It removes me from any parenting dynamic of which I have no control...and lets us talk with reason when we need to since the power dynamic is neutralized.
Someone having an ahole child does not mean that you and your partner are incompatible by itself. If you have a partner who thinks you should accept the unacceptable then yes it is toxic and you should get out.
There are several of us here who have great partners and very good marriages even though the skids are not worth giving the time of day.
I think it depends on circumstances & who you are as a person. There are plenty of people on this site who’ve successfully disengaged from their skids & still have great marriages. There are also posters who’ve disengaged yet still feel resentment & anger.
Personally, I’ve always been disengaged in a healthy way, in that I’ve never played mommy with my skids nor taken over any of the parenting duties for my DH. I help him out, but they’re his kids & the bulk of the work lies with him, as it should.
If DH was a Disney Dad who coddled his kids & gave them everything at my expense or the expense of our relationship (which he did recently & I had a couple come to Jesus chats with him about it), disengagement wouldn’t save me from walking out. Some people can handle things like that, I can’t, and I know that.
From what I remember of your previous posts, you’ve been unhappy with your partner for a while. Maybe it’s time to rethink the things you’re willing to tolerate just to stay in the relationship? Some dynamics just don’t work for us, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Yep, I'm with you. I never really "engaged" in parenting because DH is a good parent. I would not have stuck around if he were a lousy one.
I have had to disengage from thinking I could solve the parental alienation problem and just let it just go where it will ... that was really helpful to my sanity.
For me all it has done is delay the inevitable. I just kept my mouth shut for 6 months and in turn I have become physically ill from the stress. Telling myself it isn't my problem doesn't take it out of my mind. I just have spent an extra 6 months being miserable.
There are all different SK. You can still want SK to become good people, you can still care how they do. You can still love them. But not make your whole life revolve around SK. And what SK want are. You can still go on couples weekends, couples vacations, Then do something with SK another weekend. It’s balance of your life.
Everyone is different and different things works for different family’s.
I've been married to my DH for 17 years. My SD lived with us from 5 to 18. From 16 to 18 and beyond I have been disengaged. It kept me sane and kept my kids somewhat safe. My DH did not understand it at first...now he does.
It means leave the parenting to the parents. You aren't responsible for ANY parenting of skids and you aren't responsible for how they turn out. I still care about my SD but I know I have no control over her. I can only parent my own kids.
To pose this question, one would have to believe everything is solvable in step parenthood, though, right?
Disengagement has in no way solved anything in my step situation, but it has definitely bettered it by leaps and bounds.
Personally, with exception to someone being widowed, or the other bio parent being incarcerated for life, I see no real benefit to being all-in with someone else’s child, where there are two fully willing and capable bio parents involved.
Step parents, for their own well-being, need to be reserved in their level of engagement.
For me, it has done my marriage wonders. My emotional sanity as well, because Skid is entering her teens, so yeah, no.
She has a mom and a dad. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Disengaging has saved my sanity. I'm in the early stages, but I can tell huge changes. I no longer try my hand at the "blended family" thing that I once thought would be. The truth is....we just aren't a family or at least any type of family that I've ever known. There are 3 families living at my house....me and my 3 children, DH and his 2 children, and then DH, me and our child. That was hard for me to wrap my head around....but it is my reality.
When SK's are at my house...BM may as well be there, too, since she doesn't leave them or my DH alone while he has his kids. This is the main reason I have disengaged and they are 11 and 16.
I treat them kindly as I alwasy have, but I no longer discuss them with DH. I don't clean their rooms or do their laundry anymore. I do not consider their opinion when making plans for vacations or meals or anything really. If my DH asks me to do something with or for them....I say yes but I am doing it for HIM not SKs.
My MIL also has driven me to this by acting as BM's right hand.....so when she talks about SK's I change the subject...when she asks details about them I just say I don't know....
Don't look at disengagement as an answer -- look at it as a last resort for self preservation. It's really agreeing to disagree.
Disengagement doesn't fix the problem person. But as much as possible, it takes that person's toxicity out of your life.
For example, every time I saw SD, she was a perfect nightmare to me and my husband just sat there is watched. So the moment we landed in the car after a visit, I'd start bitching about SD, about what he should have said or done to check her, etc. Then he'd defend himself and her with the same lame excuses ("SD didn't ignore you for four hours -- she just didn't hear you," for example). Then he and I would fight about how he could be such a dumbass. That didn't go well. So the visit might last four hours, but my anxiety leading up to the visit and the fight after the visit could last for days.
But what if there was an understanding that I don't see SD and my husband doesn't mention her name ever to me? Not only do I avoid the inevitable days of anxiety leading up to a SD visit, I also avoid the actual visit (which means avoiding SD's passive aggression) AND the four days of fighting with my husband that resulted after every visit with SD.
What did disengagement do in this example? Did it make SD a nice person? No, she's still a 30-something nightmare. Did it make my husband anything other than a worm? No, but if I don't have to endure SD's insults and passive aggression, I don't expect my husband to defend me, so it doesn't matter if he's a dumbass. You take out the cause of conflict to avoid the conflict!
So disengagement should not be seen as a fix. It's only a coping mechanism, but as a coping mechanism, it works better than enduring skids' constant arrows and assaults and fighting with my husband all the time about his skid.
In short, disengagement is agreeing to disagree: I won't bad mouth your rotten kid as long as I don't have to endure your rotten kid. And if I'm not around your kid, we don't even have to talk about your kid. It's worked for me for several years now.
Ok, so first off I found this forum while looking for answers about my continuous frustrations and I'm happy I did.
So I'm a step mom, going on 3 years. 2 boys, oldest is 18 and graduating this month and youngest is 6 then a girl who is 12. My only child is mine and my husbands son, he just turned1. My frustrations seem to be getting worse and not better and mostly stem from the 6 yr old. He's not a terrible kid but he is beyond annoying and I'm starting to notice other behavioral qualities that irritate me. He lies constantly about anything and everything, he's sneaky and pouty. I don't even allow him to play with my son most of the time because he takes his toys, puts his hands in his face, I caught him throwing a ball at his head etc... just stuff I feel like a 6 year old should know better than to do to a baby.
Anyway to the point, I basically caught parenting duties the minute my husband and I got serious. Some of that was my fault because BM is kind of lazy in the parenting department, honestly if we are being fair so is my hubby. The kid would come from his moms in 18 month clothes and he was 3, dirty, long finger nails, nasty ears, he even had cradle cap at 3 years old and it was not just a little bit. He's 6 and it's still like this.
I've pretty much decided I've had my fill. I don't even want the kid around because I'm left with doing everything for him, answering all 40 thousand questions, making him mind, bathing, laundry, feeding. Recently I've started ignorning him and I think my husband is noticing. My fear is that it's gonna blow up any day now but I almost hope it does. Summer is coming and I want to enjoy my son because I'm starting nursing school this fall, I don't want to be a babysitter!! Especially for a kid that drives me nuts!!.
Is it unfair of me to say I don't want to be so involved? That I don't want to babysit when my husband isn't home? No offense but this kid really isn't my responsibility and I don't think being married to his dad warrants me having ti be a babysitter.
Do you have to do everything for your own kid too? Use that as leverage by indirectly pointing out that he doesn't do a damn thing for either kid. Tell him you don't mind being the mom and dad for your own kid, but you won't be mom and dad to someone else's kid, so he's going to have to find another arrangement by the beginning of June (or whenever). And then just walk out of the room -- walk out as in, "end of discussion." Don't even leave time for discussion because you've made the decision. Your services are withdrawn!
I think disengaging is more about not disposing of your soulmate just because they sewed their DNA with an inadequate life partner. It’s about reclaiming your harmony, inner peace, and time rather than investing it on your significant other’s children who just deplete and shrink your happiness. If you’ve been blessed enough to find a life partner who couldn’t be a better fit minus his children, then it would be a pity to throw it all away and hope you can find another connection that measures up, hence disengagement; to preserve the romantic bond and sense of companionship.
Disengagement has been a blessing to me and brings such peace to my sanity. There is a point and there is relevance to disengagement where you create a strong boundary to heal yourself. Being emotionaly and physically detached is a beautiful thing when it comes to certain step life dynamics. I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.
You don't disengage to "fix" a situation. You disengage to save your own sanity and to resolve to care about and be involved in things that you have control over.. and to let the other stuff "go".
It doesn't mean you necessarily stay in a toxic relationship. It doesn't mean you allow people (skids or spouse) abuse you or allow your things to be abused.
Disengagement is like the saying. "God grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things the things I can and the WISDOM to know the difference."
Many Skid issues fall into the bucket of "can't change"... EXES fall into the bucket of "can't change".. so since you can't change certain things.. you might as well learn to come to peace with the situation.. OR if the siutation is so toxic that you can't ignore it.. GET OUT... A CHANGE you CAN make.
It's not always readily apparent whether we should stay or go... at least from our own inside view. Sometimes it takes time to realize that the people that we are blaming aren't really the ones that SHOULD shoulder the blame.. ie blaming skids when it is our SPOUSE truly driving the train.
Great question. DH and I have other kids so I can’t disengage completely but in the end the bio parents set the rules. Luckily DH agrees with me on most matters.
It removes me from any
It removes me from any parenting dynamic of which I have no control...and lets us talk with reason when we need to since the power dynamic is neutralized.
Someone having an ahole child
Someone having an ahole child does not mean that you and your partner are incompatible by itself. If you have a partner who thinks you should accept the unacceptable then yes it is toxic and you should get out.
There are several of us here who have great partners and very good marriages even though the skids are not worth giving the time of day.
I think it depends on
I think it depends on circumstances & who you are as a person. There are plenty of people on this site who’ve successfully disengaged from their skids & still have great marriages. There are also posters who’ve disengaged yet still feel resentment & anger.
Personally, I’ve always been disengaged in a healthy way, in that I’ve never played mommy with my skids nor taken over any of the parenting duties for my DH. I help him out, but they’re his kids & the bulk of the work lies with him, as it should.
If DH was a Disney Dad who coddled his kids & gave them everything at my expense or the expense of our relationship (which he did recently & I had a couple come to Jesus chats with him about it), disengagement wouldn’t save me from walking out. Some people can handle things like that, I can’t, and I know that.
From what I remember of your previous posts, you’ve been unhappy with your partner for a while. Maybe it’s time to rethink the things you’re willing to tolerate just to stay in the relationship? Some dynamics just don’t work for us, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Yep, I'm with you. I never
Yep, I'm with you. I never really "engaged" in parenting because DH is a good parent. I would not have stuck around if he were a lousy one.
I have had to disengage from thinking I could solve the parental alienation problem and just let it just go where it will ... that was really helpful to my sanity.
For me all it has done is
For me all it has done is delay the inevitable. I just kept my mouth shut for 6 months and in turn I have become physically ill from the stress. Telling myself it isn't my problem doesn't take it out of my mind. I just have spent an extra 6 months being miserable.
There are different degrees of disengagement
There are all different SK. You can still want SK to become good people, you can still care how they do. You can still love them. But not make your whole life revolve around SK. And what SK want are. You can still go on couples weekends, couples vacations, Then do something with SK another weekend. It’s balance of your life.
Everyone is different and different things works for different family’s.
I've been married to my DH
I've been married to my DH for 17 years. My SD lived with us from 5 to 18. From 16 to 18 and beyond I have been disengaged. It kept me sane and kept my kids somewhat safe. My DH did not understand it at first...now he does.
If your relationship is toxic
If your relationship is toxic, you should end it.
It means leave the parenting
It means leave the parenting to the parents. You aren't responsible for ANY parenting of skids and you aren't responsible for how they turn out. I still care about my SD but I know I have no control over her. I can only parent my own kids.
To pose this question, one
To pose this question, one would have to believe everything is solvable in step parenthood, though, right?
Disengagement has in no way solved anything in my step situation, but it has definitely bettered it by leaps and bounds.
Personally, with exception to someone being widowed, or the other bio parent being incarcerated for life, I see no real benefit to being all-in with someone else’s child, where there are two fully willing and capable bio parents involved.
Step parents, for their own well-being, need to be reserved in their level of engagement.
For me, it has done my marriage wonders. My emotional sanity as well, because Skid is entering her teens, so yeah, no.
She has a mom and a dad. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Disengaging has saved my
Disengaging has saved my sanity. I'm in the early stages, but I can tell huge changes. I no longer try my hand at the "blended family" thing that I once thought would be. The truth is....we just aren't a family or at least any type of family that I've ever known. There are 3 families living at my house....me and my 3 children, DH and his 2 children, and then DH, me and our child. That was hard for me to wrap my head around....but it is my reality.
When SK's are at my house...BM may as well be there, too, since she doesn't leave them or my DH alone while he has his kids. This is the main reason I have disengaged and they are 11 and 16.
I treat them kindly as I alwasy have, but I no longer discuss them with DH. I don't clean their rooms or do their laundry anymore. I do not consider their opinion when making plans for vacations or meals or anything really. If my DH asks me to do something with or for them....I say yes but I am doing it for HIM not SKs.
My MIL also has driven me to this by acting as BM's right hand.....so when she talks about SK's I change the subject...when she asks details about them I just say I don't know....
life has been much easier.
Don't look at disengagement
Don't look at disengagement as an answer -- look at it as a last resort for self preservation. It's really agreeing to disagree.
Disengagement doesn't fix the problem person. But as much as possible, it takes that person's toxicity out of your life.
For example, every time I saw SD, she was a perfect nightmare to me and my husband just sat there is watched. So the moment we landed in the car after a visit, I'd start bitching about SD, about what he should have said or done to check her, etc. Then he'd defend himself and her with the same lame excuses ("SD didn't ignore you for four hours -- she just didn't hear you," for example). Then he and I would fight about how he could be such a dumbass. That didn't go well. So the visit might last four hours, but my anxiety leading up to the visit and the fight after the visit could last for days.
But what if there was an understanding that I don't see SD and my husband doesn't mention her name ever to me? Not only do I avoid the inevitable days of anxiety leading up to a SD visit, I also avoid the actual visit (which means avoiding SD's passive aggression) AND the four days of fighting with my husband that resulted after every visit with SD.
What did disengagement do in this example? Did it make SD a nice person? No, she's still a 30-something nightmare. Did it make my husband anything other than a worm? No, but if I don't have to endure SD's insults and passive aggression, I don't expect my husband to defend me, so it doesn't matter if he's a dumbass. You take out the cause of conflict to avoid the conflict!
So disengagement should not be seen as a fix. It's only a coping mechanism, but as a coping mechanism, it works better than enduring skids' constant arrows and assaults and fighting with my husband all the time about his skid.
In short, disengagement is agreeing to disagree: I won't bad mouth your rotten kid as long as I don't have to endure your rotten kid. And if I'm not around your kid, we don't even have to talk about your kid. It's worked for me for several years now.
Disengagement?
Ok, so first off I found this forum while looking for answers about my continuous frustrations and I'm happy I did.
So I'm a step mom, going on 3 years. 2 boys, oldest is 18 and graduating this month and youngest is 6 then a girl who is 12. My only child is mine and my husbands son, he just turned1. My frustrations seem to be getting worse and not better and mostly stem from the 6 yr old. He's not a terrible kid but he is beyond annoying and I'm starting to notice other behavioral qualities that irritate me. He lies constantly about anything and everything, he's sneaky and pouty. I don't even allow him to play with my son most of the time because he takes his toys, puts his hands in his face, I caught him throwing a ball at his head etc... just stuff I feel like a 6 year old should know better than to do to a baby.
Anyway to the point, I basically caught parenting duties the minute my husband and I got serious. Some of that was my fault because BM is kind of lazy in the parenting department, honestly if we are being fair so is my hubby. The kid would come from his moms in 18 month clothes and he was 3, dirty, long finger nails, nasty ears, he even had cradle cap at 3 years old and it was not just a little bit. He's 6 and it's still like this.
I've pretty much decided I've had my fill. I don't even want the kid around because I'm left with doing everything for him, answering all 40 thousand questions, making him mind, bathing, laundry, feeding. Recently I've started ignorning him and I think my husband is noticing. My fear is that it's gonna blow up any day now but I almost hope it does. Summer is coming and I want to enjoy my son because I'm starting nursing school this fall, I don't want to be a babysitter!! Especially for a kid that drives me nuts!!.
Is it unfair of me to say I don't want to be so involved? That I don't want to babysit when my husband isn't home? No offense but this kid really isn't my responsibility and I don't think being married to his dad warrants me having ti be a babysitter.
No no no. All those things
No no no. All those things you mentioned are parenting duties and they are not your responsibility. Bio parents need to handle all parenting duties.
Do you have to do everything
Do you have to do everything for your own kid too? Use that as leverage by indirectly pointing out that he doesn't do a damn thing for either kid. Tell him you don't mind being the mom and dad for your own kid, but you won't be mom and dad to someone else's kid, so he's going to have to find another arrangement by the beginning of June (or whenever). And then just walk out of the room -- walk out as in, "end of discussion." Don't even leave time for discussion because you've made the decision. Your services are withdrawn!
Soulmate disposal.
I think disengaging is more about not disposing of your soulmate just because they sewed their DNA with an inadequate life partner. It’s about reclaiming your harmony, inner peace, and time rather than investing it on your significant other’s children who just deplete and shrink your happiness. If you’ve been blessed enough to find a life partner who couldn’t be a better fit minus his children, then it would be a pity to throw it all away and hope you can find another connection that measures up, hence disengagement; to preserve the romantic bond and sense of companionship.
Disengagement has been a
Disengagement has been a blessing to me and brings such peace to my sanity. There is a point and there is relevance to disengagement where you create a strong boundary to heal yourself. Being emotionaly and physically detached is a beautiful thing when it comes to certain step life dynamics. I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.
You don't disengage to "fix"
You don't disengage to "fix" a situation. You disengage to save your own sanity and to resolve to care about and be involved in things that you have control over.. and to let the other stuff "go".
It doesn't mean you necessarily stay in a toxic relationship. It doesn't mean you allow people (skids or spouse) abuse you or allow your things to be abused.
Disengagement is like the saying. "God grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things the things I can and the WISDOM to know the difference."
Many Skid issues fall into the bucket of "can't change"... EXES fall into the bucket of "can't change".. so since you can't change certain things.. you might as well learn to come to peace with the situation.. OR if the siutation is so toxic that you can't ignore it.. GET OUT... A CHANGE you CAN make.
It's not always readily apparent whether we should stay or go... at least from our own inside view. Sometimes it takes time to realize that the people that we are blaming aren't really the ones that SHOULD shoulder the blame.. ie blaming skids when it is our SPOUSE truly driving the train.
Needed to hear this myself,
Needed to hear this myself, thank you!
Great question. DH and I have
Great question. DH and I have other kids so I can’t disengage completely but in the end the bio parents set the rules. Luckily DH agrees with me on most matters.