The reverse and another perspective

[SandyY2K]

I saw this on another forum and a lot of the content sounded so familiar in terms of what SMs say.

Are you quick to assume your stepkid’s mum is High-Conflict, just because she challenges an opinion or decision of your husband’s?

Do you read every email/text between her and your husband? Are you helping him craft every response? Are you responding on his behalf?

Have you put rules in place about how often, or by what means, your husband is allowed to communicate with her?

Do you think you’re a better parent than her? More importantly, do you tell people that?

Do you badmouth her in public? To colleagues? In-laws? In front of the kids?

Is everything her fault? Do you think that your life would be “perfect” if she wasn’t in the picture?

Do you demand to attend all exchanges, school functions, or sporting events if she is going to be there? Even if you know it could cause extreme conflict? But, just because you want your presence known?

Tips to become a Low-Conflict Stepmom

In all decision making, consider her perspective. Your take on a situation is not always right, and sometimes, more heads are better than one.A difference of opinion in parenting does not mean that she is “high-conflict.

She was high-conflict before I came on the scene. Stayed the same when she didn't know DP and I were dating.

Now her conflict is still pretty high, although depends on how happy she is in her life (whether there is a man on scene, etc) - nothing to do with my interaction/opinion of her.

I am responsible for my interactions with others, she is responsible/can own hers.

No to all, except possibly "thinking I'm a better mum" - I do disagree with a lot of DSS's mum's parenting decisions, but I recognise that it's just a difference in opinion, and she happens to be the only other person's parenting for which I have such a front row seat.

I would say though that a similar list could easily be written in reverse. It's a little goady to only acknowledge one side.

I didn’t think anything negative about my SD’s mum at all for the first 2 years of my relationship with DP. In fact we were quite friendly and I would help her out with childcare etc. I say her because it was for her, DP and I didn’t live together and I would have youngest SD in particular a lot for play dates with my DD.

One day she announced she was dating my friend’s ex husband, decided she therefore hated my friend and called me to demand I wouldn’t be friends with her. I of course refused, which sparked the ongoing chain on events which has ultimately lead to her being consistently vile to me.

I think she’s high conflict because she is.

She’s always been quite high conflict with my DP. She’s polite to a point as long as she’s getting things exactly her way. If DP says no or has a different opinion then she unleashes a beast.

She has turned up at my house screaming abuse, called me names and swore at me… all whilst I held a dignified silence.

I come on MN to rant because I don’t do it in real life. I’m calm, measured and have always taken a “kill them with kindness” approach.

It’s hard to see it from her perspective because I cannot fathom how one person can be so disordered or unreasonable in their thinking and behaviour.

I have to admit though, I do think I’m a better mum than her. Her behaviour has damaged her children and she enjoys using them as pawns.

But don’t most people think the way they parent is the right way to do things?? I think I’m a better mum than many people, not just DP’s ex because I’m adhering to my own set of values which I think are right.

Ha ha nope I came into it with an open mind and a naive idea we could even be friends, then I found out what a raving looney she was

In all decision making, consider her perspective.

Imagine the response if a step mum posted that women should consider the perspective of the child's step mum in all decision making!!

I think a bit of empathy and assuming good intentions from both mums and step mums goes a long way in creating a low-conflict situation.

Are you quick to assume your stepkid’s mum is High-Conflict, just because she challenges an opinion or decision of your husband’s?

No. I know she is high conflict because of her extreme/ unrelenting behaviour

Do you read every email/text between her and your husband? Are you helping him craft every response? Are you responding on his behalf?

nope. I have a life and given He married and procreated with crazy, she’s his problem

Have you put rules in place about how often, or by what means, your husband is allowed to communicate with her?

Nope. The professionals did.

Do you think you’re a better parent than her? More importantly, do you tell people that?

yes I do think I am a better parent than her. Her behaviour is causing very real emotional harm to her own children. Do I tell people? Again, no, She’s not my issue and don’t talk about her to anyone. Why would I?

Do you badmouth her in public? To colleagues? In-laws? In front of the kids?

nope. Crazy makes herself look like the piece of work she is all by her lonesome

Is everything her fault? Do you think that your life would be “perfect” if she wasn’t in the picture?

nope. My life is far from perfect and I don’t let her impact my day to day one iota

Do you demand to attend all exchanges, school functions, or sporting events if she is going to be there? Even if you know it could cause extreme conflict? But, just because you want your presence known?

not a chance, I would rather stick pins in my eyes

To be clear about high conflict people. They is no reasoning with them. There is no settling with them. Empathy is considered a weakness.
The mistake people think is that high conflict people can be reasoned with. The only acceptable response to conflict is none. Literally play dead and give them no oxygen.

It’s taken me a long time to get to where I am, she means nothing to me and takes up zero headspace.

There are a couple I see as a regular, which are everything would be great without her and the putting rules in place for how he speaks to her.

Although the latter tends to be called boundaries by SPs.

Crafting responses comes up a bit too. In fact, when a mum said she wanted to deal with her Ex regarding the child and not the SM...SM wasn't too happy and another poster, said her DH should tell divert his Ex to SM for whatever child related issue it was.

I'm observing a lot more high conflict Stepmums in US forums tbh. MN SMs on the whole are very LC in comparison.

I would say though that a similar list could easily be written in reverse. It's a little goady to only acknowledge one side.

I'm not the original author.

I'm observing a lot more high conflict Stepmums in US forums tbh. MN SMs on the whole are very LC in comparison.

Target this at them then.

This is like posting on Lone parents asking them to have more empathy with their DC’s dads as they’re probably a bit misunderstood.

Comes across as pretty patronising. You might not have written it but you’ve chosen to post it.

I’m not sure why anyone’s defending themselves.

Consider her perspective. Oh I've considered it many a time. I still can't understand it.

I'll never understand a woman who uses her child to get one over on her ex.

I've heard her screaming on the phone at him calling him a cunt and seen the texts where she slags him off for alienating the kids. Have also seen the kids crying on the phone because she has gone out and not come home (drunk or high) and have spent more than enough time with her in person while she sits on her lazy arse drinking while we do all the cooking and clearing up. Have listened to her mum saying how awful she is and have watched while she allowed her mum to be made homeless rather than invite her to stay. Have seen her gushing facebook posts where she pretends she's mum of the fucking year, while her kids ask their dad if its ok for them not to see her anymore.

I'm ok thanks. Couldn't put myself in her shoes if I tried. A woman who is happy to never have her kids stay at her house because she'd rather hang out with her druggy friends or her violent drunk boyfriend is not someone whose perspective I need to see.

nope. I have a life and given He married and procreated with crazy, she’s his problem love this! Very much my attitude too - not my circus, not my monkeys.

I think things work better when both parties are free to parent their children as they choose. I think children really only need their parents making parental decisions . As long as my husband provides his share of our mutually agreed upon household budget, I do ask nor do I care how much he spends on or gives to his children and he extends that same courtesy to me. I have no interests in his ex wife' s employment status. I happen to know it, but it really is nothing that has anything to do with me or our life together. Neither of us cares how often we speak to our children's other parent. We both recognize and accept the fact that people who have children together will often need to communicate. Neither of us monitors the other' s communication with anyone.

I think that his children are polite, engaging, and well reared. His children ask for lots of things but so do my children. I support whatever decisions he makes regarding his children because ultimately he and their mother are the parents and I am just a supportive observer of that process. He pretty much functions the same way in relation to my children.

I think because we try to respect each others right to parent and recognize they we each only want what's best for all of the kids, there is not much conflict in the areas of both individual and co-parenting.

I would drive myself mad and have to invest a hell of a lot of time, which I don’t have to spare, to do all those things. I really don’t care re their communication, in fact my DH would often screenshot her BS tantrums and send them to me - I asked him to stop because I didn’t want that intrusion in my day. My role is to support DH as his wife, I don’t see myself as some sort of management of his comms. I think there’s as much chance of aliens landing in my garden as anything untoward going on in messages so why should I care?

The Mother still has BS tantrums, because is high conflict - seriously this woman can and has had an argument with herself on our doorstep and managed to reach a resolution without a single word from me or DH. It’s quite bizarre to witness. She struggles to hold down friendships, relationships and jobs. I don’t. The fact she is high conflict is why she is an exW. I guess that’s probably true of a lot of couples.

I don’t think she’s a great parent, but I don’t envy her life and if she wasn’t on the scene I’d be stuck with her badly parented child so I’d much prefer she stuck around.

She does have moments of clarity and if I feel DH is being unreasonable, which sometimes he is, I tell him so.

I think a lot of what keeps me sane is being relatively objective. The exW is less DH’s ex wife and more DSC’s Mum.

@SandyY2K

There are a couple I see as a regular, which are everything would be great without her and the putting rules in place for how he speaks to her.

Although the latter tends to be called boundaries by SPs.

Crafting responses comes up a bit too. In fact, when a mum said she wanted to deal with her Ex regarding the child and not the SM...SM wasn't too happy and another poster, said her DH should tell divert his Ex to SM for whatever child related issue it was.

I'm observing a lot more high conflict Stepmums in US forums tbh. MN SMs on the whole are very LC in comparison.

I would say though that a similar list could easily be written in reverse. It's a little goady to only acknowledge one side.

I'm not the original author.

I think you quite often see people suggesting rules about how he speaks to her as a mutually agreed upon stonewall against escalating abuse or sexual advances from the ex. I don't feel like I often see it without that kind of backstory and I've certainly never seen suggestions that the ex should go through the SM about child related matters. It's far more common on this forum at least to see SP asking to keep OUT of such things.

I agree you do see people saying everything would be great without her quite often, though, which is not a sentiment I personally share, but it is quite understandable given it's usually a case with a very high conflict ex.

What both parties often fail is to accept that there can be two different perspective to one situation, because of minute I formation one might not have that makes a significant difference, or just because very often, there isn't one right or wrong situation.

It's easy to assume that the way we interpret a situation is the reality of that situation. It's not specific to SM/ex, it applies to any relationship.

This is something I'm trying hard to work on. If I don't agree on the way someone handles a situation, instead of focusing on justifying why I think it's wrong so that it does become wrong, I try to focus on why they would take that approach, what factors might I fluence their position/belief.

Let's face it, it's not easy. It goes against nature and self protection, but I have found that I'm a lot happier and more at peace with myself and others since I started doing so.

Coming in MN or getting together with best friend to moan and seek gratification and sympathy doesn't help. It provides a false sense of reality over the situation and ultimately justifies conflict.

I was certain guilty of all of it in relation to my kids SM when they were little. So did she. Nothing horrible but certainly conflict. I look back and realise that what seemed facts about her behaviour then were distorted facts, sane with her views about me.

We are not in contact at all but there is an unspoken mutual respect. I look forward to getting to know her better at my kids weddings, birth if grand children etc...life is too short to fuel on conflict and seek constant justification that our views and actions are always correct.

@Tattler2 I feel like your post on here and on my thread are passive aggressive digs at me.

I would not care about how much my DP gives his children or his ex’s employment status if it wasn’t having a direct negative impact on me.

I also noticed that after I answered your questions (and some accusatory remarks) I neither got an apology or any empathy / understanding.

It’s very telling about who you are as a person to be honest.

I have no conflict with me ex, we coparent very well and are friendly. The same with my ex-ILs.
The issue here is not with me but a wider dynamic that surrounds the people I love and care about, which has a domino effect on our financial situation and household harmony.

Unfortunately I have learned the hard way that not everybody behaves/responds rationally and reasonably even when presented with reasonable actions from others. There are people who exist with a perception of entitlement and view themselves as the “hard done by” party when they don’t get everything their way.

You’re lucky you haven’t encountered people like this. I have no control over my DP’s ex girlfriend’s behaviour but I do have control over how I allow it to impact my family, my relationship and my finances.

@SandyY2K you're making an interesting point.

It's never easy for separated families, as there are all the complexities that naturally come with 2 families trying to co-operate across a range of topics in life. Compromise is inevitably going to be needed. Reasonable people make balanced choices considering all parties concerned. Add emotion, or if there's bad feelings lingering, it's going to be tougher to achieve this. Add a high conflict person, well there's no good outcome with this kind of person so everyone just has to suffer on an ongoing basis. These kind of people don't care about collateral damage whether they are an ex-wife or a step mother, or neither. It just royally sucks to have such a person in your life especially when not by choice!

@AnneLovesGilbert

I'm observing a lot more high conflict Stepmums in US forums tbh. MN SMs on the whole are very LC in comparison.

Target this at them then.

This is like posting on Lone parents asking them to have more empathy with their DC’s dads as they’re probably a bit misunderstood.

Comes across as pretty patronising. You might not have written it but you’ve chosen to post it.

I’m not sure why anyone’s defending themselves.

This

@SpongebobNoPants
My apologies, in responding to this post, I never thought about you or any of your posts. I thought only about what seemed to be some fairly recurrent themes.

I have frequently been surprised by the number of posters who reference the fact that the ex does not work or how much money " extra " that the new partner/spouse gives to his children. Another recurrent theme that I noticed was how often the partner spoke to his ex and what they discussed.

It seemed to me that many of these issues could be easily avoided. Tbh, I still can't wrap my head around some of those issues as things that would make my relationship better if I concerned myself with them.

I never intended to spend so much time on this forum, but I have come to wonder if something is wrong with me because I can and do try to stay in what I believe to be my lane In our relationship.

Ultimately, this is meant to be a learning experience for me. My thoughts are just about how I operate .They are not meant to be critical of how anyone else manages their life or relationship.

Sorry, if I offended you. I have always had a need to be fiercely independent and capable of doing it on my own that I sometimes am not as tolerant as of others as I should be.

I'll never understand a woman who uses her child to get one over on her ex.

It actually should be -

I'll never understand a parent who abuses their child to get one over on their ex.

As it includes Disney Dads as well as high conflict mothers of step children.

@RedMarauder

I'll never understand a woman who uses her child to get one over on her ex.

It actually should be -

I'll never understand a parent who abuses their child to get one over on their ex.

As it includes Disney Dads as well as high conflict mothers of step children.

Well yes @RedMarauder but that wasn't the subject of the thread.

I am obviously very obtuse as has been pointed out to me several times lately on this forum, but I do not understand how a child or an ex saying to the other parent our child needs or wants x ,y, or z is true to put one over on the other parent.

There are really only 2 people who should be focused on the needs and wants of children, and those 2 people are the parents . How is it at all possible that my husband/partner is being taken advantage of when he is made aware of the needs and wants of his children? Were my ex unable to provide something that my children needed or wanted, I would certainly expect that he would turn to me. He and I are the only 2 people that are obligated to address the needs and sometimes wants of our children.

How are why is that inappropriate? Please know that I ask this question with all sincerity.

As I made the one over comment I'll answer this.

How is it at all possible that my husband/partner is being taken advantage of when he is made aware of the needs and wants of his children?

That's not what's happening in many situations. When I say "get over over" I don't mean she's asking to swap weekends or she's telling dp that dss needs new shoes or asking for money towards a school trip, all of those things are fine and never an issue.

The sorts of things I'm referring to is basically using the child to get to him, like stopping contact when he doesn't do what she wants. Examples have been, leave me, only see dss at her house, let her use his PayPal account. She has swapped contact to his working days so that he couldn't see dss. She has told dss that his dad no longer loves him. She has told dss that ds is not his sibling.

None of these things are in dss best interest, but she knows she can get to dp via his child. She can't get to him directly, so that's what she does.