I'm looking for someone to give me a swift kick (metaphorically). There's also a bit of a rant here.
Recap: Ex has been sending a steady stream of nastygrams over the past few weeks. These focus on either my lousy character and what a hypocrite I am (hiding behind my false front of reasonableness), complete with unprintable language; or they're unfounded demands for money (some of which has ended up here).
This morning the tack switched to passive-aggressive - he "knows [I] don't like paying child support", he asks me to "resign [myself] to paying until D7 is out of school", he urges me to "understand and accept [my] obligations as a parent". He earns over 100K and has a second income earner, a new wife, in his household. We have 50/50 custody; our incomes are in 53/47 ratio; I pay offset and proportional S7; and I have paid on time and to the penny ever since I moved out. I recognize this as fair and have never tried to change this. Ex has not paid his share of S7 since last June, and I have been carrying all of D7's expenses. He has been coming up with more and more creative ways to get around the offset, such as trying to charge me for any "extra" off-cycle nights D7 spends at his house or new and unusual S7 expenses like wanting reimbursement for a Halloween costime she wore at his house last year, to say nothing of the creative demands on my tax return. This has been going on for over a year, complete with threats of legal action and "making [me] pay and pay and pay". None of it has materialized. I've said that I will not respond to messages which are insulting or vulgar, and I will not discuss financial matters which are outside the divorce order, and have been maintaining radio silence beyond those two statements.
Part of me now wants to send off a blistering email about the absurdity of calling me a reluctant payor who needs to be lectured on parental responsibility when he's been continuously trying to scrape any extra penny he can out of me, with little regard for the law (we're talking one of those jailhouse lawyers who thinks he knows it all because he watched a couple of episodes of Law&Order). We both have more than adequate financial resources to look after our daughter. I suspect he's either in deep financial trouble or still emotionally enmeshed in his own unfinished business from the marriage, which consists of making me "pay" for whatever wrongs he thinks may have been done to him.
The smarter part of me says just let the passive-aggressive email sit there; there's nothing worth responding to; don't get sucked back into engagement; he's clearly trying a new tactic when overt hostility wasn't getting him the reaction he wanted and I shouldn't reward it.
I would really appreciate it if any of the wiser people on this forum could give me that swift kick, tell me to listen to the smarter part of me, and/or share any tips for how to cool down when you desperately want to tell your ex how wrong he is, but you know you shouldn't (besides writing out your woes to an internet forum of strangers).
Recap: Ex has been sending a steady stream of nastygrams over the past few weeks. These focus on either my lousy character and what a hypocrite I am (hiding behind my false front of reasonableness), complete with unprintable language; or they're unfounded demands for money (some of which has ended up here).
This morning the tack switched to passive-aggressive - he "knows [I] don't like paying child support", he asks me to "resign [myself] to paying until D7 is out of school", he urges me to "understand and accept [my] obligations as a parent". He earns over 100K and has a second income earner, a new wife, in his household. We have 50/50 custody; our incomes are in 53/47 ratio; I pay offset and proportional S7; and I have paid on time and to the penny ever since I moved out. I recognize this as fair and have never tried to change this. Ex has not paid his share of S7 since last June, and I have been carrying all of D7's expenses. He has been coming up with more and more creative ways to get around the offset, such as trying to charge me for any "extra" off-cycle nights D7 spends at his house or new and unusual S7 expenses like wanting reimbursement for a Halloween costime she wore at his house last year, to say nothing of the creative demands on my tax return. This has been going on for over a year, complete with threats of legal action and "making [me] pay and pay and pay". None of it has materialized. I've said that I will not respond to messages which are insulting or vulgar, and I will not discuss financial matters which are outside the divorce order, and have been maintaining radio silence beyond those two statements.
Part of me now wants to send off a blistering email about the absurdity of calling me a reluctant payor who needs to be lectured on parental responsibility when he's been continuously trying to scrape any extra penny he can out of me, with little regard for the law (we're talking one of those jailhouse lawyers who thinks he knows it all because he watched a couple of episodes of Law&Order). We both have more than adequate financial resources to look after our daughter. I suspect he's either in deep financial trouble or still emotionally enmeshed in his own unfinished business from the marriage, which consists of making me "pay" for whatever wrongs he thinks may have been done to him.
The smarter part of me says just let the passive-aggressive email sit there; there's nothing worth responding to; don't get sucked back into engagement; he's clearly trying a new tactic when overt hostility wasn't getting him the reaction he wanted and I shouldn't reward it.
I would really appreciate it if any of the wiser people on this forum could give me that swift kick, tell me to listen to the smarter part of me, and/or share any tips for how to cool down when you desperately want to tell your ex how wrong he is, but you know you shouldn't (besides writing out your woes to an internet forum of strangers).
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