Supporting kids with new sibling?

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

Hi all,

I got news last night my ex is expecting. I was shocked and beside myself. Fridays are exchange nights and we send one or two emails. Sometimes she asks for legitimate things and sometimes not. Last night being the latter.

She said I don't want you to find out through the kids we're expecting a baby. Thanks.

I understand and I also understand the lack of empathy she's shown my family ( my kids, SD and myself ) in the last couple of years with the mess of the break-up. Why tell me?

It is my D9's birthday this see and she had a party today and my S6 has his birthday next Tuesday. It triggered emotions I won't discuss for this thread as I want to focus on my kids needs. It takes away the attention I believe for the kids "day" for both of them. Family members, friends are likely going to attend the party and say "congrats!" and attention's on her. Another option could have been to tell them next week. What's done is done.

My concern. I get my kids next Fri on my time and a good friend said " if they are excited make sure you validate " I agree. My S3 is too young and my S6 may have traits of autism, he gets flustered in social settings and he does articulate feelings well and sometimes he struggles. My D9 may or may not say something.

D9 has on a few occasions with our talk sessions expressed that she doesn't like mom's boyfriend because he's hard on her brothers. He yells, screams and swears at them and often puts them on long  time outs. Although I'm not sure that I buy long as she may have teoubles distinguishing time.

I notice sometimes on the weekend mornings if she happens to get up., she prepares breakfast for her brothers. It telegraphs that maybe she's trying to protect her brothers at home from step-dad

When she told me this it didn't make sense. Kids will be kids there's bickering, blaming, tantrums etc. I rarely have to discipline my kids because for the most part they are calm and seem to enjoy their time with dad. I try to make things fun to help the family cope with sadness.

I have feelings about step-dad and they are my feelings because he entered my marriage and we have different moral compasses. I'll leave it at that. It's their r/s and the kids are going to have a new baby brother or sister. I hope they are excited, it's going to be a busy household with 5 kids and I feel sad for my D9 losing part of her childhood to parentification and the daily dysfunctions of an undiagnosed parent and indifferent step father.

Does anyone have advice with what to say if D9  if kids are not happy about the current circumstances ie. "I don't like SD" ""I'm not happy with a new baby" It could go either way I just want to line my ducks up before the kids come home. Thanks.

[Mutt]

Hi all,

I got news last night my ex is expecting. I was shocked and beside myself. Fridays are exchange nights and we send one or two emails. Sometimes she asks for legitimate things and sometimes not. Last night being the latter.

She said I don't want you to find out through the kids we're expecting a baby. Thanks.

I understand and I also understand the lack of empathy she's shown my family ( my kids, SD and myself ) in the last couple of years with the mess of the break-up. Why tell me?

It is my D9's birthday this see and she had a party today and my S6 has his birthday next Tuesday. It triggered emotions I won't discuss for this thread as I want to focus on my kids needs. It takes away the attention I believe for the kids "day" for both of them. Family members, friends are likely going to attend the party and say "congrats!" and attention's on her. Another option could have been to tell them next week. What's done is done.

My concern. I get my kids next Fri on my time and a good friend said " if they are excited make sure you validate " I agree. My S3 is too young and my S6 may have traits of autism, he gets flustered in social settings and he does articulate feelings well and sometimes he struggles. My D9 may or may not say something.

D9 has on a few occasions with our talk sessions expressed that she doesn't like mom's boyfriend because he's hard on her brothers. He yells, screams and swears at them and often puts them on long  time outs. Although I'm not sure that I buy long as she may have teoubles distinguishing time.

I notice sometimes on the weekend mornings if she happens to get up., she prepares breakfast for her brothers. It telegraphs that maybe she's trying to protect her brothers at home from step-dad

When she told me this it didn't make sense. Kids will be kids there's bickering, blaming, tantrums etc. I rarely have to discipline my kids because for the most part they are calm and seem to enjoy their time with dad. I try to make things fun to help the family cope with sadness.

I have feelings about step-dad and they are my feelings because he entered my marriage and we have different moral compasses. I'll leave it at that. It's their r/s and the kids are going to have a new baby brother or sister. I hope they are excited, it's going to be a busy household with 5 kids and I feel sad for my D9 losing part of her childhood to parentification and the daily dysfunctions of an undiagnosed parent and indifferent step father.

Does anyone have advice with what to say if D9  if kids are not happy about the current circumstances ie. "I don't like SD" ""I'm not happy with a new baby" It could go either way I just want to line my ducks up before the kids come home. Thanks.

[Turkish]

That goes for if they are not excited. It may be hard for you to seperate or to not identify with their negative feelings, and the other way around, too. This would be hard enough with any other guy, but with her affair partner, it must feel devastating, especially with all the other stuff you have to put up with. In other words, by identifying with your negative feeling, they may stuff theirs to "rescue" you, however unintentionally. Hard to say, as we could go crazy trying to guess, at least at this point.

Given the lack of stable adults in that household, I'd be mindful if D9 starts getting Parentified to take care of the new baby if it comes, even if at her age a certain amount of help would be natural. This isn't 1915.

[livednlearned]

Mutt,

It's so sad about your D9 being parentified  :'( Our kids grow up faster, and they also get left behind at the same time. You're so present for her and your other kids, and that will go a long way. I share Turkish's concern, that D9 will have even more duties. Maybe not caring for the baby, exactly, but she will certainly be expected to manage the other kids more. And the guy -- he sounds like he has a short fuse even for older kids who are much less demanding, in general. I feel so sad for the baby  :'(

Your kids are going to have emotions that span the whole range, and those emotions will change from one day to the next. All you can do it be the catcher's mitt, to listen and validate. Kids usually care most when something is right there in front of them impacting them directly. I wonder if right now it might just be abstract to them?

I'm so sorry you are having to take this on, it must be a kick to the gut.

[Mutt]

That goes for if they are not excited. It may be hard for you to seperate or to not identify with their negative feelings, and the other way around, too. This would be hard enough with any other guy, but with her affair partner, it must feel devastating, especially with all the other stuff you have to put up with. In other words, by identifying with your negative feeling, they may stuff theirs to "rescue" you, however unintentionally. Hard to say, as we could go crazy trying to guess, at least at this point.

I agree we could go crazy trying to guess this stuff.

10 years ago, Jan 2005 just before my 31st birthday is when we had a passionate romance.

Spring 2005 I got the news she was pregnant.

When I got the news a couple days ago the first thing that cane to mind was a baby photo of D9 with a necklace, fake pearls and the photo was black and white with blue colors accented. My wife liked taking pictures in black and white. Perhaps the reason why is she sees the world in black and white.

She lives day to day in the moment. Not looking into the future and not identifying with prior context. What's painful is that the history I recall is not the same memories she has.

It brought memories of a young family, dreams and it triggered that photo. I loved that photo and to this day I can't look at the family albums. It triggers pain and how the affair broke the family. All of it stored and same with the old picture frames. I can't look at them. The news triggered the affair.

8 years later she leaves with another man where the relationship started nearly a year before she walked out of the marriage and with the neighbors friend. People that were family friends. I supported the family on my income, I worked long hours to make the ends meet. She left all of the marital financial responsibilities on me.

She took out what little money we had. I thought when the kids get older we'll save then because she can help. No money for a lawyer and she blocked reasonable access to the kids. I had to declare bankruptcy. A difficult and stress filled court battle to get my kids half of the time.

Not to mention the smear campaign. I was called physically, emotionally and financially abusive to her and the kids. Everyone distanced themselves with the exception of my family and I was the bad guy. That was the last 2 years.

Now, this man is a part of our lives, I was triangulated. The contrast 10 years ago until today is great. I agree, a kick in the gut  

The pain they both caused and she favored him over me. After she had left she had returned to her emotional baseline. She said "Mutt I'm happy now, I feel fantastic! The problem ( you ) was left behind."

I had my share of my issues in the marriage and I had not swayed, I kept putting my head down and provided. The sacrifices I made, the extras with working overtime for her to go on vacation to visit family in Eastern Canada and I stayed behind because I couldn't afford my ticket.  The last sacrifice was when she was having an affair with him and she asked to go to a family reunion in Eastern Canada again I provided. I had my suspicions and I didn't know he was in the picture.

If I work long hours now my child support goes up per government tables and it's not a guarantee I can still make the same money the following year. I have to show the courts how much I make on my income and they adjust the table. I'm locked in for a year and I may be in over my head not able to make the financial demands outside of child support. You can't base your income on overtime and if I work a second job less time for me to spend with my kids it's counter inutitive. 

Him on the other hand, never had children, he's dysfunctional, works minimum wage jobs, smokes drugs and is indifferent with my kids.

Who knows? Maybe after he has his baby he may warm up to mine. That being said. The news was a reminder of how the landscape was so different in the early days. All I wanted was to have a family and a spouse little did I know I married a woman with borderline personality disorder. She lives in the moment, sees in black and white, acts on impulses and doesn't understand the pain she causes and invalidated what we had and the collateral damage.

I'm sorry. The message triggered pain and it's a reminder to me how I need more time and distance away from the last 2 years. I need to vent these feelings.  I'm slowly rebuilding, the family transformed into a single parent with little kids that look up to me. In the end, nothing gives me more pleasure than those 3. I'm blessed that they came into my life in the last decade. The silver lining  

I worry about D9. SD15 is planning on moving out in the spring on her 16th birthday because of how intolerable it is with mom. She's the bad child, we share something in common, I'm the bad person. Two people in the family that stuck up to mom and got blasted. She helps D9 to cope at home by giving her advice about mom. I'm scared that once she moves D9 is going to have more responsibilities at home. From what I can tell, bf is absent and immature with smoking drugs, disconnected and playing video games or sleeping while D9 watches the siblings. A baby is something different, maybe he'll change.

It's incredible the mess they both made when both acted on impulse and the ripple affect that happened to everyone's lives.

Your kids are going to have emotions that span the whole range, and those emotions will change from one day to the next. All you can do it be the catcher's mitt, to listen and validate. Kids usually care most when something is right there in front of them impacting them directly. I wonder if right now it might just be abstract to them?

Thanks livednlearned. I'll play it by ear. I feel some anxiety not knowing what the kids will say. The younger ones may say nothing. I like that be the catchers mitt  

I'm happy to be in my kids lives, in their corner. It also validates how important it is that I take care of myself for them.

I'm also thankful I can share my feelings here with people that understand the disorder. It really helps to unload this stuff. It's hard to turn to people in my real life and talk about this stuff when they see something different. Although when I did share this news they validated that there's something wrong with her because they see how she moved quickly and had another baby whereas before they thought I was doing something wrong to have had this much blowback from ex.

[livednlearned]

It really breaks my heart reading what you've been through, Mutt. We all know that everyone here has been through a lot, and see glimpses in the details in a post here, a post there. But sometimes the pain really comes through, and it takes you to the mat, to realize just how much suffering is here on these boards. In your story.

It's the giving that grabs my heart so much. People like you, like me, like everyone here, who give and give and give, always putting other people first. We had no limits, no boundaries to the giving. And those people, when they are BPD, have no limits to what they take. They're still children, it is their entitlement. How sad and lost and selfish this taking looks in a grown adult.

All of this hardship is shaping your D into who she is, who she will be. Abuse can make you stronger -- that's part of the problem, but also the saving grace. When she is free of her mom, that's when it's going to really count. To be there and let her know she can be vulnerable, that it's the strongest type of strength and takes real courage. That's where I went astray -- no one was there to tell me to let myself feel the feelings. I believe the odds of me ending up with a good, healthy man were 0. Without a full, courageous, vulnerable heart, I could not be whole. You are going to bring your healing to your D. Not just now while she weathers these storms, but when she becomes a young woman and is trying to understand what it means to be in a healthy, loving relationship. She'll have you as her role model. It's not just a cliche, it's real.

You were betrayed in the worst way and your heart is going to take a long time to heal. When you're ready, and you meet someone who is whole like you, it will feel like a miracle happened, and it will be the warmest glow you can imagine. You'll be able to give freely to someone, and you'll have boundaries. But you won't need them so much because you'll be with someone who has them too, who loves you because you went through all of these things.  

Sometimes I think we were put on earth to learn how to suffer, to go through these tests to see what we are made of. Maybe we don't make a lot of money in our lives, and maybe we have broken families. But we learn how to love deeply and fully and become whole. I tell myself this is what life is about, and I'm so glad I'm learning it now and not the morning I pass away.  

Lean into the pain of what this new baby means to you, and it's ok to let your D know that you feel sad. She is not your confidante, but she is an intuitive child who will be able to feel your sadness. If she senses that you are sad, be honest with her. You're sad that you were not enough. But because of that experience, you're learning that you are enough now.

[Mutt]

Hi livednlearned,

I want to tell you that your post got through to me. It's likely one of the best replies I have ever received here and I'm saving this thread as a reminder  

I believe every word is true.

My wounds gave me wisdom. If I had not met her, I would not have learned these lessons to find me. If I died tomorrow, I'd die a happy man having learned these lessons.

It's like an old video cassette tape and rewinding the movie and playing the movie again. I'm on the exterior with eyes wide open watching the same pattern play out and I see all of the players, the rescuers, enablers. I know what goes on in the interior - that was me 10 years ago. For now it's him and the tape will reach the end and the movie rewinds and starts over with someone else.

IF there's someone out there for me and only time will tell, it will be worth it.

Thank you for the advice for my D. I didn't understand that I could be honest with her if she senses that her dad is sad. I sense sometimes that she knows how I feel and I have not shared. My confidantes are the members here.

From the bottom of my   thank you for sharing your wisdom. It really helped  

[livednlearned]

From the bottom of my   thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Any wisdom contained within these pages comes directly from people who have loved me and helped me along the way. "We can be mended. We mend each other." Also Brene Brown's Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto. Do you know it?

This is My Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto

Above all else, I want you to know that you are loved and lovable. You will learn this from my words and actions--the lessons on love are in how I treat you and how I treat myself.

I want you to engage with the world from a place of worthiness. You will learn that you are worthy of love, belonging, and joy every time you see me practice self-compassion and embrace my own imperfections.

We will practice courage in our family by showing up, letting ourselves be seen, and honoring vulnerability. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. There will always be room in our home for both.

I will teach you compassion by practicing compassion with myself first; then with each other. We will set and respect boundaries; we will honor hard work, hope, and perseverance. Rest and play will be family values, as well as family practices.

You will learn accountability and respect by watching me make mistakes and make amends, and by watching how I ask for what I need and talk about how I feel.

I want you to know joy, so together we will practice gratitude.

I want you to feel joy, so together we will learn how to be vulnerable.

When uncertainty and scarcity visit, you will be able to draw from the spirit that is a part of our everyday life.

Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it.

We will laugh and sing and dance and create. We will always have permission to be ourselves with each other. No matter what, you will always belong here.

As you begin your Wholehearted journey, the greatest gift that I can give to you is to live and love with my whole heart and to dare greatly.

I will not teach or love or show you anything perfectly, but I will let you see me, and I will always hold sacred the gift of seeing you.

Truly, deeply, seeing you.

It's on my fridge. Best place for wisdom because everyone visits several times a day. 

[Mutt]

It's going to go up on my fridge  

The news upset me. I felt un-centered, angry and depressed. How can she move on so quickly? Yes, I understand the disorder and it does hurt the heart. Well I did the hard work and I don't regret it.

A quote I like about broken hearts.

“For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken. It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic within the crack. -D.H. Lawrence

The funny thing is today I was in the elevator going down to go for a smoke ( I know it's bad ) on my break. The elevator door opened on an old floor I used to work on. A pleasant woman gets on the elevator. We have idle chit chat and once we get to the ground floor she said she was new at my workplace, I said I've worked here for 12 years. She said "wow that's amazing" and Ibsaid I like moving around to different different depts when I need a challenge. She said I'm the same way. I said I'll join you outside.

She talks about her previous employment and she was a manager. I told her the trick with this company is you get your foot in the door and apply for a managerial position for what your qualified for, don't feel bad. She felt a little guilt because she had just started and it was a low entry job but she's overqualified and felt bored.

She was nice, positive, easy to talk to. We walk back to the elevators as we're walking and talking she taps me on the elbow 3x and gives a slight tug towards her. We go back up. The door opens on her floor, she turns to me extends her hand and shakes mine and tells me her name. I tell her mine and I said I'll see you around. I talked to a woman casually, she was attracted to me from the tells. It was a nice, effortless, comfortable moment with no strangeness and I see it as a sign.

My point is to not lose hope. It's there, I can tell I can attract a woman simply by being me and feeling confident and positive about myself whereas I didn't feel like that before I arrived here at bpdfamily. There were times I felt like closing my heart because of what I had gone through with abandonments. I was going through old pictures today stored on the cloud ( family photos ) and looked at new recent ones. In the old ones I can tell I felt unhappy, depressed and knew what was going through my mind because of FOO and my ex. She didn't give me joy, you give happiness to yourself - it starts with you. A lesson she taught me. Today, I look positive, happy and it telegraphs in pictures and I feel great. It helps my kids.

My ex and her boyfriend? A train wreck waiting to happen and it will. You start with dishonesty, lying and cheating it shows what those two made of. If it were  I wouldn't trust the other person if the r/s started this way? The possibility is there the same will happen to you? You don't maje me happy, I'm checking out and moving on. Rewind the tape and play the movie again ( movie starts nice and you find out your in a horror movie   ) with the next bf. He's planted himself and he's comfortable with all of the drama last year with our break-up and what my SD was going through with mom.

The key is, go through the pain, the lessons are there and there's exponential growth. The reality is she's undiagnosed, untreated and both oblivious with their behaviors. Keep their bad behaviors out with boundaries and I be the catchers mitt for the kids.

Maybe not now and it will come and its going to be different   Everything comes at it's appointed hour. I've been back on my feet and this threw me for a loop. It's good to get feedback when you're feeling down for a boost, to tell you what's what.

You keep moving forward. I have no doubt I'll get there and I don't plan on losing my shirt this time

[11yearsToGo]

Mutt, that's really cool you had that work encounter.  I remember the feeling of getting back out there and being flattered.  Like, "hey, there are other fish out there and I'm still likeable."

I have a slightly different opinion on sharing sadness over the kids upcoming sibling.  My husband's ex left him (shortly after he got a vasectomy, which she very much encouraged... .) and was pregnant by another man within 6 months.  My step kids see that child as their sibling, an extension of them.  They love her the same.  Of course my husband and I have our personal feelings about the kid, as we can't have a biological child together now and that the ex uses the new child as an excuse not to work/fully participate in things for SD.  But my SD love, love, loves this new sib.  She too does much of the caretaking, definitely put in a parent role.  It would break her heart to hear anything negative from us.  We grit our teeth and say all the "oh how cute!"  We also remind her she is not the parent and not to feel like she has to do such a great job watching her sibling.  If new sib gets into something, let her!  You're the sister, not the mom or babysitter!  And I'm also very cautious about having her do any of those things for my son as well.  I tell her often, "you're not responsible for him, if he won't ____ or keeps ____ tell us or we will catch it and correct it.  You be a kid, honey."

As hard as it is to accept, this baby is coming and will most likely be loved by your kids, just like they love each other.  Try to see this child not as your ex's, but as an innocent child who is very special to your kids.  Try to de-personalize this child from your ex and her affair and focus on his/her connection to your children whom you love.   

[Mutt]

As hard as it is to accept, this baby is coming and will most likely be loved by your kids, just like they love each other.  Try to see this child not as your ex's, but as an innocent child who is very special to your kids.  Try to de-personalize this child from your ex and her affair and focus on his/her connection to your children whom you love.   

11yearToGo,

I agree. Wise words. Thank you 

[Mutt]

Got the kids tonight.

S3 is too young. S6 is excited and D9 not excited. I told D9 I feel sad, dad tried with mom and I said I also felt excited for a new sibling for them.

I asked her why she wasn't excited before tucking her in. She said "I don't like bf".

She's young and I think she understands that mom's bf is going to be a part of the family. I didn't alienate bf, I just didn't know how to support her. I didn't want to say I don't like him either. I understand why she doesn't like him from the treatment he gives her and her siblings, I wouldn't like that either. It's hard to have respect for someone when they yell at you and discipline you harshly because they don't have a handle on kids. Kids will be kids.

It's mom's bf her choice. Who knows? Maybe fatherhood may change him, warm him up to the kids and be friendlier when he has his firstborn. My D opened my heart in many ways. Or he may not, he's been around them for 2 years lived with them for almost 10 months.

She'll likely have a change of heart. A baby is special and it's not so much to do with her SD and more so for her brother and sister.

[Turkish]

I have a similar issue, Mutt.

I did a search the other day "introducing affair partner to kids." From the comments on some of the articles, I felt like I was reading the leaving board. Even though my T told me many months ago that it was ok to validate S4's feelings if he didn't like the new guy ("you can be honest and say, 'I don't like him either, but you know what? Mommy and I are no longer together, and she has a right to have a bf," he seems to like him. It burns me...

I also haven't alienated her bf to my kids, stuffing my feelings for the sake of my kids. I wonder how much we're obligated to do this? I think you're doing right by D9. If S4 is neutral, then it is what it is. Things will change.

[Mutt]

I'll search and check the article comments Turkish. I'll follow your T's advice and I'm a pretty laid back guy, I won't use an inflection. It may of been a good idea to wait and make sure the bf is into the kids and have them warm up to them?  A slow drip instead of a sudden shock. She moved him in 3 weeks after the kids left our house. You can't turn back the clock and she doesn't operate on the same playing field.

On the one hand it's the entitlement that irked me. It is what it is. All I can do is be the catchers mitt and be the rope at the top to pull the kids up. Thanks for the information!

[livednlearned]

Even though my T told me many months ago that it was ok to validate S4's feelings if he didn't like the new guy ("you can be honest and say, 'I don't like him either, but you know what? Mommy and I are no longer together, and she has a right to have a bf," he seems to like him. It burns me...

This is why validation is so hard. Telling S4 that you don't like the new guy seems like potential trouble. For example, "I can tell you feel angry and don't like him" is different than "I don't like him either."

Validation is affirming S4's feelings. That is different than agreeing with him. Sometimes, affirming and agreeing overlap when validating, but not always.

I also haven't alienated her bf to my kids, stuffing my feelings for the sake of my kids. I wonder how much we're obligated to do this?

The aha moment for me with validation came during a really complex conversation with S13 about his dad. I messed up and had to work with my T to try and figure out the dynamic, because a lot of the conversation was cathartic, but there were times when I felt like we went off the rails.

This is hard to convey by text, so apologies if this seems obtuse. But what we're going for in these conversations is to let our kids have the space to express painful or confusing feelings. We are bearing witness. If we crowd in there with our own feelings, we upstage them. They experience the tremendous relief and validation of having someone shine sunshine on their feelings, but then, if we swivel that sunshine onto our feelings, we very subtly cut them off from what they were trying to feel. Sometimes, it's appropriate to share our feelings. Usually, you can feel this. The kids look at you and want to know how you feel. Like Mutt saying he feels sad that things didn't work out with their mom. But that's slightly different, because she was giving permission, if that makes sense, and for the most part, trying to figure out if her feelings are ok.

I'll try to give an example of what happened in my situation. This took place during the very first conversation about S13's dad having some kind of mental illness. It was after the second ex parte motion for an emergency suspension of visitation. N/BPDx had forwarded in appropriate emails that we wrote back and forth during our marriage. S13 was angry and trying to make sense of why his dad would do that, what did the emails means. I handled everything well until S13 started talking about what it was like when he was at his dad's and N/BPDx would say bad things about me. He needed to talk about how it made him feel. I, of course, had some feelings about this topic too. And so I got in that space and started to describe how I felt when N/BPDx did that.

S13 shut down. Kids are still in fairly self-centered patterns of thinking. S13 was not concerned how the negative talk affected me. This was our first open, honest, emotional conversation about the incredibly complex feelings he had about this loyalty bind his dad put him in, which on one hand made him feel like he was getting attention from a dad who doesn't give much, while on the other hand feeling guilty for enjoying the attention. Possibly he was aligning or enmeshing with his dad.

So a big complicated hair ball of difficult feelings. And I took away the sunshine.

We were able to get back to that place, but it took a while and it was not nearly as cathartic because the real moment had passed.

It takes incredible strength to not get defensive when the conversation is about you in some regard, so this is not easy work here. And the topic of the OM has to make it nearly impossible to watch the line between your feelings and your kids. When I'm in doubt about my own feelings, I stick to questions. Or I will say that I have feelings about this, but we can talk about that later. "Right now, I want to hear how you feel."

The worst mistake I made is when S13 started to show some real anger about his dad. I immediately tossed out, "I've forgiven your dad." I shut that kid down in half a second with that comment. My T gave me an A for the whole conversation, but that one on its own earned a D    She pointed out how self-controlled I have been with my own anger, that I was trying to contain S13's too because that felt safe. So I had to go back to S13 and bring it up, "Remember when you said this, and I said that? I thought about it. That wasn't cool for me to do that. You were angry, and you know what? It took me years and years to understand. And I was really anger, but also afraid to feel that anger. It makes me feel out of control, even though it was a legitimate feelings. Forgiveness is something that is deeply personal and can't be rushed, at least as far as I have experienced. If you feel angry, that's real. I'm sorry for throwing down my own experience on yours."

He's 13 and pretty perceptive, so we can talk like this (now). I'm just on a roll here   and wanted to add this part because as parents, our kids tolerate do-overs like champs. And when we admit that we made a mistake and are willing to own it, they see that it's ok to be vulnerable.

[Mutt]

This is why validation is so hard. Telling S4 that you don't like the new guy seems like potential trouble. For example, "I can tell you feel angry and don't like him" is different than "I don't like him either."

I like this. I can see the difference with how you communicate. It's attention to how you deliver your message.

If we crowd in there with our own feelings, we upstage them

Excellent point.

I'm thankful that you shared your experience livednlearned. These are things I'm learning and I agree - you can't rush and I believe there's anger under the surface that I'm trying to work through. The whole thing with how one family collapsed and two emerged is where some of the angry feelings still stem from. There's anger at how different my pov of the marriage was now in contrast to how I had experienced it with my naivety in the marriage. It's like neither one of us where on the sane page and it's incredibly painful how she had chosen to wind the marriage Dow - if that makes sense.

This recent news validates how there are feelings and emotions perhaps that I overlooked or stuffed away.

She's been acting incredibly strange with how she's all over the place since she told me. There's a spike with the difficulty with co-parenting with her lately, working through my own stuff ( with a T ) and focusing on taking care of me. She's been accusatory, blaming, playing games at pick up times by simply telling the kids "hurry up kids!" saying nothing and rushing everybody out. On top of all of this she's trying rapprochement and what I mean by this ud inviting me to tag along on a family outing ( hockey game ) with her family, with OM on her time. Granted she said I can sit with D9 at the game.

Incredibly confusing although it validates the importance for myself to not hang on so much as to the words she says and to really look at how she behaves with her actions.

Two things. I think she's acting emotionally immature and trying to punish and she's angry at past exchanges at the kids. I simply would have my voice recorder. Get the kids and leave and never did I say "kids let's go!" I was in and out because of her behaviors, my biggest concern, blasting dad in from if the kids which us something I really despised in the marriage and not something I tolerate post break-up because I don't have to have kids bear witness by simply walking away. I understand she's hyper-sensitive to rejection and likely this is where she's being vindictive. My point, I thought it's better to pick-up and leave and forgo the drama. She's had instances where she's yelling at me as I walk away from her property.

Lastly, she's attached and making sure I'm at arms reach in case of. She's trying to protect her behind if OM choses to split or vice versa. I feel like she's treating me like an object and incredibly invalidating with the lack of acknowledgement from her actions and pain it caused to myself and the kids. I'm trying to move to the center as I feel I'm triangulated.