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 👊

It was one of the siblings spouses who later pulled me to one side and told me that ‘they’ get worse when they’re back together. His wife, he said would get noticeably more controlling / rigid/ argumentative when back with her brother. When I asked what he did about it. He simply said ‘I bite my tongue, wait until we’re home away from the rest and I have it out with her 121. But that’s impossible when theyre together’.

So basically everyone had learned to ‘manage’ the controlling dynamics that appeared when the core family were reunited. That was the last holiday I took with them. I remember thinking ‘fuck that’. No one here has the balls to challenge it and everyone’s job is to essentially tip toe round my partner and subsequently ‘manage’ their spouses.

deeply ingrained behaviours and his family were a huge part of the problem.

Yes. It’s both inexplicable yet grounded in family dynamics. All I can do is try to give my children as much function as I can do they’re robust and healthy enough to navigate the dysfunction.

My MIL is an incredibly toxic woman - I realised she was difficult the first time I met her. But you recognize the signs in hindsight. At the time I excused things because she was ‘stressed’. Except she’s always awful and claims it’s stress. It’s not. It’s her.

In retrospect I recognise that - unless you are actively having a breakdown - no one would treat their child’s new partner as she treated me the very first time I met her. You make some attempt to achieve neutrality as a minimum (even if you aren’t functional enough to hope you make a good impression).

She’s hugely damaging to everyone around her. And H is so caught up in the FOG that he cannot see that the best thing for him and his children would be to minimise any interaction with her. And then get serious therapy to sort out all the issues she’d inculcated.

But, again, as someone who falls into the standard, non-toxic part of the spectrum of human psychology (it’s broad and we all have our issues, but most of us don’t harm others - and intend to do so) I just wasn’t equipped to recognise what a dysfunctional nightmare I’d gotten myself involved with. I’m not screwed up enough to even consider that people think in the absolutely abhorrent ways that MIL does. Or that toxic parental alienation would go on for 35 years and be reinvented through projection in the lives of her middle aged children.

There would be something wrong with me if I could anticipate that!

So all I can do is protect my children as best I can and actively work to build resilience and skills to respond to this dysfunction in healthy ways.

@BurntToastAgain replying quickly as am on train.

Critical thinking is the best ability you can teach your children. The ability for them to question what is said to them and then realise that their internal truth is really important vs what they’re being told by people in ‘authority’

My exp’s mum and family were always lovely to me. Their toxicity lay in their silence when they saw their sons / brothers toxic behaviour. To this day I don’t know whether they were just too intimidated to confront him or viewed it as ‘not my problem’. Ultimately they didn’t have to live with him and due to distance, they didn’t have to see him much. So I’m sure at some level it was very conscious decision to not poke the bear.

Ultimately though I hold them responsible for allowing and perpetuating such abusive and entitled behaviour. If any male in my life (son/ brother/ nephew) behaved in the manner he had done towards me that day, I immediately would have intervened and said that it was unacceptable behaviour. But I guess that’s why none of the men in my family would ever speak to their partner in such a way. They know they wouldn’t get away with it. How emboldened do you have to be to act that way in public and no one (aside from the recipient) call you on your behaviour? To this day the whole dynamic makes me shake my head in disbelief. At myself as equally as at them

@sassbott have a lovely day - sounds fab!
Again, I totally agree with you re the wider family dynamics.
My exh vowed to never turn into his dad & yet he did. Initially he married someone the exact opposite of his mum (me) & thought he wanted a different 'set up', but ultimately he couldn't settle in the unfamiliar dynamic of a 'different' marriage.

His dad cheated.
He cheated.
And his now wife behaves exactly as his mum does (even looks like her) - managing his foibles & orienting her life & thoughts around his.
His siblings condemned his behaviour to me but never challenged him to his face - just as they normalise their dad's behaviours & just has his mum nexer made a stand about the cheating (she knew) while keeping him always on a pedestal!
Like that - the dynamic was set from very early on & exh could not survive 'outside' of it.

Have a great day @sassbott.

You’re right that critical thinking is crucial. DS3 is going to need mountains of it. He’ll need coping skills to cope with his father, and his family. And also to survive with the dysfunction around his half siblings. He will need skills to cope with a half sister who constantly drips poison into his ear about how much better she is than everyone. She does it to her brother constantly, and I suspect does it to her ‘friends’ at school. So she’ll do it to him. Her father is in total denial about it - even in circumstances where it seems impossible to ignore. But she is the golden child, so… 🤷🏻‍♀️

DS3 will need skills to cope and thrive despite that.

I missed this! I haven't read through the whole thread yet, just marking my place to come back when the SC are finally asleep (one has SEN).

I'm incredibly angry that my Disney Dad EXDP robbed me of my chance of marrying my forever partner, and had hoodwinked me into believing he was someone he was not. Based on my personal situation, it's unlikely I'll ever marry or move in with a man while my DC are young.

I like being part of the step parenting board (have been on here under a couple of usernames) because it helps me see I wasn't the villain he tried to make me out to be (my worst crime was not put his Golden Child DS front and centre of my life at all times). We have 2 DC who he never prioritised, or equalised, and even now refuses to pay full support for them, or see them regularly. DSS gets both, of course. I'm planning to take EXDP to CMS once I move into my new house, however thinking about whether to invite that stress into my life (EXDP is extremely tight) if I don't really need the money.

I have plenty of WTF moments from my 7 year relationship with EXDP, mostly excused because he had a DS from a previous relationship, and "I knew what I was getting into".

Will go back and read over now.

@Starseeking go to CMS it's the principle the extra money will benefit your DC. Use collect and pay if he messes you around

That sounds awful @Starseeking. And puts paid to the whole ‘leave him and all the children can be priorities in his Disney dadding’ thing. Too often the guilt only attaches to the first family. Indeed the other children are a cause of/trigger for it in the NRP’s head. So obviously the weird more important child(ren) thing continues no matter what. He’s still ‘making it up’ to the ‘poor victim of divorce’.

Do go to the CMS. You can use the most hands off method and have them do it all. It’ll cost him more (so there’s a bonus 🤣).

Morning all. Fun day was had yesterday!

@Magda72 I had the exact same. His siblings would say things to me 121 but not to him. Which I found increasingly frustrating as time went on. I even at one point remember talking to the sibling whom he probably spoke to the most and asking that she speak to him and tell him the things she was telling me. As the only person telling him things was me and as a result of that, he wasn’t listening. And was simply dismissing me/ making me the problem.

He would emphatically state that everyone supported him on his court cases etc. That the only person voicing reservations about the impact to the children of the ongoing conflict was me. And that it was outrageous of me to suggest that he accept what he had and avoid putting the children through further conflict.
I wasn’t the only one. Privately his siblings also thought his behaviour had become extreme and obsessive and that neither of the parents was operating in what was in the childrens best interests as their conflict with one another had taken precedent. Did they tell him that? No.

In the end I stopped spending time with his family. I found it really unhealthy that they would vent to me (make me increasingly frustrated) and yet do nothing themselves. There is no planet on which my siblings and I would talk about one another behind our backs vs having a direct conversation with us. Whether we liked what was being said or not, we would talk it out.

I think about my exp and tbh I want him to be happy. And have a fulfilling life. I don’t wish him I’ll. My fear for him is that he will end up alone and broke, just like his dad. With everyone close to him abandoning him eventually because of how shitty a human being he is. I mean maybe I’m being too generous. The bigger likelihood is he will land another ‘supply’, and this time be successful in obtaining the financial and emotional support he demands.

@BurntToastAgain children are deeply resilient. And so long as they have one balanced/ healthy parent establishing healthy behaviours and thinking patterns, that can be more than enough.

@Starseeking I’m with the others. Start the ball rolling with the CMS. Let them go after him.

@sassbott

Thanks *@BurntToastAgain*. I think I’m also a little angry tbh. I entered the relationship with an open heart, naive and trusting. And he took that and manipulated/ abused it. He had moved on before I even ended it, he was getting his supply elsewhere as I increased boundaries. So his life remains unaffected. I on the other hand am now in therapy, spending a small fortune on unpicking the damage. Whilst simultaneously trying to get over a break up. I don’t envisage being in place to even consider a relationship for months (if not a year). And being on my own is no bad thing, it’s healthy. But I deeply resent that he is off living his life with not a care in the world and I am here picking up the pieces.

I’m not in victim mode though. I recognise that I have had a very very lucky escape. There was one pivotal decision I made about 2 years ago. It was a difficult decision and at the time it was so hard. Now? I look back on that and recognise that having the strength to do what I felt was right. Saved me.

Hi @sassbott, I have been following your story on this board for a long time and I wanted to jump in and offer my 2 cents.

I had a very similar experience with a man with children who abused my naivety and generosity for 2 years before dumping me unceremoniously to seamlessly move onto his next prey. I betrayed myself so fundamentally and so often to try to make that relationship work, by the time it ended I was a shadow of my former self. I had therapy until last month to recover from the trauma and rebuild myself.

That was 2 years ago, and it has taken me almost this whole time to fully heal from the experience and start dating again. I now occasionally go on dates but in many ways that relationship has put me off men and I just can't get excited about dating. I am only 32 so I do hope this is a temporary phase!

This type of relationship with a selfish, manipulative single dad robs you of your ability to trust people and of your belief in love. It is very, very hard to regain that. However, time does heal even the deepest wound and things do improve bit by bit.

Two years later, when I think back about that relationship I feel sorry for my former self. I was so trusting, so vulnerable and so easily manipulated. The day that man dumped me was the luckiest day of my life (and the most painful!). He freed me from his control and manipulation and forced me to break away from him. I will forever be grateful to the universe that he got tired of toying with me and moved on.

I am not sure if this can be of any help to you, but I thought I'd share my experience in case anyone can find comfort in knowing that there is life, and a happy one, after this specific type of trauma.

@jolliejullie thanks for posting. I’m so sorry for what you have been through and yes you are still so very young. I think with all these situations, we just need to give them time, be super kind to ourselves and build a fulfilling life away from ‘dating.’

I think it’s important to recognise a few things. Firstly, you should now have excellent boundaries that mean you wouldn’t get together with your EXp. And if you did, you would exit that relationship much earlier/ sooner. My point? If your boundaries are healthy and you’ve done the work, this situation is much less likely to happen. As I’ve detailed much earlier on, I am spotting warning signs very early on and cutting things dead there and then (the Darth Vader impression on date 3 just made him look like a total idiot. Grown ass man in his 50’s mocking an exwife to a date. Utter stupidity).

Second of all, how you approach dating is a mindset thing I think. I’m occasionally heading out on dates and my view is simply that I’m meeting someone new and it’s an opportunity to do something/ have a chat about something I haven’t before. It’s fun and I put no expectations on any of them. I do think there is an element however of making a deliberate choice around that mindset and getting yourself back out there - but only when you feel ready. And there’s no fire, you can take your time and a respectful man will be ok with that. I hadn’t so much as kissed the guy I had date number 3 with. I will now take my time getting to know someone - it’s a long process.

Most importantly thank you for sharing. It does help to hear your story of how you feel and your mindset around what was the lowest day but is now the luckiest day. I too look back and am deeply grateful for the tough decisions I made. I’m currently sat in the room I ended it in. And I knew that time when I looked at him and asked him to leave that it would be the last time I saw him and it was the moment I finally accepted he and I were done. It is in equal amounts a heartbreakingly sad moment in time, but also an incredibly empowering moment in time. I feel deeply sad and relieved when I think back to that. All I can hope is that with more time, the feeling of sadness lessens.

Your story is really inspiring. Thank you. Feel free to keep posting on this thread also as you figure what’s next for you. The world is your oyster.

@SnowWhitesSM how are you getting on? Thanks for sharing that link, I find all of that super interesting and helpful.

It’s funny about the fact that your ex had issues around your DSS/ your son. That shows that it’s not even about you. It comes back to control and validation that the parent is getting via their attachment style.

For the all the grief my exp used to give me about how I was around his DC (he used to take offence that I did housework when his children were around), there was an example that showed me his issues were about control. He bought his kids over and I was clearing up a spare room (it’s where I dump things to donate to charity etc). His children sought me out and sat down on the floor in the room and started playing with some of my childrens old toys.

They were super content (and it also proved to me that it was entirely normal to them that an adult did chores as it’s what happens in their home with their mother). My exp came up, asked if they were bothering me, I said not at all (and they weren’t because it wasn’t a forced situation but was completely organic). And I told him to get a coffee, put his feet up and relax. 5 mins later he was back up. Stood there just watching. Eventually went back down. He then returned about 10 mins later and ordered his children downstairs to where he was and had a game set up waiting to play. The kids reluctantly listened (it was clear they were enjoying the game they were happily playing together) and went downstairs.

At the time I was baffled by that. Now? I see (am reminded of this re your DSS/ SOn) that it was about control and being the Center of attention and his childrens role was to validate him as father. He couldn’t even relax for 20-30 mins as his children played near me (not even with me). These men have deeply unhealthy attachment styles that they are projecting onto their children. It has nothing to do with us. We would be attacked because our healthy parenting / attachment styles was a challenge to them.

I don’t know about you but that perspective helped me. Made it less personal. This really isn’t about you.

Hope everyone else is doing ok also x

That example is just ridiculous @sassbott. That need for everything to centre around him. 🙄

The really insidious stuff about it is how easily people will interpret this as ‘being such a good dad’. After all, he’s making sure he engages with them and plays games that are suitable for them. He’s not just ignoring them while he gets on with other things. What a superdad!

But it’s healthy to let kids play independently. It’s good for them to see that normal stuff like housework happens and isn’t done by magic. And, most pertinently, none of this is child-centred. No it’s entirely driven by what he wants.

@BurntToastAgain how are you? How are things progressing with you?

Re the example I cited? Of course it’s ridiculous, but a lot of his rhetoric around his children was. It was more about him and his needs/ validation/ what he showed the world. It is what it is.

My number one job right now is to really double down on self compassion. Stop being negative over the whys of why I stayed so long etc etc and just let go of the guilt/ shame/ embarrassment. All feelings he has left me with. I didn’t do that to myself, he did. Within there lies the key to growing emotionally stronger.

That’s going to be hard because I blame myself for staying as long as I did.

It is really hard not to blame yourself with the benefit of hindsight. I think that takes a long time to reconcile yourself with.

I’m doing ok. Not much happening here (thankfully). I’m just concentrating on work and my sons and trying to feel relaxed about things.

It is hard. But that cycle of remembering an incident, then being triggered into the cycle of ‘what is wrong with me? Why did I stay? Etc’ is very damaging to self esteem/ confidence. And it fundamentally keeps me trapped in a perpetual cycle of shame, guilt, embarrassment and self criticism. All deeply negative emotions that won’t help me recover and rebuild. I risk remaining stuck there and that in itself will hold me back.

I need to stop taking responsibility for what he did. I need to accept that I was a victim. And I need to recognise that it was not my fault. I am a victim of abuse BUT I am out. Yes I stayed back then BUT I’m now out. Yes I tolerated that behaviour then BUT I’m not tolerating it now. Yes I allowed myself to be treated appallingly BUT I put a stop to it. And to add to all the above, my life is already a million times better.

(The adding of the BUT after a self criticism is what I am trying to start doing).

It’s going to take time. But I'm determined to do it. The sooner I am free of all of this, that’s my best revenge.

That is a good tactic to help you be more compassionate with yourself.

We don’t always get things right, but we were (usually) trying to do our best. And we can try to do things differently now.

This was an interesting read. A real case it's not you, it's them:

psychcentral.com/blog/psychology-self/2020/04/narcissists-responsibility#1

That narcissist’s prayer is enlightening.

It didn’t happen
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault.
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did… you deserved it.

I have experienced so many iterations of this.

I remember being in one of the counselling sessions (where the counsellor was unbelievably terrible in so many ways - openly colluding with him and ignoring what I’d told her about abusive behaviour entirely; that sounds like paranoia but it really isn’t) and he was just utterly denying things that had happened. And minimising. He didn’t even need to get on to how it was not his fault because the counsellor totally colluded with him. She tried to tell me that it was all just a difference of opinion/perception.

I vividly remember becoming really frustrated and upset as I tried to explain to her that there’s a difference between bare facts and interpretation. How long something took us an objective and measurable fact. And he was lying about that fact. And she was just supporting him in gaslighting me about it.

At the time, I wasn’t in the mental space to recognise that’s what was happening or to articulate it. But it’s absolutely what was happening.

For example, he’d let his children take absurd lengths of time to eat. His daughter was very clearly doing it to upset everyone and stop them doing anything. He’d just let her - and claim he was worried about her starving.

One weekend I had to take my son somewhere for a particular time. We only had one car, and he was giving us a lift to get there, so that he could use the car with his children while I waited for my son (and looked after the baby while doing so). He let his daughter take 90 minutes to eat a tiny sandwich. His son took over an hour too. His daughter knew we needed to leave and she was determined to be too slow. His son copied his older sister. Their father wouldn’t take the food away and just leave. No. He let it go on for 90 minutes.

So my son missed his event. Because I couldn’t take the car. And, then, after the 90 minute purposeful sandwich nibbling (with audible whispering of ‘we’ll take ages and ruin it for them’ to each other etc) he took his children out for the treat he’d planned for while my son was doing something anyway. While we stayed at home (because I didn’t have access to the car and he was controlling my access to money so I couldn’t even afford the bus).

Yet, in counselling, he denied the facts. Absolutely denied that it took 90 minutes (despite the fact I knew when I’d made lunch and when it finished, and am capable of working out the time difference). Denied that it had a negative impact on anyone else. Tried to present me as abusive his children as victims because I told him within their hearing that it was ridiculous that he was taking them out for a treat when they’d just been so horrible on purpose - and he’d enabled it.

And the counsellor ignored everything and tried to persuade me that it just didn’t happen. It was all just interpretation. Even the passage of time cannot be objectively measured. Nor would my son missing an event be a good Indication of it affecting other people negatively. And she totally bought his presentation of me as the evil SM and him the poor nonresident father just trying to be nice to everyone.

Just awful. She was absolutely willing to help him gaslight me and insist that I was the problem.

He also denied the treat was a treat too. Obviously.

Once he took them to a theme park and not only minimised it and denied it was a treat but actually tried to present his daughter as poor and disadvantaged because she couldn’t go on all the ride she wanted to because there was no one to look after her too small for the rides brother while her father took her on them.

Meanwhile, we stayed at home, went for a walk to the local park and couldn’t even buy an ice cream because he’d made sure there was no money in the account I had access to (on maternity leave).

@Starseeking very interesting link, i’ll post some good ones I’ve come across too. Thank you for sharing.

@BurntToastAgain honestly I shudder when I read some of your posts. It sounds utterly horrific.
Re his children? Do you want to know my honest thought? And I could be totally off.

I think he did all of that on purpose. It wouldn’t surprise me if in the background, he actively/ discreetly encouraged his children to do what they did. Why? So that your son missed his event because he knew that would hurt you and it was his mecanism for doing that. He didn’t say anything to them (and yes treated them) because they were doing his bidding. Abusers manipulate, children are innocent. He was manipulating his children against you.

As things got rockier, I saw my My exDP’s children less and less. But whenever they saw me, they were so very happy and chatty. Aside from one very noticeable time. This time they arrived and were monosyllabic, barely looked and me and we’re uncomfortable. I didn’t think much of it at the time and gave them space.

I later found out that he had taken his children on a walks with a female friend. A friend I’ve never met. I was never meant to find out, i found via a mutual connection between this female and I. When I confronted him about it, it transpired that one of the days he had done this is when his children came to mine the next day. He had told them to keep it a ‘secret’. Poor children are primary school aged, that’s not a nice position to put them in, but it’s what he does. He tells his children to ‘keep secrets’ and then rewards them for not telling. It’s very clever and very subtle.

That’s how brazen he was towards the end. He had zero insight on how confusing it must be for his children to be interfacing with multiple women. So long as his needs got met and his new supplies were lined up? What does it matter?

@BurntToastAgain just creeping in to say that I'm really horrified by your ex's behaviour and I'm so incredibly sorry.

Agree with sassbot - sounds completely intentional on ex's part. What's that's saying making no move is a move ?

Yup. Them not talking to their children. Setting healthy boundaries. Expecting compromise. That’s nothing to do with the children. And everything to do with that they want.

If we take a step back some of us may see that children (or having the excuse of children) actually empowered their ability to attempt to exert control on those around them. Now it wasn’t ‘I want’, it was ‘well this is what my children need’ or ‘you’re jealous of my children, can you see they need to be handled differently?’. Etc etc.

No. They don’t. You want them to be able to exert their will/ say this is their need because it allows you to cleverly manipulate situations and hide behind your children.

Messed up in the extreme.

@sassbott Ive said before on this board that in many many cases the problem isn’t the SK/Step-Parenting, it’s the partner.

The S.Family ‘situation’ is often just a symptom of a greater underlying issue. Many of the problems raised would concern an NRP with a healthy non-toxic/abusive outlook.

Take away the SK and it still wouldn’t be a decent relationship as this is who they are.

Yes the weekend without the SK may look great but this is often because there is less work/conflict pressure points for SM and not an actual healthy relationship.

Many SP families are fine for all parties because the relationships/personalities are healthy.

Some are not because there’s abuse/toxicity. Which probably was the case for the first relationship too.