I am recently divorced and have a four year old daughter where I share 50/50 custody of my daughter. We separated in January 2014 and just got our divorce finalized three weeks ago due to it being contentious.

Due to my ex having my daughter for Christmas this year (which are normally my days), we agreed to switch days where he had her for almost a week. When my daughter came home- her pre-school folder was overfilled with papers and when I went through them- I learned that she has a Christmas recital on Tuesday.

My ex didn't sign the permission form to have her in the concert so I sent him a text message to see if he would be okay if I signed it since Tuesday is his day with her and there were special instructions on times that you had to drop off your child.

He responded with that he will not attend the Christmas recital because he can't stand to be near me, and that's bad for our daughter. I advised him that he should be able to put his personal feelings aside and go to the recital to support our daughter.

He advised that we should "take turns" for our daughters school events, and I disagreed stating that our daughter needs both of us to support her & show our love for her.

Anyway, it upsets me so much that he is willing to miss out on our daughter's events because I will be there. I'm also upset that he never told me about the recital and was just planning on going. I talked (and I'll admit that I started to cry) to the pre-school director about this, and she was appalled and told me that she would call him to discuss it.

I'm really hoping that the pre-school director will talk some sense into him. I don't know what to do long-term if he refuses to attend my daughter's extracurricular events with me there. I don't feel like I should have to miss out to appease him- I think that our daughter wants both of us to be there.

Any thoughts? At least this seems like a normal situation to have your mood swing- I just hate that I have to be super careful in situations that would get any normal person upset but that's part of BP for you.