Mother’s Day: What to Do When Your Ex is a Total Jerk

When your ex is a complete and total jerk and does everything he possibly can think of to ruin your Mother’s Day celebration with the kids, what can you do about it?

Mitchell, the monster ex from Mass., who was recently divorced from Joy, pulled a doozy this past Mother’s Day. He gifted their only child, Melissa, with two tickets to a Mother’s Day performance by her favorite comedian and even offered to loan her his car, with only one caveat. Melissa could take whoever she wanted to the performance as her guest so long as it wasn’t her mom.

Poor Melissa was beside herself with indecision: favorite performer/Mom; Mom/favorite performer. Though livid at Mitch, Joy helped her daughter out by suggesting that they have an early brunch together and then Melissa could go on to the performance with a friend. What Joy really wanted to say isn’t printable. Even on the internet.

Joy has had more practice than most of us dealing with a total jerk of an ex.
Here are her rules:

• While you can’t possibly control your ex, you can control yourself.
• Limit contact with the ex to the barest minimum.
• Change the way you interact. Throw him a curve ball--Don’t react the way he expects you to.
• Think of your relationship with your ex--and yes for better, or worse, usually worse, it is a relationship--as a business one, not a personal one
• Choose your battles -- only bother to fight those that truly matter
• Always script yourself before you talk to your ex--and stick to the script
• Always give yourself an out such as “It isn’t legal for me to talk now, I’m driving…”
• Never let your children hear you argue