12 KiB
#Mom latest note 12/21/23
First of all I want one point straight. Your comment about Christina not being good enough, I have no idea where you pulled that from!! I NEVER SAID OR REFERRED to that statement!! I believe Christina to be a wonderful daughter-in-law, wife & mother, period!!
Moving on from there, I should have let you know we were running late…. The time got away from me…it wasn’t until Christina text that time actually caught up with me. We were all having a lovely evening. I didn’t get the kids until 5:30, we left Swiss chalet @ 7:10, and it took 30 mins to get to Belmont. Also almost 38 mins back to your place so you can see how long we were at the “party” per say!
As usual I was trying to be a people pleaser….clearly this is something I am done with…it’s only causing my heart ache. I wanted you guys to have a fun night. The kids to have a fun night. The ladies to have a nice visit…short but sweet..and the shit hit the fan… all over the kids being “2” hrs late…really?! This argument went in so many directions it was insane.
You & Christina truly should have know my comment about “not telling” you was bogus as there isn’t anything I don’t tell you about the kids!! Plus you have the alarm system, you knew darn well we were not home yet. Why not call and ask if we were all right?!
I’m sorry I lost track of time! I’m not sorry I looked after the kids that night. They had an awesome time! They loved the animals as you might have seen by the pics I sent to Christina. The they played the exchange gift which they brought Christina home a gift and loved that! So I can’t be sorry for any of that.
I’m sorry your feeling I’m not hearing you but your feeling are demands of me and I don’t work like that. I’m your mother Greg! So speak as freely as you like but don’t expect me to respond. I do love you but don’t like to be spoken to like that.
Feelings Response
- First and foremost your comment you made during our phone call about me not coming up with the response I sent was not only hurtful to me but Christina as well. She was around when i was talking to you and heard it.
- This is really heart breaking to see my wife have to re-live some of the feelings she had when we were dating and I was planning on proposing to her. To see my wife in tears from a mere comment you made is devasting.
- In addition to having my wife be hurt like that its also hurtful to me. Many comments in birthday cards are made about how proud you are of the man I have become. When you make comments insinuating that I was not able to or did not write my own responses to you is downright hurtful.
- I can appreciate you not thinking you made a comment that would have hurt Christinas feelings but you are only one side of the comments you made and the affected are me and Christina. It was not taken kindly and was extremely hurtful and disrespectful to both of us
- Christina especially has a hard time with comments made about taking the kids as it’s part of the post partum anxiety she is working on to this day. Not making comments like those in the future would be appreciated.
- Christina and I have been through a lot with Alice. We are her parents. When you make comments about Alice having outbursts like everyone else and 'don't we all' this goes much further that what would be considered typical and undermines the work we are trying to do with her on it. We have a routine that can usually cut off the start of one of those outbursts and it was something I was trying to do when we got home. It was unintentional to make you feel badly about getting them home late and 2 feet tall as you put it so I am sorry for that
- When we have people over to look after the children we have expectations no matter who it is to keep to the bedtimes we set +- ~30 mins. If it goes over by 30 mins its not terrible as long as the kids can get to sleep, especially on a schol night where it disadvantages them the next day, in addtion to us who have to deal with getting them up, ready for school, etc all while they are cranky or worse which brings the entire mood of our family down which is draining to deal with anything else during the day/night. We set these for a reason and when they are not followed it makes me feel not heard or appreciated as a parent that I would know whats best for my children
- I know for a fact that Christina heard from you that you had a Christmas party which she said she could find someone else to look after the kids as we dont expect people to give up already planned events and understand other people have lives so are very greatful that people give their time to watch our kids. What we do expect is when people agree to watch the kids that they do follow what we ask of them, leading back into my last comment. Next time, it would never be held against you that you have something going on and we can find someone else to watch the kids
- During our conversation on the phone I do not appreciate how when I asked you to let me finish and I was not done talking how you straight up told me no you would not let me do that. In all of these messages (besides the last long ones bottom comment) I have been trying to hear you out and utilize techniques christina and I learned in therapy. I would hope that you can respect me trying to make things clear and consise by putting them in bullets as its what I do to keep track of conversations I want to have with Christina and others I feel are important to me during important conversations. When you do things like this it undermines the work I have done to better myself for my relationship with Christina
- I do not think it was fair also during our phone conversation for you to bring Dad into it, repeating over and over about the reason dad and you werent happy and you were crying was because you were a single parent (can't remember the wording exactly sorry). This deflected from the conversation I was trying to have with you and gets me extremely frustrated.
- When you make a comment like "I’m sorry your feeling I’m not hearing you but your feeling are demands of me and I don’t work like that" I would first ask that you look back on my first text i sent you where I addressed your feelings and then tried to give you mine. For a reference, none of these were demands of you just looking for you to read what i was saying and show me you understood it which I have yet to get:
I feel like I have addressed your points in the message above so I would like to share my feeling on last night.
◦ There is an implied level of trust we have with anyone who cares for our children.
◦ With that trust there is also an understanding that we have expectations for the people caring for them
◦ One of those being an agreed upon bedtime that we have set. We know the ins and outs of what happens when either of them goes over bedtime by 30-45 mins let alone almost 2 hours
◦ I believe a conflict was initially identified leading up to you caring for the kids and Christina offered to find someone else as it clashed with your Christmas party and you could just enjoy your time there. You said no which I assumed meant you were going to be able to give our kids the best possible care
◦ As you know, things with Alice from an early age have been interesting and unique (not unlike me when I was younger so you can empathize). When things don’t go a certain way for her or she stays up later than she is supposed to, the backlash can be seen as soon as that night and most definitely the next morning putting our entire family in disarray and feeling like shit from the way she treats every one of us.
◦ I know you have seen glimpses of this so I am hoping you can understand why I put the utmost importance on things we want being done, actually happening as I love Alice very much and don’t think she likes going through it almost as much as we do
- Lastly, I can empathize that the relationship you and I used to have and the way we used to talk vs the techniques I used to try and have these past three conversations is drastically different. I have grown up much in terms of how I deal with and talk with people. Part of that was realizing that our family is especially great at deflecting and something that therapy has taught me techniques to help solve from my end in terms of making sure the other person is heard so they can open up and hear me.
I am hoping this is the case in this conversation as I would love to solve this before dinner at Abby's as it was suggested we not go as it would be easier for everyone if there was this still going on. I for the record would not keep the kids from you as thats not who I am nor would I look to cause drama so I am not sure what was said to Abby but it was a very unfortunate and shitty conversation Abby had with myself.
RESPONSE
I am going to try and address your feelings first in this as I want you to feel heard so that you can listen to me when i speak/text my responses to you.
- From what you are saying I am hearing that you don't know where I got that Christina was not good enough from in any conversations that we had.
- I understand that you were running late and I don't fault you for that. I am also getting that you are basing the amount of time you had the kids since picking them up @ 5:30 is ok to be almost 2 hours late past their usual bedtime. I also understand you wanted us to have a fun night along with the kids and the ladies.
- I am getting that you making a comment about "not telling" should have been taken as bogus or playful.
- You are right we could have asked if you were alright as opposed to what had happened
- I appreciate you are sorry that you lost track of time and nor would I want you to be sorry for looking after the kids after we had asked and confirmed them spending time with you.
- I did hear that the animals were a lot of fun and that they enjoyed themselves. Thats awesome that they got to play the exchange gift and bring something home to christina and I am hearing you don't need to be sorry about that
Can you let me know if i missed any of that in regards to addressing your feelings or thoughts. I very much want to make sure you feel heard in this before moving on
I feel like I have addressed your points in the message above so I would like to share my feeling on last night.
◦ There is an implied level of trust we have with anyone who cares for our children.
◦ With that trust there is also an understanding that we have expectations for the people caring for them
◦ One of those being an agreed upon bedtime that we have set. We know the ins and outs of what happens when either of them goes over bedtime by 30-45 mins let alone almost 2 hours
◦ I believe a conflict was initially identified leading up to you caring for the kids and Christina offered to find someone else as it clashed with your Christmas party and you could just enjoy your time there. You said no which I assumed meant you were going to be able to give our kids the best possible care
◦ As you know, things with Alice from an early age have been interesting and unique (not unlike me when I was younger so you can empathize). When things don’t go a certain way for her or she stays up later than she is supposed to, the backlash can be seen as soon as that night and most definitely the next morning putting our entire family in disarray and feeling like shit from the way she treats every one of us.
◦ I know you have seen glimpses of this so I am hoping you can understand why I put the utmost importance on things we want being done, actually happening as I love Alice very much and don’t think she likes going through it almost as much as we do