Winning the second class citizen wars over SD15 at last. Arena of battle? Adult conversation.

Sat morn I left the house early to meet a contractor at my own personal single lady house which I still have. So SD15 has dad all to herself for hours on Sat morn (and will again on Sun morning for cat volunteer work). I'm all excited about the plans contractor and I have discussed, can't wait to tell DH.

Walk in the kitchen bubbly and happy, I am downloading the info to him. About 90 seconds into this conversation, SD15 walks into the kitchen. She hears her dad ask me what the guy had to say about the air conditioning unit. 10 seconds into my reply, SD15 decides to join the conversation, interrupting me, of course:

SD15: Hey, dad, mom had trouble with her air conditioning, didn't she?

DH: She did! I was the one who fixed it for her! That was a long time ago, at the old house (their family home, which he gave to her but she still expected him to perform and pay for maintenance).

SD15: No, more recently. Not too long ago.

DH (puzzled): Really? Her air conditioning in your apartment?

SD15: Um, no, I think it was her car.

DH: Her air conditioning in her car went out, was it a recall?

SD15: Um, it was her steering column not air conditioning.

DH: Oh, yes, she did have that steering trouble.

About this point I stopped paying attention. They carried on, never missing a beat. Pretty sure from BM's long past steering column trouble it was just a short hop to SD's favorite topic, every move she made in some video game. I just made myself some lunch and silently left the kitchen. Several minutes go by. SD15 eventually turns off the chatterbox motor and returns to her cave.

I told myself I'm not going to be mad about this. Again. There's no use talking to him about it. Again. Certainly don't want another fight about it. Let it go. Really, let it go. Be cheerful. But I do draw the boundary that I am not giving him the contractor info at some later point. I am not to be dropped like a hot potato becauseyou got a better offer, namely Teen Queen. If you can drop a conversation that involves major business decisions of tens of thousands of dollars, so can I. You have missed that train.

After SD disappears, dh sidles up to me, cuz he's sniffing trouble, "is everything ok? You sure?" I had already decided not to waste one more minute of my life telling him how terrible it feels to be interrupted and talked over constantly by a kid. So I told him I was fine and I was fine.

An hour later or so he comes up to me and starts:

DH: Did you talk to contractor about xyz?

CGU: Yes.

DH: Uh, did you talk to him about lmnop?

CGU: Yes. We talked about everything.

DH: (Silent but looks at me with the beginnings of despair in his eyes. Sadly walks away.)

In the early evening, out of the blue he announces, "Valentine's Day is going to be a Saturday. I've made reservations. BM will keep kids." I smile happily and thank him profusely.

Sunday DH and I are talking about something very insignificant (can't remember what it was). Let's just say spy novels. SD15 walks in, talks over me, "Dad, blah blah blah!" Completely different topic, probably a video game. I just went back to my laptop. BUUUUUUT! Dh said the magic words! "Ok, but SD15, we are talking about spy novels right now, CGU, please finish what you were telling me." Delightedly I finished my comment, DH made an appropriate response, then turned to SD15, "Have you ever read any spy novels? What would you do if you had to do this spy thing we were talking about?" She made some kind of shocked but appropriate response. DH turned back to me, "Oh, that's funny, did you hear what you she said? How would you have handled it?"

It was freaking awesome. We have had forty billion "talks" and angry, hurt incidents over this very thing, the two of them getting on a conversational roll and the rest of us not existing, being talked over, topic being changed abruptly, you all know the drill. But when I dropped the talk and went with the action, not angry action, just action, results were absolutely fabulous.

After kids were gone he brought it out into the open and wanted to make sure I had taken notice. I did! I did! So, though I never complained, he got the message and started a) trying to make it up to me by showing he cares and planning ahead for Valentine's Day and b) not repeating (at last!) the offending behavior.

So damn awesome! So we are back to lovey dovey and after he took skids home last night he had to vent and storm about stupid ass BM and the fungus. Original thread is here: http://www.steptalk.org/node/210213 I never said a word about her all weekend -- what a joy it was to hear him saying there was way too much BM in our weekend! All these things are her fault (names off various issues we had to deal with, including fungus and dog)! So sick of BM!

So lovely I was hearing it from him instead of him from me. And so damn awesome when I made a clear and cheerful boundary I finally got the results I'd been seeking with 2 years of "talks."