Today I am feeling extremely grateful to be out of the shitstorm that was EOW contact with the SC. His messages about it (because he messages me this shit 🤷🏻♀️) tell me that I am so much better off away from the toxic dynamics in that family and his weird framing of them.
He wants to frame everything as people just not liking ‘other people’s children’ and me just not being grown up enough to deal with that. But he’s ignoring the genuinely problematic dynamics that surround his children and which (inevitably) manifest in their behaviour. And to which he contributes. Obviously.
It appears that at drop off today, his ex arrived absolutely livid (shaking with rage apparently). What was she livid about? Her boyfriend has just left her, never to return. This is the second boyfriend to have left her in 2022.
And what was she angry about? She was absolutely livid with her DS about it. Apparently it is all his fault that her boyfriend has left her. She made this explicit to the kids, their father and presumably any of his neighbours who happened to be about.
It’s likely that the previous boyfriend left because of the children, particularly her DS’s behaviour.
BUT, as this event illustrates, there is an enormously toxic dynamic at play. She has two children. One fabulous golden child daughter and a (younger) black sheep son. It’s as plain as day to all and sundry. The dynamic plays out in the extended family and, much though he denies it, their father is implicated too. The son is particularly difficult, as you’d imagine given all this. The daughter is also problematic in various ways as a result of this dynamic (she’s manipulative, always trying to get her brother into trouble and tells him how much worse he is than her regularly).
It’s dreadful. Utterly dreadful. And had incredibly negative effects on my household (and my children). All made worse by how their father approaches everything.
His response to these events was to message me: ‘Apparently [name’s] boyfriend has left never to come back because of [DS]. Who wants other people's kids? I don't. You don't.’ 🙄
I don’t need to know this crap, obviously. But the message exchange has really reinforced my thinking about all this. My husband just does not get it at all. He’s determined to just reduce things to ‘people not liking other people’s children. He does not want to acknowledge the specific problems with his children and the toxic family dynamics. That his relationship has failed and his ex’s are failing because of THAT.
Nor does he challenge his ex’s emotional abuse of her son. He reported this crap to me as if it wasn’t beyond awful that she is overtly and publicly blaming a 5 year old for her relationship breakdown. His lack of concern about this is alarming.
If my elder DS’s father did that - stood on my doorstep shaking with anger telling DS that it was his fault his partner had left him - I’d be taking steps to move towards supervised contact arrangements because it’s enormously abusive behaviour. I wouldn’t be blithely messaging ‘who wants other people’s kids?’