The scene: Average Italian restaurant in average California town.

The characters: Divorced parents taking 11-year-old girl out for dinner on her birthday.

The mood: Daughter is delighted. She loves having her parents in one place. And she gets to eat chocolate mousse cake.

Mom is thrilled to be with her kid, but feels a little cranky about spending an entire meal with her ex. She is perhaps overcompensating with verbiage.

Dad is wearing his usual emotionless mask.

The conversation:

Dad (toasting):  To D, Happy Birthday!

Mom (looking from daughter to Dad): We did well, didn’t we?

Dad (looking pointedly at Mom): It’s all about her.

Awkward pause.

Mom (laughing): Of course, but don’t we get to  take a little credit?

Dad: It’s all about HER.

Buckethead.

According to my wasband, I did it wrong again. In a moment when I merely wanted to acknowledge the fabulousness of my child, he thinks I’m being selfish.

I didn’t consciously mean to be patting myself (ourselves) on the back. I was just expressing my adoration for her. He’s so damn literal. Did he misinterpret (once again) what I said? Ah, that communication issue rears its ugly head. I must choose my words more carefully, walk on the proverbial eggshells. I am perhaps a bit oversensitive, and overanalyzing. On my child’s birthday, I was feeling emotional. I might have been able to make a snappy comeback if I hadn’t been caught off guard and it hadn’t been completely the wrong time and place and I hadn’t been completely exhausted on a Friday night.

It’s been eight years, EIGHT YEARS, since he left. It is amazing that just a few words and a look can reach down into my core and pull out all my insecurities. Is he right? Am I selfish? Is my desire for acknowledgement misplaced? I do want some credit on my daughter’s day of birth. It was laborious and messy and painful. But I also tell people every day that I lucked out in the kid department; that I got an intelligent, healthy, compassionate daughter through no action of my own. My friends immediately tell me that I do deserve some of the credit for how well she is turning out. And he does too. We are good parents and good parenting partners. So my contribution to the toast was completely valid.

My wasband and I get along amazingly well, partly due to the fact that I do not respond when he pisses me off; I just write about it later. We were friends for 15 years and I knew I was risking that friendship when we got married. We still have a lot in common outside of our kid. Lately, I’ve been willing to venture that we might become true friends again. But I’m done with that. The dynamics have changed, the damage done. We are friendly, but not friends. The marriage gamble did not pay off. I lost the friendship, but I gained my kid. I’ve finally decided that was a fair trade.