support thread for those of us having to 'co-parent' with a narc or very difficult exh

[besshope]

Step this way...
May I start of with a great big ROAR of frustration at having spent many years having to co-parent with someone who (after he left me for OW) has gone out of his way to make my life as difficult as possible. I know there are many of us, so here's a space to share frustrations, tips and experiences.

Lilac What a lovely grandmother. Perhaps she needs reminding that she has no legal right to contact with her grandchildren, and that given her son's erratic contact she may well hardly see them. Alternatively you could just tell her to fuck off [winks].

Apples rarely do fall far from the tree, Lilac 😒

Light relief.

Sorry can't link, but short YouTube video, very funny, called The Magic Table.

For anyone who's ever had the women's work argument.

Lilac I have a mother in law bitch from hell who has lied to her children, made them lie for her and generally created and controlled her 3 children towards a path of making everyone else's lives a misery by all mimicking her behaviour. It is torture to allow my vulnerable DCs in the middle of their utterly dysfunctional family. But what can you do? Spend a life time of picking up the pieces and hoping your kids eventually see through all the present buying and utter manipulation? It is soul destroying and no option seems a good one.

In fact the only 'good' option sometimes seems to be to just move well away with the DCs and start again without their shit influences dominating everything - but of course you would be painted as unreasonable if you did that.

Nice, that is a brilliant video. And so true. As far as ex-P is concerned I never did anything because he washed up a few days a week and there's a couple of loads of washing in every few days, ran a Hoover over the lounge perhaps once a week.

I'd love to know how he thinks the washing he did put in ended up sorted and put away, organised so they could easily be found, or that with 2 kids and 3 cats how the once weekly Hoover he did didn't result in the Hoover being full to the rafters, or how the sink and the bath were frequently clean.

Because he 'works' though he thinks he deserves a bloody medal for doing some house work.

He'd get home and if I had actually been in the house all day (which was rare because the children have a very active life out of the house) he had no idea just how much I had done because I don't think he truly realises how much work a toddler and older child create.

But no, I'm a bad and incapable mother and partner because despite having stomach issues that were making me ill, depression , insomnia, mental exhaustion, high anxiety from his sheer nastiness and refusal to understand how tricky life is with a toddler at home all the time and a SN child, the house wasn't to his standards.

Oh god frog what an arsehole. Does he live in a shit tip now, or has he found another cleaning fairy to meet his standards?

My ex did bits, usually when asked, washing up, a bit of cooking, some shopping, occasional hoovering. His speciality was to come and tell me about something. Did I know x was a bit dirty, or he'd just found a needle in the carpet. I'd say if you're that bothered do something about it, don't come and tell me. In retrospect he did pull his weight in many ways, but it's only now I see how sexist he was when it came to the house.

His mum is the epitome of a 1950's housewife, so he just assumed I'd be the same. I have sweet memories at the end of telling him I wasn't his fucking mum and perhaps he should have stayed at home with her.

Purple and Lilac. I have told my children, as appropriately as possible, exactly what their grandparents (in laws) are like, particularly in my case their gf. I have made it quite clear what his role in our troubles have been. I've told them they can say what they like to him, that he is a liar, and not a good person. They were never particularly close to him anyway - he's an old fashioned arse - which made it easier.

I said I was sorry that they had to know this, but that they should know now so that they didn't look back and think their childhood with him had been a lie. Luckily they don't see them that much anymore. They both suffer with health problems, many stress and life style related. In his case this gives me a certain amount of satisfaction. I would normally be ashamed to write something like that, but he deserves nothing but my hatred. I chose to give him nothing at all, to save myself the trouble of hating him.

At one point during our relationship I was going to school full-time (language classes), working part time after school for 3-6 hours each day, and he still expected me to do all the cooking and cleaning at home. He, however, was unemployed and spent all his time at home. The last 6 months before I left him we lived in a house in the countryside that had only wood heating - every morning I'd get up in the freezing cold (usually below 10 degrees inside by morning) and light the kitchen fire to get some warmth going, then take DD (very very young toddler) down to the barn to collect firewood which I'd have to push up the hill on a sled (about 6-8 banana crates full of wood) and then I'd still have all the cooking and cleaning to do - meanwhile my ex would be fast asleep and would eventually get out of bed in the late afternoon/early evening (I was expected to keep DD fairly quiet during this time - while we shivered in the cold house) and then he'd finally do the one job he actually did, which was light the bedroom and lounge fires. He'd then stay up all night but still not actually deal with DD when she woke in the night, which was frequently.

Being a single parent was a hell of a lot less work than being with him!!!

I have memories of him having a 'bone to pick with me' because I'd blunted his favourite knife, telling me 'he'd given up on me' washing his clothes properly when I always did them exactly how he had asked until he told me he wasn't bothered anymore (months later he brought that up citing my lack of being able to cope with his instructions - he wanted them washed just using softener FFS, which wasn't a bother to me at all and an easy task and yet he couldn't manage to ensure stains were treated before shoving family washin in and they setting the stains in the dryer making them even harder and more time consuming for me to remove and frequently ruining items of clothes by mixing whites and darks or shoving them in the drier on high heat) and him running his finger along things, inspecting the end of his finger and explaining 'eww' in front of me) Clearly, despite his claiming he wasn't a 1950's man with a 'wife work' attitude that's exactly what he was.

And I remember the first few months of our child's life that he frequently laid in until 12pm - I figured he needed it, our child coming along had been a big shock to him and quite and adjustment and he got up around 5 am to go to work. I never said a word to him about it - fast forward 18 months when I had gone downhill because of his increasing unpleasantness and he is this martyr who had to do everything (bollocks) and I'm completely incapable.

Nice - I have no idea how he lives now but he is very particular unless there's someone there to pick up for him. Taking his ditty laundry to the basket was me simply nagging him.

Bloody hell Natsku, that sounds like something out of the Middle Ages! Where the hell does all this sense of entitlement come from?

I'm really tough on my dc about leaving their stuff around, especially if it's in other people's way. I've gone on and on as to how it's not about being a clean freak, but about respect. If they leave their underwear on the bedroom floor, having been asked several times to put it in the basket, I say you are being disrespectful to me as well as lazy. I am not the default housemaid.

I'm determined that they will not grow up to think the woman is automatically the one who runs around after the man. I can't bear the thought for dd, and don't want ds to be the idiot in his relationship.

Hard to strike a balance with preparing them for how people are/can be difficult, with letting them be innocent and find stuff out for themselves.

That's good that you're teaching them that nice I need to teach DD that too.

I used to think my ex's behaviour was down to a difficult childhood growing up in Kenya and being sent to boarding school at the age of seven... until I found out last year that it was all lies as the official records showed that he moved back to Finland when he was 3 years old. I can't believe he made up his entire childhood! He said things about being burgled by men with guns, and being caught up in a civil war and being treated badly at boarding school and shit like that but it was a pack of lies. He also claimed he was abused and tortured in the psychiatric hospital which I believed for too long until the stories became wilder.

Thanks for the support. This thread is amazing as my STBXH is a complete twat and his mum is crazy.

There was a moment today when I felt a suffocating feeling of being stifled as a women are we in the 21st century?.

Ex told me DD was a liar as his Mum denied horrible comments (poor DD then said even worse things she'd kept back in bid to prove her obvious innocence). He also said that he definitely won't have DCs overnight as doesn't owe me favours. It's as though I'm the woman so I have the DCs and if anything is wrong I should put up and shut up.

I love my DCs, but I want a life too. I've been seeing someone for a month, but can only see him in the day midweek or one day a weekend. Otherwise my Mum helps but she's not confident having the 2 DCs at night at hers as my youngest (6 and has SN) can be hard to settle.

Is it possible to have a horrible ex and have a new relationship?

Lilacpink - totally possible, I've been with my DP for 18 months now. His ex is a complete nightmare and so is mine!!

Natsku - my exh also told hundreds of lies about his past. I think they tell the lies so often that they genuinely think they're true. My ex described a car crash in which his gf died in great detail, both to myself and separately to a now ex friend of his. His mum. Informed several years later that said gf is alive and well ...

Chloe that's good to hear

My ex is validated by his mum. His lies aren't lies, they're him having to defend himself (incl. affair for 6 months until I found out). It was wrong for me to ask him to have DCs overnight, that was just me being bitter ex wanting to go to the gym.

Do others find their ex's have support network for lying?

lilac yes, unfortunately. He's totally enabled by his mum. He also behaves very much like yours in that I'm the woman so all child related issues are mine alone. It was one of the many reasons I left! "Doesn't owe me favours" yes that's exactly how he sees it!

I also struggle with having a new relationship. I've been trying to see someone but can only do that when DC not with me (as unlike ex I am not going to introduce someone new at the drop of a hat) but he is so awkward with contact that I haven't been able to for a while. It makes me sad but I'll always put DC first. While he does whatever he wants as usual.

Green it's strange and refreshing to have a place where others understand. My friends just think my ex is crazy, some have lazy or annoying DHs, but not manipulative, entitled DHs.

Worst thing is that I still have some doubt in me. Was it my fault? Did I do something to make him the way he was?

I know it's wrong, but almost 2 decades with him have left me a bit skewed!

Lilac you didn't make him like that. Nobody deserves this treatment.

I've had those doubts too, maybe I brought it out in him, maybe he won't do it to his future partners because they'll be better. It's all those years of being told how bad we are, how other women are better, other men wouldn't put up with us, we're all the things they actually are, being conditioned to doubt ourselves and our judgement. I'm lucky, if that's the right word, because I (now) know for sure that he did the same to women who came before me, so I know I didn't cause it. And neither did you, or anyone else in this situation.

Thanks green. If he did it to others you're right I'd know for sure that it wasn't me. He still gaslights situations so I feel guilty around him. When he said my DD had been lying, and his MIL hadn't said horrible things, he twisted things so for a moment I doubted DD. Then I remembered how DD had recalled things in detail and they fitted with the way my ex MIL would nastily describe others.

DD spends time with her dad as knows I need a break, but I'm not sure she would if she had an alternative and that makes me feel bad (she's with her younger brother so isn't alone).

I think it's getting worse not better. As though he's determined to catch me out on something to even the balance with his bad behaviour.

Makes me laugh reading all the housework posts - I worked FT so did he but I still managed to do all the cooking and cleaning, he didn't lift a finger.
Now he's got his own house, who does his cleaning and ironing... his fucking mother!!!
She wouldn't come and help me though would she when I'm trying to run a busy house/kids and working, but she'd do his sisters ironing who didn't have any kids and lived round the corner from us..ffs!!

I work part time but when home I had to let my ex know what I was doing in house or for family or he'd get in mood. My friends would say our home was so clean and tidy but he'd call it a dump.

Now I can spend some time doing things I like without guilt that I haven't vacuumed for a few days. I agree housework can be another control issue!

I'll never forget being at the sink fighting tears because I had a small child asking for attention and knowing if I gave it and didn't finish the dishes I'd pay for it when he got home.

DC always came first so I left the dishes. And he kicked off about it (still not sure why as it's not like it was him who eventually washed the damn things, which I could have done a lot sooner if he hadn't started raising hell about it)

He's just gaslighted (gaslit?) me again, I felt the familiar helpless frustration rising but it has been a good reminder of what a lying controlling unreasonable bully he is.

It's amazing how they manage to take hold of our actions.

Mine used to complain about the state of the house: I was having to regularly stop what I was doing to tend to the children (mainly our toddler) and yet he claims that on top of me being a terrible housekeeper I also did nothing but ignore our toddler.

I like to think about how much my ex must struggle without someone to cook and clean and pay the bills - he's had his electricity switched off a few times already for not paying bills.

Met with DD's social workers today and they reassured me that I am perfectly within my rights to deny unsupervised visitation when ex's mental health is bad, and I can hang up the phone if he starts asking DD about visitation.