Recovery from dysfunctional step families support thread

[SnowWhitesSM]

This thread is for anyone seeking support and wanting to share their WTF moments now they're out of the dysfunctional dynamics of step families where there's the classics of - Disney dadding, dad guilt, over compensating, exes on power trips, not being able to share a bed with your husband, loyalty binds, feeling guilty about your own dc.

Please post any articles you want to share, any insights, any thoughts you've had now you've reclaimed your power and voice in your own home again.

We did not deserve to be in the middle of their dysfunction. We did not deserve to be the scapegoat for their mess of a family. We did not deserve to be painted as a monster for wanting basic boundaries and house rules. We are no longer the unpaid nanny 👊

Evening all

Hope you're all doing ok.

I see so much of my ex h in these posts. I don't believe he has npd but he isn't able to accept any feelings that aren't comfortable about himself and then lashes out. He also wishes that I was the nurturer and care giver to him and his son, that I parented my dc without taking away any of that, and still worked ft and contributed 50/50. His needs came first. When they didn't he didn't have the emotional capacity to cope.

I'm more sad about the ending of my marriage rather than never seeing him again. I feel like I've failed even though I know it's not me. One part of me wanted to be that traditional mum and wife. I wanted to cook, bake and make our lives run smoothly. I wanted to be happy and make the times his ds came over fun and loving and stress free. I wanted to build that family life. My work needs (and I get a lot from my job, I love using my brain) and my dcs needs meant that I couldn't do that. Because I wouldn't be there, or I'd be working late at home, or my dc needed my attention, or I didnt start dinner or not even thought about it, because of that he resented me. He thought that by getting married he'd have me to help him have a better life. But I had my own life going on. I wasn't seen as a person like him. I wasn't seen as part of him, my needs weren't seen the same as his and then his sons as an extension.

I needed him to see my needs as equal to his. I needed him to have the emotional capacity to have curiosity if I was upset, not to become emotionally dysregulated because I was upset about a need of mine not being met.

I've been really sad the last couple of days. Really really really sad. I feel like I've gone backwards a bit. I just don't understand why he couldn't have treated me more kindly.

Oh @SnowWhitesSM that is so hard & I get it. I really do. It's so so hard when you feel like you just weren't important enough; like you just don't matter.
One thing my therapist said to me that has always stayed with me is that while it feels personal it really isn't because personality type is incapable of putting anyone else on an equal or more important footing than themselves. It might seem like they prioritise their dc but in reality that apparent prioritising is something they do (some consciously & some subconsciously) in order to promote themselves as perfect, selfless parents; they're not actually doing things for the good of the dc; they just want the dc to worship them & be a reflection of their wonderfulness as a parent. In their heads everything is about them or a reflection of them & they turn off the love bombing the minute their 'target' begins to see the light. I would almost guarantee that your sds will receive similar treatment once he gets older & wants to break away from his dad.
In truth this type of person has a gaping hole inside of them that can never be filled because no one will ever live up to the standard in which they believe they should be treated.
I'm sure you ARE creating a wonderful home for you & your dc (after my exh left our home became a much happier place) & once you're out the far side of this you'll see that you're doing & great job.

Thank you @Magda72 I logically know it's not personal. I know it, I just don't know it on my insides. I think - why couldn't you just have considered me more, just a bit more. Why couldn't you have had empathy for me instead of twisting it all back on me. Why couldn't you just have taken some accountability. I wouldn't have thrown him out if he could have done that.

With his ds - he's deluded tbh. He has made up this super close relationship ideal in his head about him and his ds. It's a load of bollocks. His son doesn't want to see him half the time and he forces him to. He actually forces him to say love you too - if he doesn't his pocket money gets docked.. it's so mentally exhausting unpicking it.

I just wanted to be married to him and make things work. I know that it's the marriage I'm missing rather than him. It still hurts.

@SnowWhitesSM when your Ex says you need to sort your parenting out he means you need to change it to be sitter than his so you can frame himself as the better parent.

He continues to DARVO and gaslight and lie at every opportunity.

Toast I can't believe you've survived that for so long on

It sounds like you are desperately missing what you hoped the marriage would be. And that’s totally understandable.

You tried really hard. But it’s not something only one party to can make work.

You should never have been in any position where you felt as if you were failing at family life because you were being a mother to your children and you had a career. Particularly the former. The problem is that you were living with someone whose concept of family seemed to make your children not part of that. Not properly. Attending to the needs of your children is doing family the right way.

In contrast, forcing your child to see you and docking their pocket money because they don’t say they love you… that’s just ridiculous.

Kids don’t thrive in these dysfunctional dynamics. They need their parents to be consistent and to give them strong boundaries. You know that makes children feel safe. That’s why you are that parent for your children. But there was no way you could ever have filled that gap for your SS when his father is so unable to see or care about anything other than himself (and the extensions he projects himself on to).

@Magda72’s therapist explained it really well. You’re left wondering why he wouldn’t do the perfectly reasonable things you needed precisely because you don’t think like this kind of person. It makes no sense to the vast majority of people.

I know he does @RandomMess I just don't know why. Is he really that insecure he can't just say sorry. He'd rather not be with me than take responsibility for his shit. It feels quite rejecting even though it was me who ended it.

Toast - you're so right. He didn't see my dc as family but wanted me to "love" his son and see him as "ours". Thats the gaslight right. He said living with my teenagers was like living with two other adults who didn't act like adults but had everything paid for them.

He's a dick. I'm ok, I will be OK. I'm just in my sad feelings tonight. Going to go to sleep so I don't unblock him

Well done for going to sleep and not unblocking him @SnowWhitesSM.

I don’t think you can properly understand him. Even with an explanation, it’s likely that his thought processes are so alien to you that it still won’t make sense. Not in any way you can relate to anyway.

How are you feeling this morning?

Thank you @BurntToastAgain I still miss him today but I'm not doing anything about it. It's ok to miss someone. This feeling will pass, it's not a permanent feeling. In a few weeks I'll be feeling a lot better.

That’s a really good attitude to have towards it. The feelings will diminish and become much easier to live with.

Sometimes it’s just sad. And it’s good to let yourself feel that rather than blaming or judging yourself for feeling that way.

Thank you!

How are you? What's going on with you and him seeing the baby ect?

I don’t think you can properly understand him. Even with an explanation, it’s likely that his thought processes are so alien to you that it still won’t make sense. Not in any way you can relate to anyway.
This I completely agree with @BurntToastAgain
To this day I still don't understand my exh. We coparent just fine as because I am no longer emotionally involved with him I can 'manage' him if/when he gets tricky as can my dc who all have good relationships with him but who have all been to therapy in order to obtain the tools to deal with him.
We generally have the same values re education etc. which helps but honestly? his thought processes around alot of things bewilder both me & the dc - he really does operate on a different wavelength & after years of torturing myself with 'Whys' I eventually just learned to accept that I was never going to understand why he behaved towards me as he did.
It's a horrible place to be as I do think we process things better when we can understand them.
I hope you're all doing a bit better today.

@SnowWhitesSM I’m so sorry that you’re feeling so sad. It’s inevitable and you wouldn’t be a lovely human being if you didn’t feel what you’re feeling right now. When I was in your spot journaling really helped. I just poured everything out onto a page. When I look back on some of what I wrote, it’s helpful actually. As I can see how much raw pain I was in, but I can also see how much progress I have made in terms of recovery. I don’t feel anywhere as low as I felt even weeks ago.

In terms of feeling like a failure about the marriage. Eventually, when you’re ready, I really ask you to turn that on its head. Because (certainly in my view), the failure would have been to stay as you were and allow yourself and your children to be treated the way you were. You should commend yourself for having the guts to do what you have done. It isn’t easy and none of us on here underestimate any part of how hard this is.

I Think you’re naturally grieving the loss of what you thought there was. A life with the man you met and the future you saw with that man. I know that’s where I got caught up (and I wasn’t even married to him fgs). It must be so hard. All I can say is that none of this is you. It’s him.

He changed when you married him and he moved in. This sadly is more common than people realise. Because he had you, he no longer had to mask the real him. And the real him, is the man you see in front of you. Sadly, not the man you met.
The man he is, is devoid of empathy and compassion. He doesn’t have those qualities.
He won’t take responsibility for his part in this, because that’s intolerable. If he pulls at that thread, his carefully crafted facade of ‘he’s perfect’ will come tumbling down and he would have the face the truth. That’s incomprehensible to people like him. And they will fight (hard) against anything that challenges that internal narrative of ‘I’m fine, everyone else is the problem’.

Re the view of your children? Nearly adults that don’t act like adults but don’t pay? That’s awful and in your shoes I would spend some time unpicking that. Children are children to their parents, irrespective of age. Most people would be proud of how your children are growing up (certainly based on how you’ve described them on here). They sound respectful, responsible and pull their weight with you around the house and you’re a team. That’s amazing.

What he is doing is undermining all of that. And trying to make the children in the home who are respectful to (sorry to say this), leeches feeding off you/ possibly him. Completely removing the ‘child’ element and attempting to put them in a very different box. Why? So that his DS could take prime position in your house as ‘child’. He, at no level was factoring in the needs of your children, in actually fact he was actively diminishing them so that his child could be pushed up the pedestal.

That comment is very revealing. And it shows that deep down he had a deep level of resentment towards your children and what you did for them. Jealousy potentially even. As you paying them attention took away from you paying him (and by proxy his DS) attention.

He’s really not very kind.

I started to see very similar towards the end with my exp. When he bought up finances (he was pushing by this point for assets to be pooled) and I (obviously) refused. And bluntly informed him that my money was for my retirement and if possible to help my children. He quizzed on the latter part. And I replied that if I could help them with flat deposits when they were older I would love to be able to do that. His response was quite hard and abrupt. He could not believe I would even consider supporting adult children (over a partner), that it was their responsibility to stand on their own two feet as adults. That no one had helped him etc.

I replied. Well I won’t support any partner because in MY view it’s their responsibility as an adult to have sufficiently saved for their own retirement, not mine and not one penny will go towards supporting a partner. And second of all if you feel that way, then don’t help your own children as adults and that’s entirely your choice as a parent to do so. But don’t think for a second that you get to tell me how I spend my money.

It was illuminating. He genuinely expected me to say ‘my priority financially, will be supporting you.’

They are really good points @sassbott. I had a related and equally horrifying/frustrating/enlightening conversation with my H earlier in the year.

For some reason the topic of university finances came up. No idea why because none of them are likely to go any time soon. Regardless, it transpired that he would be completely unwilling to support my son through university (or to have me spend ‘family money’ doing so). Even paying the parental contribution part of the calculation. Regardless of the fact that DS’s calculation would be based on our household income. And therefore he would be missing out on loan entitlement because of H’s salary.

At the same time, he was adamant that he would support his children through university as much as he liked. The fact that it would be ‘family money’ didn’t apply there (because what’s his is his and what’s mine is family money clearly). Nor did the fact that their loan entitlements would be based on their mother’s household income, and she will never work if she can help it. So the likelihood would be that they’d get maximum student support entitlement with no parental contribution and then their high earning father using our household resources to support them.

In contrast my DS would be doubly disadvantaged because he’d get the maximum parental contribution in his entitlement but H would refuse to allow him to have that contribution. Never mind the additional support he’d give to his children.

Just awful.

I mean, it may well not have been a consideration because the SC are growing up in a household where education and qualifications and careers are not valued at all. And that is likely to have considerable influence on them.

Their father is weirdly ambivalent and inconsistent about it. He places enormous value on his degree and him getting a first etc, but dismisses my education - I have a degree and used to be an academic - on some variation of the trope that academia is worthless and industry/university of life is far more valuable. So who knows what impact that mind messing logic will have on them.

Whereas DS is likely to want to go to university - he’s smart, he has ambitions, both his parents value education and learning (and qualifications and development) extremely highly.

But the inequality and unfairness in the principle… just awful. And so telling of his perception of the world. His children - as extensions of him - should be entitled to everything as default. And anything I have (time, money, knowledge) should be directed towards him and his proxies. I should not be supporting my son - even with my own resources - because it might detract from that.

The same logic applied in all sorts of different guises across all aspects of life. And weirdly, seems to apply to the SC in ways that it doesn’t even apply to our child. He’s somehow less important.

@SnowWhitesSM

Thank you!

How are you? What's going on with you and him seeing the baby ect?

He’s been round to see the baby. I just keep out of the way.

His expectations around contact are unreasonable. But that’s for court I think (mediation will not work; I’ve already tried shuttle mediation and they wrote it off as impossible for the court). He actually thinks it’s reasonable to demand that he stays overnight in my house one night a week so he can do nursery runs etc - because the baby will be breastfed for at least another 7 months and that happens at bedtime/in the morning.

On some level, he’s considering DS’s needs. He’s breastfed. It’s valuable to him. I’m willing to do it until DS is 2 as per ideal guidance. He’s never spent a night away from me. But his father’s way of meeting his needs is so ridiculously unreasonable and based in his sense of entitlement.

The man has never gotten up in the night with this child. Ever. Not once.

@BurntToastAgain remind me. Do you have a DS who is yours? And then a shared child? Or is the DS you refer to your shared child? Just the one child? I’m trying to understand if his rhetoric about uni fees is towards your son or his shared child with you.

Re the suggestion he’s putting forward? It’s a tough one actually. I’m not sure how I would feel having an ex stay in my home once a week (it would feel hugely invasive). But I can see on the flip that it would help the baby as he gets used to your exh being some form of caregiver and then that eases a transition for contact when that starts to happen away from your home. That’s a really tough one and I honestly don’t know what to advise tbh.

My Dc were much older when I split with my exh. And all I can say is it’s a godsend that he has them 3 nights a week. But he also has zero history of abuse and has always been a hands on father.

I actually have three sons. Two are mine. One is ours. The eldest is an adult and no longer lives at home. My DS2 is in secondary school.

His two are primary school aged.

So his logic was about my son vs his children. Nothing was said about our son.

The same logic applies in so much though. Everything - time, money, energy - should go towards what made him feel best about himself. He didn’t (and does not) enjoy his children’s company (it’s hardly surprising, given how he lets them behave). And his guilt about not thinking they’re wonderful/the cognitive dissonance of seeing them as extensions of himself but not liking the way they are tend to drive his priorities. My sons (and particularly DS2 who lives with me) are a problem for him because they might detract from it all being about him (and his proxies).

It’s hard to figure out how DS3 fits in to his world. There’s definitely some element of him feeling less guilty towards him. Partly this is some odd having done it before broken family thing. Partly it’s related to his toxic mother who is delighted we are divorcing but who guilted and still guilts the hell out of him about his first marriage. Partly it’s that he’s a baby and he’s not struggling with not liking the person he’s becoming or his behaviour. Who knows?

It is tough trying to figure out contact. Intrusion v what is best for DS3. I have no idea how to resolve it. I guess it’s a time limited problem though. DS3 is getting bigger all the time.

@BurntToastAgain of course he can't stay in the house.

Once your joint son is over 1 then regardless of whether he's breastfed or not, the judge will regarded it as OK for his father to have him overnight at his father's home.

Just make sure you offer your h a reasonable amount of contact which can all happen outside your home.

Burnt it's not about DS needs, it's so you do the parenting whilst supposedly it's being his time with DS.

Your DS will cope fine with only breastfeeding whilst he's with you. Ex will have to step up to the plate and care for him in he own home all on his own.

Wow that’s quite interesting. So his son unquestionably needs to have full access to the ‘family’ resources. Your sons do not benefit from the same. That’s quite a distinction to be drawn.

This is really random, so you have to excuse if this is off-piste. A good few years ago, a male friend of mine and I were chatting. About dating post divorce etc and he said something very interesting to me. He said ‘you are going to have to be really careful about who you date/ allow near your kids, because you have sons.’ And he went onto explain how some men (and there was research to back this up which if I can find I will) can view another man’s ‘cubs’ (especially if they are male) as a threat. They are a threat to his alpha status in the house and also a constant reminder that another man’s offspring are in his home/ using his resources. The same result wasn’t there if the ‘cub’ was female as the element of ‘competition’ wasn’t there. A lot of it is apparently sub conscious, some of it is conscious. This friend told me that he had never dated a women with older boys. Which floored me. He just said, they too would see me as a threat to their status as alpha male within the home. And it spins off a whole new dynamic that simply doesn’t exist where the children are female.

Honestly it was such a bizarre concept and tbh I still don’t know where I stand on it. Now I absolutely can verify that my exp and my eldest were starting to ‘spar’. Came more from my eldest as he started to try and assert his dominance in my home in front of my exp. Since my exp and I have broken up, certain behaviours have completely stopped in my eldest. Because he certainly isn’t displaying them against me, his mum. But I would have to intervene and have words as I could see what my eldest was doing.

Now by no means do I put all men in this generalised bucket. Anymore than I would put all SM’s in a generalised bucket. There are also men I know of happily raising another man’s children as his own, and never questioning his responsibilities. But it’s an interesting line of thought.

My exp’s pushback on my wanting to help my children as adults was very strong and firm. He clearly felt he was entitled (as a man approaching his fifties) to my money supporting him over and above my money supporting my adult children.

The irony of him being a much older adult who should be more than capable of supporting himself was clearly completely missed on him.

I don’t know with him how much of it was to do with the fact that they were male vs they weren’t his children. And it’s him/ his children/ their needs that he wanted prioritised. Over and above mine.

Had we ‘pooled’ assets he absolutely would have attempted to control where those monies were spent and that would have extended to university and beyond. He would ruthlessly taken from mine to ensure his own nest and children were feathered.

Oh I know that the stupid English courts system is very inconsistent in how it views a child’s ‘needs’. It will just be what it is.

I think he’s aware that he’s moved a reasonable distance (to be near his other children) and it wouldn’t be appropriate to have a toddler travelling that on weekdays (especially given his work commitments - he can’t do pick ups or drop offs without changing his working patterns, and he’s already used all the flexibility in accommodating his other children).

There’s also an issue around him wanting to combine contact with all his kids (at all times) for his convenience. When actually they aren’t full siblings and come from very different households. They actually need to have some relationship with him independent of each other (well the other two are a pair given they always live with each other) as well as some contact with each other. But the courts are so often stupid so 🤷🏻‍♀️.

@sassbott That is really interesting. Actually it might explain why H claims to be ok with my eldest (who neither lives here nor is in any way an alpha male). DS2 is here. He’s in secondary school. He’s sporty. He’s the kind of popular with peers that I think H wishes he could have been as a kid. He probably does seem like a threat in many ways.

Interestingly H regularly tries to claim that I have some issue with his daughter because I can’t cope with another important female in his life (I think this bullshit comes direct from his mother). But it’s really not that.

My problems with his daughter come entirely from how she behaves and how he is with her. He let her treat me with open contempt. And he scapegoated me as a result. Obviously I have a problem with that. I’d have a problem with a boy doing the same. In fact, I find his son’s behaviour as problematic as his daughter’s, but he’s 3 years younger than her and that makes a difference to what you can expect. He isn’t hugely favoured by their entire family in the way his sister is either.

The whole multi-generational dysfunction in that family is a problem and worries me. He doesn’t recognise that there’s a difference between objecting to a dreadful dynamic and the behaviour that is associated with it, and objecting to his daughter in herself. I spoke to him several times about how harmful the golden child/black sheep dynamic is and how he is continuing it as much as their mother and grandmother are. Not only I’m not challenging his mother in particular in her obvious favouritism, but in his own actions.

At one point he was doing bedtimes in such a way that his son got maybe 5 minutes of time with him (and with his sister there) and then his daughter got 90 minutes of one on one time with him. Every single bedtime. As standard. And he’d hold them to the same behavioural standards (in fact, he was more generous about his daughter’s behaviour), which meant that he was punishing a 3 year old for not behaving like a 6 year old. In fact, he was rewarding the 6 year old even though she was behaving poorly for her age - it’s just that he was more obviously kicking off and louder.

The problem there is him.

I should add that his daughter looks a bit like him (she has the same colouring) while his son looks nothing like him at all (he looks exactly like his mum). I don’t think it’s coincidental that he favours his daughter.

MIL massively favours her out of sheet narcissism too. He looks like his mother, and she’s always going on about how SD is exactly like she was when she was her age. I’ve seen the photos; it’s more a vague resemblance. SD and SS both look similar with different colouring. Which is to say, they both look a lot like their mother.

More ridiculously, the baby really, really looks like his dad. Ridiculously so. But MIL claims he looks nothing like him. To the point of denying they have hair the same colour and claiming that his hair is the same colour as mine (objectively it’s not). The woman is twisted.

I’ll add that the SC are not 3 and 6 any longer. But air was a particularly ridiculous example of having the same expectations of children at very different developmental stages - and in fact of expecting more from a 3 year old than a child double his age.

Just unfathomable.

It's all so fucked up @BurntToastAgain. Their family dynamics just aren't healthy.

My ds really liked h but h had similar issues. His were centred on how much dss liked my son. It made him feel jealous/left out/out of control that his son wanted to be around my son more than him.

I've decided I'm going to stop trying to understand why h was such a drip around his kid and just accept that that was the way it was. What you said @Magda72 is very good advice. Even if I unpicked it all I still wouldn't really understand it as his thought process is alien to mine.

Sassbot again thank you for your support and advice and thoughts. What you and all the other posters have done in supporting me has given me enough validation to accept it's not me (well there's a tiny voice but I'm not listening to it).

I've been doing headspace mediations for accepting a break up. These have helped. I've also watched and made notes around my own abandonment wounds with this presentation I really recommend it. I thought I was pretty self aware but this presentation has been really helpful.

Morning all

Happy Saturday! I’m off to the gym then out for lunch/ watching the rugby. Fun day ahead!

@BurntToastAgain I’ve found that the more you try and unpick some of the batshit crazy/ warped behaviour and thinking of some of these people we have encountered, the more bewildering it gets. They don’t think like us, once you understand that, the rest sort of starts to fall into place.

Two things I think may be helpful (based purely on my experience).

1. The children - expectations etc. I would post about this all the time, my exp’s complete inability to have healthy, open communication with his DC. I would look at it and think wtaf is going on here? It was magda who recently pointed out that he didn’t do it because it suited him to not have healthy, robust, independent thinking children. In actual fact it suited him to have children he could manipulate and not question him / his behaviours.

2. The family will inevitably be part of the dysfunction/ contribute to it. My exp’s family never stood up to him. Never. His mother once commented to me in a completely unguarded moment that ‘I know who my son is, he’s just like his dad.’ She divorced him decades ago. So I absolutely believe that the behaviours they see in him (and they’re not blind to it) are the behaviours / dynamics that were set in childhood. And now as adults not one of them has the courage to stand up to him and call Bs on him. Or say no. Who he is was built in his family home - and I would hazard a guess, learned from his father. The remaining women (mother/ sisters) haven’t broken free of that dynamic decades later. Or maybe they have and they manage it because they hardly see him/ there is enough of a geographical distance.

So in summary. Yes, he’ll be repeating the same dysfunction and either knowingly or unknowingly, his family will be contributing to it.

There was an occasion, in public when my exp went off on one at me. In front of my kids, his family (not his kids, they weren’t there). No one stuck up for me or told him he was out of of order. The only person was me - I stood up for myself. If that was to happen today, my eldest would have also challenged him. His family? Silent. Brushed over like it never happened. They are entirely complicit in shaping the abusive man he has become.