I have been with my SO for 4 years and he has 2 amazing kiddos (8 and 12) I love my little family unit. Right now though things aren't as fun. You see he and his ex have been fighting it has been escalating the past two years when she got remarried and had 2 more kids. She started cutting him out and telling the kids that their new SD was their real dad because he is actually raising them there is backstory further but she only had custody because he gave up his full custody for split custody to make sure the kids got to know their mom. There is a lot of really dumb backstory but she has child abuse charges and had monitored visitations until the youngest was 3. 

Watching them fight has been triggering childhood pain of my own parents divorce. My own mom and dad fought then my dad left the state. Mom worked all the time and was often too tired for me. I wasn't taken to doctors often unless I was dying or cps was threatened, my mom believed in holistic care. Life wasn't terrible but I have substandard communication skills lol straight shut down to deal with it on my own.  I don't know what healthy communication looks like because by the time I was 8 I knew all the abuse my mom suffered. A gentle reminder that my life is pretty good, I was grateful I didn't have to suffer the way my parents and grandparents had. I was sent to live with my dad in the teenage years and well.. now I live with hardly any interaction with family in a state away from most of my family. I am doing well in my career though and am happy to be away from the oppression of Utah. 

I am trying my best to slay my demons. Working up the courage to forgive and repair familial bonds. I still have to deal with my own family and try my best not to mess up. 

I have already taken actions to stop hearing about the petty stuff, my so now has a lawyer and is working towards 5050 custody and protecting himself from her attacks. I cannot stand some of her behavior like she doesn't believe in doctorsv or vaccinations and instead believes in crazy diets to control the kids. They are currently on a very restrictive diet one of the most restric low fodmaps diets. The kids have been on the diet for about a year before that they were on the autoimmune protocol diet, the sibo diet, the Paleo diet, and the raw diet. I know all this not from her but from th foods the kids tell me they are now allergic to I like researching healthy food so I'll buy a cook book of the new craze snake oil diet and the kids get excited and say yeah that is the book mama uses.  

I could rant for days about the bad stuff she does to my SO... But that is not why I am here...

Does anyone have experience in separating emotions from your parents divorce and your step kids? Any tricks to not say the wrong things. If this is the wrong place for this I am sorry, I don't really have many people I can or want to talk about it to. I am working on interviewing therapists to help me long term but I need people who can relate to what I am going through and give me positive direction.