Constant Drama and Question about Phone Calls

[PixieAlly]

Hi everyone, while things have calmed down a bit since the whole Christmas break fiasco, I have come to the conclusion that my finacee's ex is just one of those people that is not happy unless some kind of conflict is occurring. We try to keep everything as calm and neutral as possible, but she somehow always creates something to get everyone upset over. She'll be happy for a week or two, be very nice and accommodating, etc...and then all of a sudden, BAM, he'll get some crazy threatening, accusatory email about all the things he's doing wrong. Two weeks ago she finally agreed (after we asked multiple times) to switch the schedule so she gets the kids all day Saturday and we get them all day Sunday (instead of us picking the kids up at 1pm on Saturday and then her picking them up at 2pm Sunday. This always seemed stupid to me because then neither parent gets a full weekend day with the kids). We let her pick the date to start the switch and she said March 2012, so this was our first changed weekend. A day or two prior to Saturday she must have hit the bad mood part of her crazy cycle because all of a sudden he's getting texts about how she doesn't like the new schedule. She feels it is too cold to change the schedule because she doesn't know what to do with the kids for an entire day when it's still cold out. (I wanted him to write back and let her know if she is unable to care for her children for an entire day, he'd gladly pick them up early on Saturdays...I was mostly kidding, but not really. He didn't do it anyway). When he said no, he wanted to try the new schedule out for a few weeks at least, she came back with the kids don't like the schedule because they are afraid it would interfere with their sleepovers at their grandparents house. WTF? There is no reason the kids can't still sleepover...they'd just go over Saturday evening instead of Saturday afternoon and stay for longer on Sunday. So he still told her no and we explained the sleepover schedule to the kids when they arrived. So far we are okay, but I guess we're afraid she can change things back to the regular schedule on the divorce agreement at any time and in WI you cannot request a legal schedule change until 2 years after the divorce (which will be August 2012).

Anyway, my question is about phone calls to the kids when they are with the other parent. He hasn't dug out the divorce papers yet, but it says something like parents get one phone call a day when the kids are with the other parent and the custodial parent cannot block communication, but also does not have to allow the call if it's interfering with whatever is going on. Most of the time we let the kids answer the call when she calls. She usually does one of three things if we don't answer right away, calls and leaves a message for them to listen to, calls and leaves a message requesting the kids call her back or sends a text directed at the kids that my fiancee is to read to them. Based on this, if she leaves a message for them, we typically don't call her back (because she hasn't made the request) unless the kids asked to call her (which they sometimes do). It's never been a problem before. My fiancee will do the same thing...if he wants a callback, he specifically requests it.

Anyway, here is what happened this weekend. First, on Saturday night we pick the kids up to find out DSS is sick and has been since the morning. even though several texts were exchanged, she never bothered to mention this to us until pickup time which I guess is not a mandatory thing, but it would be nice to know. Anyway, as they are leaving she tells DSS that she will leave her phone on all night so he can call her at any time if he needs to. This becomes important later.

So we get home and watch some TV and relax and at 8pm put the kids to bed. It is their normal bedtime and the ex knows this. She calls at 8:01 and leaves a message for the kids and specifically DSS about hoping he is feeling better. We have three kids here and we were in the middle of getting them all to bed. To us, a phone call at this time is an interference in our activities and it's inappropriate to call at bedtime, so we did not call her back. She apparently interrogated the kids on Sunday night because her email said that DSD told her she was awake at that time and reading in her bed and could have talked to her. True, but the phone is with DAD who is putting other kids to bed plus DSS was just getting to sleep and if he heard his sister on the phone, may have woken up and my daughter definitely would have gotten all riled up if the other two are on the phone. I don't understand why the ex would not have called 15 minutes earlier? Anyway, my point is, I do not think we had to let her talk on the phone at that time, based on what the divorce papers say. Plus, she had just seen the kids only TWO hours earlier.

Her next point is about a text she sent Sunday morning. It was directed at DSS and just said something like, "Are you feeling better today? I can't wait to see you later." She sent this while the kids were sledding. My fiancee read the text to DSS who said he was feeling better. Again, the pattern for 2 years has been to just read the texts to the kids, not to reply to them, so no response was sent. She must have  grilled the kids on this too, because her email states DSS told her that dad never told him about the text. First of all, I do not think it is appropriate to take the word of a 7 year old. We were in the middle of sledding and having fun, so of course he doesn't remember the 15 second conversation about a text from mom. That does not mean we didn't deliver it.

Her third point was about letting DSS call her in the middle of the night. Of course, he did wake up at 4am that night and instead of going back to sleep like he'd NORMALLY do, he gets up and wakes up half the household requesting to call his mother at 4-freakin'-am on Sunday morning. If that is no an interference or inappropriate, I don't know what is, especially since she told him to do so. My fiancee told him no, it's too early, but went to his bed and slept with him for the rest of the night since he still wasn't feeling great. Again, she grilled them on this too because she said DSS told her dad said he was not allowed to call her so early. I feel like he should tell her when the kids are with him, HE is the one to take care of them and she should not be offering phone consultations in the middle of the night.

So she is claiming he is going against court orders to not block communication, but we feel this weekend she only called at times that were no conducive to having a phone conversation with the kids. This has come up before when she has called at night while we're watching a movie right before bedtime. Calling her back during the moving would be an interference as would calling at bedtime.

Now, before people start saying we are trying to block the kids from their mom, I just want to explain that the way she set up the custody schedule (and yes, she chose the schedule because the ONE judge here favors mothers and would not even look at my fiancee's proposed schedule) she sees the kids every single day (he goes 2-3 days a week not seeing them at all). Even the temp change we made (for her so she could go to work early) where she does not have them at all on Tuesdays she still sees them because she goes to school and eats lunch with them every Tuesday. We let the kids call her ANY time they request (between the hours of 7am and 8pm), send her photos of the kids when they're doing something fun (like Halloween or when they ask us to text her photos, etc...) and I'd say 90% of the time we answer her calls or call her back within an hour or two.  So, if she keeps collecting the 10% of the time we don't because it's interfering with our activities with the kids, is that going to look bad? Should we be making a list of all the times we DO let the calls happen? We don't have a problem with the kids talking to their mom, but admittedly it is somewhat annoying when she has just seen them earlier in the day or will be seeing them soon and we are pretty sure she is doing it most of the time to annoy us because this calling every day thing only started about 2-3 months ago. Most of the time we try to have them call when we're in the car or just sitting around the house playing. But some days we actually have a lot of stuff planned. On top of that, DSS is having a lot of separation anxiety lately and misses his mom a lot. We have been having him call her in the evenings (it gets worse at bedtime) but noticed that the nights he speaks to her his anxiety gets worse. So we don't suggest the calls anymore to him (but if the ex calls, we allow her to talk to him of course).

Any advice?

[VocalMinority]

You're not alone!  My DH's ex is also, shall we say, challenging.  Sometimes it seems like her goal is not to talk to DSS - and be able to blame DH for it - rather than behaving reasonably and just enjoying the phone calls.  (Ex.:  She kept demanding one time, every day, that DSS would answer her call, and one time/week he'd answer calls from her parents.  DH resisted, because #1 - DSS's schedule and availability differs, day-to-day, depending on extra-curricular activities, homework, whether it's a school-day or weekend day, and whether it's nice enough to play outside.  Even Mom's schedule varies.  She travels and has work-related social events, some evenings.  With Mom and DSS calling each other [or returning each other's calls] whenever it was convenient, they were already talking frequently, so what was the problem?  #2 - Her parents n-e-v-e-r call DSS, so why should DSS have to wait around once a week, to see if this will be the time they decide to?  If Mom never called DSS, we'd make him call her.  But her parents have never made an effort to maintain a relationship with DSS [no calls, no visits, no gifts, no birthday cards], except times he happens to be out near where they live.  So, Mom accused DH of blocking phone contact.  So, he suggested the 1/2-hour before bedtime on school nights, as a time DSS is usually done with homework, not playing outside, not at any sort of practice or lesson, and not eating dinner.  Now, Mom calls anytime but then!)

Reading your post, I got the same sense about your DSS's mom.  My thoughts:

> Your phrase, "Now, before people start saying we are trying to block the kids from their mom, I just want to explain..." suggests Mom has you wondering if maybe you and your DH are the unreasonable ones?  Would other people see things her way?  I second-guess myself all the time, with DSS's mom.  It's natural:  if someone else's position seems completely unreasonable...but they stick with it...could *I* be the one looking at things the wrong way?

But what you've described sounds reasonable.  If Mom calls at a bad time, she can leave a msg.  If she just wanted to say something to the kids, you let them listen to her msg.  If she wants a call back, she can say so and you let it happen...but at a convenient time.  If they want to call her, it needs to be at a reasonable time.  But you don't spend all your time keeping track of whether they've had phone contact with her in the last few hours, because, after all, they see her every day!  

In your heart, you know that's reasonable and that she's complaining about it because she's insecure, or oppositional...or something that is not your problem.  You haven't done something wrong that you need to correct or apologize for.  You need to try to let her anger roll off your back.  (Easier said than done, I know.)

> If you have reason to believe the phone issue will eventually be raised in court, you should keep track of the calls (as much of a pain as that is).  Hopefully, these calls are on a cell phone that provides detailed records?  Use 2 different colors and highlight contact btwn. the kids and Mom AND btwn. the kids and your DH.  Store them in a box somewhere and if you wind up needing them, you can compare how much contact Mom's getting, with how much contact she's allowing him.  It's better to cover your derriere, than to feel frustrated later because a judge believed her rendition of things instead of your DH's, in the absence of records.

Edited by VocalMinority - 3/5/12 at 9:33am

[PixieAlly]

Thank you! You're right, I am constantly doubting myself. I say to myself, "Well, if my daughter went somewhere, wouldn't I want to be allowed to call her whenever I wanted or have her call me any time as well?" but I really have no idea how that would work logistically because I have her 100% of the time. It's never been an issue for me. I feel like the middle of the night call thing should have went through my fiancee'...she should have said to HIM, "DSS is sick, I'm okay with him calling me at any time in the night if he needs to, are you okay with that too?" At that point he could say no but he'd have him call right before bed and first thing in the morning or something like that...not get a surprise wake up at 4am of, "I wanna call mommy now!!" 

It must be bad mood week at her house. She has been reprimanded my fiancee this morning for feeding the kids popcorn and soda at the movies on Sunday (DSS was fine, not sick at all. I really wish we could tell ex, "He's only sick at your house, so you must be making him sick!!") even though she gives them so little food on the days they come with us, they are starving even though they supposedly just ate lunch. If we try to talk to HER about that the response is, "What I do with the kids during my time is my business."  She also let us know at 11am we need to pick up a once again sick DSS at noon, even though she has known since 7am he was staying home sick from school (her excuse is she thought he would go back to school at noon, so there was no need to inform us).

[aricha]

We are also familiar with the nit-picky emails detailing my husband's shortcomings as a father and co-parent. They usually come when there are other issues going on-- sometimes predictable things like when my step-daughter starts talking about how excited she is to spend her vacation with us or when mom and my husband are having a disagreement about something. Sometimes they are unpredictable, but in retrospect they seem to be tied to other stresses in their house that we can only guess at from here (visits with her parents and sister seem to be a common trigger). These emails still make my blood boil, but I cool down a lot faster these days. At this point we mostly feel comfortable ignoring them. Here's what I understand, which helps (mostly). 

When she feels bad on the inside (unreasonable, angry, loathing, frustrated) it is much more comfortable to turn those feelings outward. It is extremely painful to feel that way about yourself, and far less so to feel that way about someone else. When you keep all those feelings inside they eat away at you and make you feel worse, but if you direct them at someone else, it gives you an outlet for them. It suddenly feels like you have a rational reason for them-- this person is wronging me, so I feel angry. I have come to understand that when she attacks my husband it says more about the turmoil inside her than anything my husband has or hasn't done.

I also know that one trigger for sure in our situation is when mom feels a loss of control. Sometimes that means my husband has said "no" to something she wanted (or at last didn't immediately say yes), sometimes it is because she has to do something she doesn't want to (like send her daughter on vacation with us), sometimes it is because my husband has stepped into something she considers to be "her territory" or she feels her authority has been challenged or questioned (like my husband talks to my step-daughter's teacher directly or questions information she passed on from the doctor or dentist). Something like asking for and getting agreement to a change in parenting time, like you just did, would definitely trigger a feeling that she had lost control and we would expect backlash in the form of a nasty email about something fairly insignificant.

Where I used to analyze every point in her email, think of evidence to the contrary, compose emails in our defense, rage to my husband when I couldn't sleep at 2am because I was still stewing.... Now I take a deep breath and marvel at how horrible she must feel inside... there is so much negativity in her that it comes spewing out as she tries to cast off the awful feelings inside her. It doesn't have anything to do with us and what we have or haven't done. She is basically venting about her pain of her life not going the way she wanted it to, her terror at feeling out of control of her own life, her anger that my husband's calm makes her look/feel even more out-of-control. I'm by no means perfect, but I've had her in my life for nearly 10 years and at this point I can usually stay a lot calmer, I let her accusations roll off a lot faster, and I recognize her email for what it is-- a venting of emotion that requires no response other than calm compassion for someone who feels an inner pain and turmoil that I can't even begin to imagine. 

[VocalMinority]

Originally Posted by aricha 

We are also familiar with the nit-picky emails detailing my husband's shortcomings as a father and co-parent. They usually come when there are other issues going on-- sometimes predictable things like when my step-daughter starts talking about how excited she is to spend her vacation with us or when mom and my husband are having a disagreement about something. Sometimes they are unpredictable, but in retrospect they seem to be tied to other stresses in their house that we can only guess at from here (visits with her parents and sister seem to be a common trigger). These emails still make my blood boil, but I cool down a lot faster these days. At this point we mostly feel comfortable ignoring them. Here's what I understand, which helps (mostly). 

When she feels bad on the inside (unreasonable, angry, loathing, frustrated) it is much more comfortable to turn those feelings outward. It is extremely painful to feel that way about yourself, and far less so to feel that way about someone else. When you keep all those feelings inside they eat away at you and make you feel worse, but if you direct them at someone else, it gives you an outlet for them. It suddenly feels like you have a rational reason for them-- this person is wronging me, so I feel angry. I have come to understand that when she attacks my husband it says more about the turmoil inside her than anything my husband has or hasn't done.

I also know that one trigger for sure in our situation is when mom feels a loss of control. Sometimes that means my husband has said "no" to something she wanted (or at last didn't immediately say yes), sometimes it is because she has to do something she doesn't want to (like send her daughter on vacation with us), sometimes it is because my husband has stepped into something she considers to be "her territory" or she feels her authority has been challenged or questioned (like my husband talks to my step-daughter's teacher directly or questions information she passed on from the doctor or dentist). Something like asking for and getting agreement to a change in parenting time, like you just did, would definitely trigger a feeling that she had lost control and we would expect backlash in the form of a nasty email about something fairly insignificant.

Where I used to analyze every point in her email, think of evidence to the contrary, compose emails in our defense, rage to my husband when I couldn't sleep at 2am because I was still stewing.... Now I take a deep breath and marvel at how horrible she must feel inside... there is so much negativity in her that it comes spewing out as she tries to cast off the awful feelings inside her. It doesn't have anything to do with us and what we have or haven't done. She is basically venting about her pain of her life not going the way she wanted it to, her terror at feeling out of control of her own life, her anger that my husband's calm makes her look/feel even more out-of-control. I'm by no means perfect, but I've had her in my life for nearly 10 years and at this point I can usually stay a lot calmer, I let her accusations roll off a lot faster, and I recognize her email for what it is-- a venting of emotion that requires no response other than calm compassion for someone who feels an inner pain and turmoil that I can't even begin to imagine. 

I really admire your perspective and hope to be able to achieve it someday, with my DSS's mom.  

When we're not involved in any immediate conflict with her, I wonder about what motivates her to behave as she does and make the life choices she does.  To the extent that (I think) I understand it, I feel very compassionate and sad for her.  It bothers me to be one of the factors in her life that she blames, for feeling miserable.  

But when we're in the middle of conflict, I am still at the point you described above, and I highlighted.
 

[aricha]

I'm not sure I've really stopped doing it altogether, I think I just get past it faster. And I certainly don't mean to paint myself as a saintly and ever-compassionate step-parent, because I am not. I get incredibly angry and feel like reacting in ways that would not be helpful or healthy for anyone. I think awful thoughts that make me doubt that my behavior and motivations are much better than the person I am so angry at. But I get past that a lot faster, and I think knowing that I will get to that place eventually helps me get there faster, and I have found ways of coping with the situation that work better for me (like knowing how active a role I can take, how much support I can give my husband and still take care of my own well-being, and choosing carefully what I need to get involved with and what I can just let my husband deal with however he feels is best).  It's taken a lot of work to get to the place, and I'm sure something will come along that will shatter (at least temporarily)  this whole fragile structure of coping that I've built over the years... but it's just not any good to any of us (me, my husband, my step-daughter, my other kids...) for me to go on living in that place of constant anger and defensiveness, constantly second-guessing everything we say and do, analyzing everything from every possible perspective. I've learned to just live our own life as a family as much as possible, and when something does come up to react in a way as productively as possible-- to let it be while the initial reaction passes, take whatever rational action I can, then let it go... I can't control her, I can only control my own reaction, and I choose not to live in her world any more than I have to.

[Smithie]

"...in WI you cannot request a legal schedule change until 2 years after the divorce..."

So keep your eyes on the prize. If the current schedule is working for your family, then be pleasant and polite and ignore nitpicky emails and focus on that magical day in August 2012 when you will have the next two years set in stone. 

[BabyMae09]

Originally Posted by PixieAlly 

Hi everyone, while things have calmed down a bit since the whole Christmas break fiasco, I have come to the conclusion that my finacee's ex is just one of those people that is not happy unless some kind of conflict is occurring. We try to keep everything as calm and neutral as possible, but she somehow always creates something to get everyone upset over. She'll be happy for a week or two, be very nice and accommodating, etc...and then all of a sudden, BAM, he'll get some crazy threatening, accusatory email about all the things he's doing wrong. Two weeks ago she finally agreed (after we asked multiple times) to switch the schedule so she gets the kids all day Saturday and we get them all day Sunday (instead of us picking the kids up at 1pm on Saturday and then her picking them up at 2pm Sunday. This always seemed stupid to me because then neither parent gets a full weekend day with the kids). We let her pick the date to start the switch and she said March 2012, so this was our first changed weekend. A day or two prior to Saturday she must have hit the bad mood part of her crazy cycle because all of a sudden he's getting texts about how she doesn't like the new schedule. She feels it is too cold to change the schedule because she doesn't know what to do with the kids for an entire day when it's still cold out. (I wanted him to write back and let her know if she is unable to care for her children for an entire day, he'd gladly pick them up early on Saturdays...I was mostly kidding, but not really. He didn't do it anyway). When he said no, he wanted to try the new schedule out for a few weeks at least, she came back with the kids don't like the schedule because they are afraid it would interfere with their sleepovers at their grandparents house. WTF? There is no reason the kids can't still sleepover...they'd just go over Saturday evening instead of Saturday afternoon and stay for longer on Sunday. So he still told her no and we explained the sleepover schedule to the kids when they arrived. So far we are okay, but I guess we're afraid she can change things back to the regular schedule on the divorce agreement at any time and in WI you cannot request a legal schedule change until 2 years after the divorce (which will be August 2012).

Anyway, my question is about phone calls to the kids when they are with the other parent. He hasn't dug out the divorce papers yet, but it says something like parents get one phone call a day when the kids are with the other parent and the custodial parent cannot block communication, but also does not have to allow the call if it's interfering with whatever is going on. Most of the time we let the kids answer the call when she calls. She usually does one of three things if we don't answer right away, calls and leaves a message for them to listen to, calls and leaves a message requesting the kids call her back or sends a text directed at the kids that my fiancee is to read to them. Based on this, if she leaves a message for them, we typically don't call her back (because she hasn't made the request) unless the kids asked to call her (which they sometimes do). It's never been a problem before. My fiancee will do the same thing...if he wants a callback, he specifically requests it.

Anyway, here is what happened this weekend. First, on Saturday night we pick the kids up to find out DSS is sick and has been since the morning. even though several texts were exchanged, she never bothered to mention this to us until pickup time which I guess is not a mandatory thing, but it would be nice to know. Anyway, as they are leaving she tells DSS that she will leave her phone on all night so he can call her at any time if he needs to. This becomes important later.

So we get home and watch some TV and relax and at 8pm put the kids to bed. It is their normal bedtime and the ex knows this. She calls at 8:01 and leaves a message for the kids and specifically DSS about hoping he is feeling better. We have three kids here and we were in the middle of getting them all to bed. To us, a phone call at this time is an interference in our activities and it's inappropriate to call at bedtime, so we did not call her back. She apparently interrogated the kids on Sunday night because her email said that DSD told her she was awake at that time and reading in her bed and could have talked to her. True, but the phone is with DAD who is putting other kids to bed plus DSS was just getting to sleep and if he heard his sister on the phone, may have woken up and my daughter definitely would have gotten all riled up if the other two are on the phone. I don't understand why the ex would not have called 15 minutes earlier? Anyway, my point is, I do not think we had to let her talk on the phone at that time, based on what the divorce papers say. Plus, she had just seen the kids only TWO hours earlier.

Her next point is about a text she sent Sunday morning. It was directed at DSS and just said something like, "Are you feeling better today? I can't wait to see you later." She sent this while the kids were sledding. My fiancee read the text to DSS who said he was feeling better. Again, the pattern for 2 years has been to just read the texts to the kids, not to reply to them, so no response was sent. She must have  grilled the kids on this too, because her email states DSS told her that dad never told him about the text. First of all, I do not think it is appropriate to take the word of a 7 year old. We were in the middle of sledding and having fun, so of course he doesn't remember the 15 second conversation about a text from mom. That does not mean we didn't deliver it.

Her third point was about letting DSS call her in the middle of the night. Of course, he did wake up at 4am that night and instead of going back to sleep like he'd NORMALLY do, he gets up and wakes up half the household requesting to call his mother at 4-freakin'-am on Sunday morning. If that is no an interference or inappropriate, I don't know what is, especially since she told him to do so. My fiancee told him no, it's too early, but went to his bed and slept with him for the rest of the night since he still wasn't feeling great. Again, she grilled them on this too because she said DSS told her dad said he was not allowed to call her so early. I feel like he should tell her when the kids are with him, HE is the one to take care of them and she should not be offering phone consultations in the middle of the night.

So she is claiming he is going against court orders to not block communication, but we feel this weekend she only called at times that were no conducive to having a phone conversation with the kids. This has come up before when she has called at night while we're watching a movie right before bedtime. Calling her back during the moving would be an interference as would calling at bedtime.

Now, before people start saying we are trying to block the kids from their mom, I just want to explain that the way she set up the custody schedule (and yes, she chose the schedule because the ONE judge here favors mothers and would not even look at my fiancee's proposed schedule) she sees the kids every single day (he goes 2-3 days a week not seeing them at all). Even the temp change we made (for her so she could go to work early) where she does not have them at all on Tuesdays she still sees them because she goes to school and eats lunch with them every Tuesday. We let the kids call her ANY time they request (between the hours of 7am and 8pm), send her photos of the kids when they're doing something fun (like Halloween or when they ask us to text her photos, etc...) and I'd say 90% of the time we answer her calls or call her back within an hour or two.  So, if she keeps collecting the 10% of the time we don't because it's interfering with our activities with the kids, is that going to look bad? Should we be making a list of all the times we DO let the calls happen? We don't have a problem with the kids talking to their mom, but admittedly it is somewhat annoying when she has just seen them earlier in the day or will be seeing them soon and we are pretty sure she is doing it most of the time to annoy us because this calling every day thing only started about 2-3 months ago. Most of the time we try to have them call when we're in the car or just sitting around the house playing. But some days we actually have a lot of stuff planned. On top of that, DSS is having a lot of separation anxiety lately and misses his mom a lot. We have been having him call her in the evenings (it gets worse at bedtime) but noticed that the nights he speaks to her his anxiety gets worse. So we don't suggest the calls anymore to him (but if the ex calls, we allow her to talk to him of course).

Any advice?

Yes. Let the kids talk to their Mom. I understand your frustration, but if my husband and I ever sepertated I would be incensed if he didn't let my kids call me when they weren't feeling well.

And she'll blame it all on you ~ her ex is changing because of you and so on. Just saying. Play super nice and don't let any bad vibes or irritation go her way, because that will just make everything much worse.

[PixieAlly]

I don't have time to go back and re-read through a 2 month old thread, but I don't think I ever said we do not let the kids talk to their mom. We DO postpone calls if she (or the kids) want them to occur at weird or inconvenient moments, especially since she sees the kids every day already. This will probably change when she moves since we understand she will now have to go weeks without seeing them, so a 15 minute interruption at dinner time will not as  big of a  deal. However, as of now, if the kids ask to call in the middle of dinner we tell them to wait until we're all done. If someone wakes up at 4am asking to call mom, we tell them to wait until morning after everyone is up (and tell them not to wake us in the middle of the night to make a non-emergency phone call :/ ) ,etc...We never said he could NOT call when he wasn't feeling well, we just said he'd have to wait a few hours when he woke us in the middle of the night. She had no right to say he could call her at that time without asking my SO if it was okay.