So, this happened this weekend:

On Thursday, DH goes to the school open house. He meets some of their teachers and attends a session about 6th grade camp (in a previous post, I shared about how BM wanted to know if DH was contributing to 6th grade camp, but was refusing to provide any information). He texts BM (who was not at the open house) and tells her he'll pay his portion of the camp and then calls his boys to make sure they both want to go (one wets the bed periodically, so DH is a little concerned about his going, but if the child feels ok going, then he can go). During his conversation with his sons, one of them (the one who is closer to BM) says "Dad can you help my friend by giving him a ride to the football game on Saturday?" DH says he can't because he's working and MIL is driving him to the game (picking up this child and giving him a ride would have added 90 minutes to MIL's drive to the game). SS then suggests that maybe he stay home with BM, so he can give his friend a ride to the game. DH says "no, buddy, it's my weekend and I want to see you." SS is a little upset, but he tells DH that he understands.

That same day (Thursday), BM sends DH multiple texts and says "are you giving [friend's name] a ride home from the game or am I?" After repeated texts from her, DH finally says, "I'll take care of it." So BM replies "I'll have [friend's mom] text the address."I ask DH why it has to be him who takes the child home, since DH and SS are the only people who are not going back to SS's town (30 minutes south of us, 50 minutes south of the game site). There are at least 15 other kids on the team and the vast majority of them are probably going back to their town. But, whatever, if DH wants to drive out of his way just to drive a kid home because SS wants him to, that's fine. Annoying that BM made an arrangement to drive a kid home when she didn't plan to drive the kid home and then expects DH to just do it, but whatever, I'm not going to the game, they can do whatever they want.

BM still has not sent the address by Friday afternoon, so DH texts her, "if you're going to the game, you can bring the child home. If you're not going, then I'll give him a ride home."

On Saturday morning, BM starts texting DH at 6:30am about this situation. Her texts go on for FOUR hours, which are mostly texts from her trying to convince DH how important it would be to SS to give his friend a ride home. She tells him how awkward it would be if she had to drive the child home alone. She tells him how bad it will make SS feel if he can't give his friend a ride home. She tells DH it will only take him an extra 45 minutes (more like an extra 75 minutes) to take this child home, so she can't understand why he won't do it. She says she'll take SS with her to drop the kid off, so SS can spend some quality time with his friend, and then drive back to our house to bring SS back to DH for the rest of the weekend. DH says, "look you have two choices - you come to the game and you drive the kid home or you don't come to the game and I'll drive the kid home."

Some back story, whenever DH and BM are at an event together, BM has a tendency to come up and harass DH for money (asking for money outside of CS, demanding her CS check early) or cause other problems for him (like asking him in front of the children if he can bring the kids home five hours early from his weekend because her family is having a last minute party). One of his kids said to DH after one game "why is mom always so mad at you?" This same kid also told DH that he feels like he has to sit with his mother whenever he goes to his brother's games with his dad (the child felt this way even before his mother came up to all of us at one game and said to the child "are you going to sit here for the whole game or are you going to come and spend some time with us, too?"). DH tells her that he doesn't appreciate her putting the kids in the middle by coming up to him at games, so he doesn't go to games on her weekends to "respect her time" and has asked her to do to the same. I don't necessarily agree with his methods (I think his not going to the games is actually feeding into BM's narrative to SSs that their father doesn't care as much as she does and also keeps him from seeing his son's games), but am proud of him for telling her that he doesn't appreciate her causing drama for him or his kids when they are both there and he's willing to sacrifice in order to limit the drama. I'm also proud of him that he set and maintained a boundary with her, which was not happening at all when we met.

When DH tells BM that if she doesn't come to the game, he'll drive the kid home, he makes it clear that he's telling her this because he wants her not to come to the game because he feels like she puts their kids right in the middle of the conflict. BM then replies by telling him "the kids never feel like they're put in the middle. You should ask them and they'll tell you that they never feel like they're put in the middle." Um, ok, maybe they tell her that, but I know for a fact that they feel like they can't do certain things with DH or she'll get mad. I also know that she's told both of them "your dad hates me, he never responds to my text messages" and told at least one of them that DH "caused the divorce", both of which caused a lot drama and conflict at our house. I'm sure throughout that process, the children did not feel as if they were was put in the middle, at all, not at all .

The resolution was that SS arranged a ride home for his friend with someone else on the team. BM came to the game, but left before the end. SS insisted he call BM on DH's phone, to "make sure mom knows that [friend] was getting a ride home with someone else."

So, there are things that jumped out at me throughout all of this: 1) all of this should have been a non-issue or a short conversation, no need for over four hours of texts about this. BM could have told SS that she couldn't commit to giving his friend a ride home because it wasn't her weekend, she could have suggested that SS help his friend find a ride home with someone else; or she could have texted DH before agreeing to give the kid a ride home and say "SS's friend needs a ride home from Saturday's game. SS would like to give him a ride home, but it's your weekend, would you be willing to do that? If so, I'll tell friend's mother and give you her address. If you can't, I'll tell her and SS that we can't give him a ride home this weekend."; 2) any time a parent in a high conflict divorce says "the kids never feel like they're in the middle, just ask them", you know that person is delusional.