Another skid weekend out of the way / another boat load of resentments to get over
I reached a point this weekend where I point blank asked DH to just give up on his kids and let their crazy mother have them. Don't even try to have a relationship with them until they are adults or at the very least willing to step up and maintain a relationship with him that is independent of their mother. Not a proud moment but that's how bad it's been lately.
BM cannot separate herself, her feelings, her wants and desires from those of her children. This results in a tirade of email exchanges that follow a very predictable pattern. DH has his kids EOWE. She will send an inflammatory email on her weekend berating DH for being such a terrible dad because he's not doing things her way and telling him that the kids don't like him anymore. He has asked the kids about some of the things they have supposedly said and they always act confused like it was taken totally out of context.
When we receive these emails, we are usually in the middle of something fun. I swear she knows and just wants to ruin our kid-free weekend. Then it turns into a long exchange where he defends himself, his love for his children, and the way he chooses to parent them. This is followed by more insults and threats on her part. By the time he gets the kids on his weekend, there has been almost a week of tensions building up. I'm sure it's not just with him and me, I'm sure the tensions are building up at their house as well.
After all of this transpires, the weekend is completely shot. They get to our house and are cold as ice for the first evening. (I'm not going to lie, I'm colder than ice). Things mellow a bit by Saturday, but not always. SD is currently refusing visitation altogether. I have become so resentful of them because they are at the center of it all. I can't stand looking at them anymore. I would LOVE to keep my bitterness focused on their batshit crazy mom but I honestly feel like they are old enough to start taking responsibility (including accepting the consequences) over the part THEY play in it all.
This whole thing is getting old. DH and I came to an agreement and I *hope* DH is going to stop responding to BM and go straight to the kid, confront them about what they supposedly said, or ask them how they feel, or WHATEVER. Just knock BM out of the loop and deal only with the kid.
This isn't the first time we have come to an agreement that knocks BM down for a while. She always comes back. She will stay silent for a month or two but then start back up where she left off the time before. No matter what solution DH and I come to about how to deal with her, she finds ways to sneak around it. The ignoring of texts and voice mails? More texts and voice mails. The phone blocking? Abusing email instead. We always land in the same place: she threatens him with court and she withholds the kids but makes sure it is their choice (PAS).
Ignoring her, of course, is him not co-parenting with her / him not caring about the kids / him being mean / him abandoning them. If she isn't in the middle of it with them and being filled in on every single detail about their time with him then he isn't a good dad to them. For any interaction he has with his kids, if she can't see it, it doesn't exist.
I want them all gone, the two skids and their mom. I don't care how much DH cares about the kids, they are not worth it. The more he tries to get away from the Crazy Beast, the more she PASs them out. I reached the point this weekend where I really believe that the only way to make her go away for good is to cut the kids out of his life too. Don't bother with these stupid EOWE visits anymore. Let them come to him if they ever decide they want a relationship with him. We cannot live like this anymore with BM being the middleman in his relationship with his children.
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I agree that she is trying to
I agree that she is trying to ruin your weekend together, and she is getting something from saying inflammatory things and engaging him in an argument. It makes her feel important in his life. With people like these, attention is attention, even if it is negative. He needs to understand that. He needs to understand that even if he has done nothing wrong, she will make up something in order for him to engage, so that she can check the level of her control in his life.
Also, he is letting his ex-wife define co-parenting, and she clearly has an agenda. And she has him marching to her tune as a result. He needs to challenge this in his own mind: ex-wifey is not an expert on co-parenting, and she is getting something from the time and energy he puts into communicating with her.
When you put up a boundary, like not responding, of course she is going to ramp it up. She doesn't believe he can keep it up. So what if she threatens court? Maybe call her bluff once in awhile instead of responding to emotional terrorists. Is avoiding court worth the tension in your relationship that she manages to stir up?
I don't think you need the kids and ex gone to find peace. I think you need a DH who has boundaries, does not let her define co-parenting, does not make her the ultimate authority on the quality of his parenting, and calls her damn bluff sometimes. Does he not see that by bending to her will over and over he is just digging a deeper hole?
Can you guys go to therapy together? Sometimes hearing it from a third party is all that they need. Think about it - BM has been the authority in his life for so many years, and now he has you, who is also an authority and he feels like he's being pulled in two directions and everyone has their own interests in mind. A therapist skilled in stepfamilies may be what he needs in order to really get it.
Thank you for this. I am not
Thank you for this. I am not proud of asking him to abandon his kids since he's being accused of it anyway. I think the time for therapy has definitely come. We have been on a roller coaster and most of the time he and I can remember we are on the same team. Since this is the 4th or 5th time we have come up with a plan to ignore her and failed at it, we are turning in on each other.
You're welcome. I'll share
You're welcome. I'll share my experience with therapy:
No matter what I said or did, my SO really needed to believe that he had an "amicable co-parenting relationship" with BM. Meanwhile, I'm watching her blow up his phone with abusive texts, then acting like nothing happened and turning to him to try to get emotional support. It was crazy town.
I also experienced SO and I turning on each other, and this is the worst thing that can happen. It's what BM wants. It's called "triangulation"; her instigating conflict between her two perceived enemies. You two need to be on the same team, but DH has to earn back some trust from you before you can do that, I'm sure. He'll also need to trust that you won't attack him for his choices.
It took therapy for my SO to understand that this insanity was not co-parenting; it was emotional abuse that tangentially referenced the kid. He came to understand that BM probably has Borderline Personality Disorder and that her impulsive anger and refusal to recognize boundaries traced back to this. I told him all of this over and over, but it never truly sunk in until a therapist told him the same things.
It helped that during the months we were in therapy BM did some truly awful things: writing SO an email calling me names, and sabotaging their special needs son to get back at SO's refusal to engage. The therapist told SO to respond once to BM's crazy email making it clear that he is on my team, and always will be. He wrote her an amazing message drawing some very important boundaries. And he became really saddened about her sabotaging their son, but it helped him see that she is not the perfect mother and expert on parenting that he had been led to believe. She hated him more than she loved her son, and it was a sad thing for him to have to see.
We also learned to communicate better, and how to stay on the same team. My SO clearly had some work to do, but - shockingly - I did too. I had to learn to evict BM from my head, where she was living rent free. I had to learn to trust SO and recognize all of the wonderful progress he was making and stop fixating on the setbacks. Most of all, I had to switch to supporting him and his decisions, and not telling him what he should do. This is hard for me, as I am a fixer by nature. But that's not what he needs from me, and aside from a few boundaries I have with him in regard to his ex, it's not my fight. I'm there to love and support him, not cause him additional aggravation. And this attitude change makes him even more compelled to uphold boundaries and protect our relationship from BM's crazy.
The worst thing you can do is allow BM to wreak havoc in your relationship. Right now, both you and DH are allowing that. He is allowing it by not having boundaries; you are allowing it by letting her upset you.
Suggest therapy to DH, but make sure to stress that it is not about proving him wrong or that it's all his fault. Men get scared that therapy will be a bitch session about his faults. Tell him that it's all about how the two of you can learn to handle this major stressor in your life without turning on one another, and that you want to get back to a loving and supportive relationship where both of your needs get met.
Remind me again how old your
Remind me again how old your skids are?
BM and DH never communicate about the skids. They haven't really since I have been with him. The skids are old enough to communicate directly to DH. Even if its something "bad" (like when MSD got pregnant at 17), BM and DH never even had a conversation about it. SS spilled the beans on it and it was never fully discussed between DH and MSD until she was pregnant and showing. (talking about avoiding the situation!)
BM would send stupid texts after the skids would come over with all this stuff that I did wrong and said. Or how horrible of a father DH is. So we blocked her number. It's been great! We never have to deal with her. Dont have to deal with her stupid texts and rants and what not.
If there is a "true" emergency, one of the other skids can always get ahold of DH. If BM really needed to talk to him she could always call him from another number.
How "involved" is your DH in the skids day to day? My DH isn't very involved, so it was easier to block dealing with BM and just deal directly with the skids.
They are 11 and 12. He used
They are 11 and 12.
He used to be very involved but the abuse from BM was too much so he reduced his time with them. Things have been better in some ways since he went to EOWE with them, BM isn't a daily part of life. Now it's just a month or two of silence and then a huge blow up that lasts several days. The bad part of him not being as involved anymore is the guilt. He knows they were used to him being more involved and now he's not. BM uses this to get to him.
I have talked until I'm blue in the face about this. I believe that what you described (parallel parenting with no interference from the other parent) is not out of reach for him and BM. I just don't think he believes it. He keeps coming back to the what ifs and uses examples of serious issues that he would need to talk to her about. I think it would be great if they could talk about the kids. She's just way too high conflict and controlling. He currently has joint decision making (religion, medical, school, activities, etc) but you wouldn't know it. She pretty much took over and did things her way no matter what he had to say about it, even when he had more time with them.
The CO is a joke. They are both afraid of going to court and battling it out so instead, they use the CO that they don't really follow as a way to threaten each other...who is the most afraid of court? DH isn't as bad as her but he still does it to an extent.
Yeah I think the kids are too
Yeah I think the kids are too young to go the route of blocking BM and just DH and the skids communicating, unless for emergencies.
Honestly I would tell him to stop responding to her emails. He doesnt need to defend himself to her about his parenting. He can prove what kind of parent he is when he has the kids. They will see it.
If he keeps engaging her then she is going to keep it up. As long as there is fuel, there is fire.
If she sends a 5 page email and only 1 page has to do with actual important, relevant skid stuff, then that is what he needs to respond to. Not all the other b.s.
If your DH takes this route, maybe eventually she will run out of stuff to bitch to the skids about. If anything she might go the route of "Your dad isn't responding to my emails, he doesnt love you...blah blah" but really that can't be any worse then what she is currently telling them.
Good luck! (((HUGS)))
Your DH has never put proper
Your DH has never put proper boundaries on BM and it is affecting your household and your marriage.
Of course you are resentful.