Dressage: have done intro level before, on a previous horse but it has been a few years. had our first lesson Wed. with a trainer who shows Grand Prix. My, what a work out. And was expensive ($90!). I enjoyed it and plan to ride in shows next year. Trainer said my horse would be competitive at rated shows, at lower levels. that is all I was expecting and wanted when I bought this horse 5 years ago.

Jumping. We are only beginning to canter crossrails. I'm a middle aged adult so not too courageous but my goal is 2'3" and at least do some schooling shows. Maybe combine dressage and jumping and do some lower level eventing.

Trainer at my barn is a wonderful hunter/jumper trainer but knows nothing about dressage. She is open to having the dressage trainer come once a month to give lessons.

I still want to take jumping lessons. So how do I negotiate this? Trainer at barn only does hunter equitation and I can see that dressage equitation is different. So I don't know how to go about taking jumping lessons while I am also working on dressage. It took me a year to get brave enough to canter a crossrail and I don't want to lose that.

Thanks for any suggestions you can provide!

Honestly, I think you'll just want to make sure you keep a close contact saddle for jumping and practice your two point in it sometimes. Have jump days and dressage days. Why don't you ask the trainer at the barn for a jump lesson once every two weeks or so if you want to focus on dressage more? At those lower levels, you don't need an A circuit trainer, just one who knows how to effectively teach fundamentals and who has a good training philosophy. 

By the way, $90, yeesh! That's about three of my lessons!

 Sure you can do that -- that's basically what we do as eventers.  We have a dressage coach (who has also evented, which is REALLY helpful as she understands the slightly different needs and philosophy of the eventing horse) and a jumping coach.

It does make you a more well-rounded rider and it is not as difficult as you think to do both.  They are different enough that you can easily separate one from the other and when you are doing dressage, just sit up and deep and do the dressage thing and then when you are jumping, change accordingly.

But the principles are the same; strong center, balanced seat, quiet leg, light hand, all balancing your horse up in front of you and driving from behind in (eventually) self carriage with impulsion.  A jump course is 90% flat!

 Sounds good! the sitting deeper is sending my horse very forward at the moment which is not fun. Previously I used a half seat at the canter. The dressage instructor, I wouldn't say is heavy handed, but really wants you to have a solid feel on the mouth - about 5 pounds worth. I am having a hard time using my forearms and not hauling on my horse's mouth. 

 I think it depends on how serious you want to be in which event.  If you are more serious about your dressage I would stick with that trainer (talk to her, but most GP dressage riders know how to jump 2'3 NO problem!).  Your hunter trainer isn't going to like your dressage equitation (and it can be VERY confusing to be trying to learn two forms of equitation at the same time) and her training really isn't going to teach you what you need to know for Jumpers and Cross Country.  Eventually you will get to the point where you have several different riders within yourself and will be able to flip-flop riding styles no problem, but you need to be solid in both seats before it is that easy.