Communications issues

[mistoffolees]

My stbx was always extremely hostile and verbally abusive. When she started taking things out on my 8 year old daughter, I filed for divorce.

We separated with a written agreement that we'd each have our daughter every other week. So far, she has honored that and my daughter is thriving.

The problem is that my stbx is calling me several times a week to complain about money. Even though she's had about 60% of our combined income since I moved out (I'm now reducing this to the point that we each have about half), she's constantly complaining that I don't give her anything (partially true - when she wrote to me saying she was going to stop paying the mortgage, car payment, and credit card, my attorney advised me to pay these bills and subtract it from what I would otherwise pay her). Still, the total she gets is much more than my share.

Tonight I got 5 calls in 30 minutes while I was trying to enjoy a movie with my daughter. Each time when she started ranting about money, I hung up and then I stopped answering the phone. Then she left a message on my machine saying that she needed to talk to our daughter and by not answering the phone I was interfering with her relationship. I had our daughter call her and she only talked for about 30 seconds before telling our daughter to give me the phone - so she could yell at me some more.

Seems like a lose - lose. Either I listen to her crap or if I don't answer she accuses me of not letting her talk with our daughter.

Any ideas?

[Ref]

Do you have acourt date yet?

About the calls, I would look up the standard agreement in your area to see if it addresses reasonable rates of phone calls. If it does, write her a letter telling her that you are more than happy to received calls from her (I know, sometimes white lies are OK), but that the frequency has gotten distruptive. Let her know that she may call your house at the frequency that the standard says and that if you are not home you willo make sure DD calls her back as soon as possible.

If your county doesn't have verbage in the agreement, try to be reasonbable. DH's states 1 time a day and may speak with SD for 30 minutes max, unless there is an emergency. DH and BM worked it out so SD can talk for up to an hour. - Pretty reasonable I think.

That way, when her one call is made you can shut off the phones and get some rest.

Oh also offer an email address to contact you and your daughter. This is a great thing because it doesn't disrupt your day and you have her craziness in writing.

Good Luck
Ref

[mistoffolees]

No court date yet - she and her lawyer seem to have one strategy - to drag this out as long as possible. I filed in September and we still don't have a court date, mediation date, or anything. Her attorney says he's working on mediation.

Of course, since we're currently sharing my daughter 50:50 and that's what I want for the long term, her delays are going to backfire when the custody evaluator (when we finally get there) says "it's working well for now, so why change it?"

I'll look up the local standard. I don't mind one call a day and 30 minutes is more than reasonable. I'm just getting tired of 5 or 6 a day while we're trying to watch a movie.

Thx.