Am I wrong?
BM is NCP in my case, and she uses her parents to do most of her work. Yesterday DH and I were both off work, but its BM weekend, at about 9:30 DH gets a call from BM which he does not answer, then a frantic text from BM saying "you told the school I can't pick up the kids and they won't let me have them". DH picks up the phone and is about to call BM when I told him "if you call her back, you're playing into her mess". DH looks at me like I'm crazy and I said to him, "you haven't been to the school since the first day of school and neither have you spoken with anyone at the school so how could you possibly have given the school those instructions? I told DH to text BM and say just that.
Before BM can respond, the school calls and says BM is trying to take the kids early and they tried explaining the kids would be counted as absent without a doctor's excuse because school had just started at 8:45. DH goes to call BM about it and I walked away and told him that he's dumb just like she is.
Today I just found out that BM was picking kids up early because her parents are out of town and since they normally pick kids up, the kids wouldn't have a way home from school.
I just went off on DH because "my babysitter isn't in town and I have to take the kids to the babysitter now before I go to work" is not an valid excuse for taking the kids out of school early. I told DH that BM could have asked DH or DH parents to keep the kids for an hour or two after school if that was the issue. DH says "Thursdays you're not being understanding and you're letting your dislike for BM make this into a bigger deal than it is"
BULLSHIT! This has nothing to do with the fact that I can't stand BM, but everything to do with the fact that BM looks out for herself before the kids. So the kids missed out on a day of school because BM had to go to work and her babysitters (her parents) were out of town.
You're right, I should have
You're right, I should have disengaged. I try and it almost always end up with DH pulling me into the discussion and I forget that I'm supposed to be disengaged.
What gets to me is that DH will details every dumb thing about BM and what BM does when he's talking to me and then when it comes time to act on his words, he acts as if he forgot everything he said earlier. Like someone else mentioned it seems like he says one thing but all along he already knows what he was going to do and he does that, not matter how dumb he thinks the plan is when he's talking to me.
I'm so tired of being sucked
I'm so tired of being sucked into the drama. I need to work on ignoring, biting my tongue and refusing to get pulled in.
He IS dumb just like she is!!
He IS dumb just like she is!! I totally get your frustration! My SO allowed BM to drag him into stupid drama too! They tend to just react without thinking right?! They perceive BM's texts as attacks on their character, so they get defensive, but what they don't realise is that with these personality disordered freaks, they are not arguing reality, they are arguing the NPD (or in our case BPD) distorted view of the world... and there's just no point in entering a argument with someone's crazy fantasy world!
I tend to find myself feeling as frustrated as you, because I have no emotional entanglement with BM, I can see her games very clearly, so yeah, if I try to advise SO and he goes ahead and does the stupid thing of engaging in BM's games.. I get mad with him! For me, the BM drama's overflow from 'his' world into OUR relationship! Or has a very negative affect on SD, which is also bad, drives me insane that these two grown adults put their own agendas before everyone else!
I agree with your view of the situation! I don't approve of kids missing school for silly reasons
You know what to do -
You know what to do - disengage. So the real problem is how to enforce your own intent.
Remind yourself that millions upon millions of kids are growing up in the world without your help. 99% or so of them will turn out just fine and the minority would probably end up bad even with your help.
Once you realize that all your efforts to help these kids is for naught then your efforts to stay out of it will be easier. I know its hard to see anyone headed for the gutter but in reality these kids will probably turn out just fine. In any event remember the world needs ditch diggers. If your husband can't see that is where his kids may be headed there is nothing you can do to help him see otherwise. He's effectively told you to stay out of it - do so.
Thanks everyone for giving
Thanks everyone for giving your feedback, I do know that I have a long way to go in disengaging.
But at the same time I can't believe DH doesn't feel this is a bigger deal than he's currently making it out to be. I think even the school was trying to make this point to BM when they tried to explain themselves to her.
But I'm letting it go