Shall I start narrating the movements of my roommate's cat?

Feel free to defer that portion.

Oh, too late...

Mine are asleep. One on each side of me.

WAIT!

One has awoken and wandered off. Possibly towards food. I shall have to investigate and update in a moment.

I swear, Dita is the imagined lovechild of Devi and Mister Kitty. Devi's markings and fur, MK's nose and eye color.

Oh, jeez, I'm still trying to get over my phone call from Mom.

Backstory: Big brother cheated on his wife two years ago and they divorced last year. Since then, he has had to live with Mom due to financial constraints (alimony, child support, college costs for oldest son, etc.), but he's stayed in his kids' lives every chance he gets, going to all of their school and sports functions, had them on weekends when they first separated, everything he can. But, several months ago, his daughter told him to (and I quote) "Fuck off" and has refused to speak to him since. In the past few months, his youngest son has also stopped speaking to him. The only child he's still seeing/speaking with at this point is the eldest, who is actually coming over to Mom's next weekend.

At first, we thought the niece shutting him out was her being 16 years old and going through the pains of having divorced parents, but it's going on far too long for that, and having youngest son do the same is leading us to think it's X-SIL behind it. This is being confirmed today.

Yesterday, Bro gets his first text from his daughter since she cut him off, telling him to read the e-mail from his X. Email says that niece wants to go on an archaeological dig in Peru next year, and that they need his permission and wallet for half the costs. He emails his daughter (ccing his X) that he's all for the permission, but thinks she (daughter) has a lot of gall asking him for that much money after telling him to "fuck off" (which he included in the email in quotes). The response came not from daughter or from the X, but instead from Bro's lawyer, who apparently was cc'd on an email from the X to her lawyer in which she forwarded Bro's message and went off on a two-page diatribe about how he is such a horrible father, not supportive at all, never there for the kids, after all, they can't even talk to him, blahblahblah.

Bro's convinced she's fucked with the youngest kids' heads so much that she's putting them through Munchausen's by proxy, as evidenced by that email to the lawyers. I have questions about that "diagnosis," but I think he's right that she's enjoying this little game in which she's using her kids as pawns, but everyone else is getting hurt.

Cripes, Kathy.

Oh, Kathy. How awful.

Divorce can really be hard on kids and having one parent trying to make it worse is just disgusting.

Wow, Kathy. Your poor brother. What a mess.

Yikes.

The only thing I will note is: Don't take sides even when it looks horribly unfair.

It's always like this (to some degree) in a divorce and every perspective is skewed. It's like walking into a funhouse. (The kind filled with scary clowns, cf., P!nk).

But I will note that your brother tying it to money only feeds into the problem. (Not that his daughter or ex are blameless at all.) But he needs to practice his Rise Above skills in this situation.

Yes, she does have a lot of gall. But if he maintains this dynamic it will just reinforce her perspective that he's The Bad Guy And Owes Her etc. That's how she sees it. That's often the perspective in this scenario and he can't win.

So. He can be aggrieved, or aspire to be The Classiest Guy On Earth. That's the best strategy. If he can afford it he should put aside his ego and start laying the ground work for Dad's, Actually Not a Bad Guy.

Thing is, he really can't afford it right now. He retired three months ago and just started his new job with the post office a few weeks ago, and is still getting his finances in order from the past few months of being short on incoming cash.

I think if his ex would at least encourage the two kids to talk to their dad, he'd be much more amenable to the idea of this trip, but right now, he's just so pissed at the ex and also at the way his daughter has talked about him for over six months that he's having a hard time being The Classiest Guy on Earth. Maybe he'll be there in a day or two, but he's still getting over that email from today.

A few months ago, he went to a concert of his daughter's. After the performance, she stomped up to him and reamed him out for showing up at all. He told her that, no matter what she said or did, he'd always be there for her. I'm hoping she'll remember that some day, the sooner the better for both of them.

That's rough, Kathy.