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Wellness Wednesday for July 19, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I understand if no one is comfortable offering anything resembling legal advice on this. In general, it may be too big/personal/nasty a problem for the Wellness Wednesday thread.

But I'd appreciate thoughts on question #3. My sister's mental model of her ex seems confused at best. Until recently she insisted that, whatever her ex's faults, he was "a good dad." She has chosen not to make an issue out of other things that alarmed me, and she claims this tolerance comes from a genuine desire to co-parent peaceably for the children's sake. She doesn't want to be micromanaged in her own home either. Besides, in many ways, her ex can be reasonable, flexible, and amicable.

But I suspect her conflict aversion actually results from just how unpleasant he can be when challenged. He once tried to "win" a petty power struggle with forgery, taking out a debt in her name to leverage it against her.

Nevertheless, her ideal resolution to this issue is that, after consultation with the lawyer, she has a face to face meeting with her ex, asks him to commit to enforcing the existing rule, and explains what legal steps she'll take if he doesn't. He agrees, and she drops it until she's presented with evidence of noncompliance.

Every time she tells me this, my head very nearly explodes. I don't think supportive big brothers, no matter how protective, are supposed to yell, "Are you fucking stupid? What the fuck are you talking about, 'getting him to agree'? He is a proven lying shitbag. Seek a court order now banning all contact, or you're as bad as he is."

Am I crazy, or is she?