the kids and ignore it).  He's a great husband and father, but even with our kids, he has no clue the sizes and other things as we divide and conquer on who does what and I do the shopping for everyone including him.  Could he figure it out, sure, but at this point, so could my teens but I would help for our kids sake.  I've seen the outcome of parents fighting and one keeping the other parent from the kids.  None of his adults kids are in healthy relationships or stable.  One is going through their own terrible divorce and he's in a horrific custody battle with a woman exactly like his mom.  [/quote]

No she isn’t.  Take your issues to your own thread and stop projecting them onto OP.  She is under no obligation to decorate her ex husband’s house.

—NP[/quote]

You don’t get it and that’s why you are divorced.  It’s not about him, it’s about the kids and supporting them.  [b]This will have a long term impact on the kids and how you behave now the kids will model later on and that’s the point.  They will repeat this in their own lives.[/b]  If you love your kids, you do things you don’t want to for their sake.  [/quote]

Yes, this is exactly the point - but not in the way that you think, PP.   Part of divorce, is being a role model for your children about setting healthy boundaries.  My exH never took physical custody of our kids even though he was offered 50/50.  He did have them for visitation, but never bought housing with separate bedrooms for them even though he could afford it, and never even bought them beds for any room in his house.  He chose to send them the message that he didn't want to make an effort for them and as a result they did not spend a lot of time there.

It was really important that I show them that it was OK to set boundaries, by modeling that in my own behavior.  No, after divorce, it was absolutely not my job to encourage or make him take custody or get them beds.  But, I did get them a therapist with whom they could discuss their feelings about this and who could help them express their needs directly to him.  I wanted to teach my daughter that no spouse or partner has a right to her labor, and that it is OK to say "no" to unreasonable demands, especially for things that people can do for themselves.  And, I definitely didn't want to teach my son that he had a right to use someone else like his dad seemed to feel free to use me.  I was always very polite to their dad, but not a pushover.  Now they are grown-ups and TBH, I think they feel like I was too nice to their dad.  Out of their own direct experiences with him they came to see him as an unreliable guy who wasn't able to care for them properly and never really had their best interests at heart.  That's sad, but it's not something I can fix or control, and the amount of effort I would have put in (and did put in when we were together) to help him and cover for him so he could look like a great dad was effort that would have been better invested in myself and my relationship with my kids.

OP should grey or yellow rock her DH and engage in parallel parenting. If he has been abusive in any way, she can have all communication go through attorneys and any parental coordination can be done in writing through third party apps.  She should focus on herself and her relationship with the kids and let her husband focus on himself and his relationship with the kids.  Be cordial if you must be together for family or school events, but it's OK to keep it brief and polite.  [/quote]

We aren’t talking about your ex and sometimes you have to do things for the kids sake and take the high road. Marriage and coparenting are a partnership. [/quote]

Marriage and coparenting may be a partnership, but divorce is not. Divorce is by definition about ending the partnership. Divorce is about drawing boundaries for the sake of your own health and safety and that of your kids. Divorce is about each party becoming independent and responsible for his/her 50% of a child’s care and 100% responsible for his/her own relationship with the kids.

Yes, often you have to do things for the kid’s sake. Propping up a Potemkin parent isn’t a service to the child: it’s a service to the spouse who can’t or won’t parent. Better to let them figure it out and succeed or fail on their own. Rescuing is infantilizing.[/quote]

Coparenting is a form of partnership and you do it for your kids best interests.  You probably set him up to fail and refuse to let him see the kids and find all kinds of excuses why.  It’s not about the kids for you, it’s about you.  You cannot have a relationship as a noncustodial parent if the other parent refuses or sabotages you.  [/quote]

Your agenda is weird and obvious. You could continue your argument into eternity that OP should assume every parenting duty in both her house and her ex's "for the sake of the kids", and vilify her if she didn't. But a ex who requests custody has to parent, actively, that means everything from buying furniture to doing pickup after basketball practice. And no, he doesn't get to keep custody, offload it onto her, and then have you come on here accusing her of not putting the kids first. It's such an old, sexist argument. [/quote]

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