Long story short. DP's ex has behaved very dishonourably regarding financial issues. After thousands of dollars spent on lawyers, probably hundreds of hours spent discussing it with DP, this is nearing resolution.

I accepted a long time ago that nothing I could do could change DP's ex's thinking or actions on the financial stuff. And just for the record, I'm right and she's wrong

Because I accepted, to some extent the financial disagreements, I attempted to put out an olive branch on other stuff because I felt it was worthwhile trying to build a relationship with her given that her daughter (DSD) now lives with us. I thought it would be useful if we could present a united front to DSD and we couldn't do that if there wasn't some degree of cordiality between us.

Anyhow, because DP's ex lives in the US, these efforts have usually been via email and I've always been careful to be really nice and helpful whenever I answer the phone to her when she phones for DSD.

I've spent hours researching places for her to stay in Melbourne (when she was talking about visiting), found and sent to her lots of information on Australia's education system and what DSD's options will be under various scenarios.

She has not even acknowledged the emails, let alone answered them.

DP sent her a very detailed email last week about DSD's recent parent-teacher night, explaining what they felt DSD's strengths and weaknesses were etc. etc. She sent a one-line response asking for money which we'd said we'd send in order to resolve the big picture financial stuff. So, nothing about DSD.

So.

I don't respect her, don't like her and really resent the amount of time I've spent over the last few years trying to figure her out, trying to reach out to her.

Every time I answer the phone to her, I want to abuse her. Now obviously I'm not going to do that but I just don't want to speak to her. Answering the phone and keeping the conversation short and monosyllabic just doesn't work for me. Then I feel rude and I don't like feeling rude.

I'm thinking of writing to her and telling her that if I answer the phone to her again, I will put it straight down and explaining briefly my reasons why. Because that's actually what I want to do. I don't want to say a word to her.

And it won't really affect DSD - her mom can call her on her mobile anyway so it's not like the homephone is their only point of contact.

What other ways could I deal with this?