First post after reading for a year

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

This site has been an incredible resource over the past year that I've been lurking. Thanks in advance and in retrospect for all your insights. While I was hoping I'd never really need to join, I guess I should've learned from reading that some folks' behavior doesn't get better over time. It's feeling now like the other shoe is dangling pretty precariously, so here I am.

A little background (although, frankly, I keep metaphorically looking over my shoulder: what if she finds this site?): my wonderful H has two lovely girls from his past marriage. He and his ex (undiagnosed, but some behaviors on the spectrum) separated over 4 years ago (after 10+ years married) and divorced 6 months after the separation. He thought he & uBPDxw could coparent reasonably, even if they couldn't be married, so he let her have full custody. I can imagine your faces now.

Long story short, over the past years she's come up with every reason under the sun to slowly whittle away at DH's parenting time -- most framed as "what the girls really want". At first, DH tried to just be flexible (that's what they all tell you to do, right?). Later, he pushed back -- and it came out as older D being resistant to spending time with him. One big blowup with uBPDexw and her husband (in front of the kids), 4 mediation sessions, and a few good articles by Craig Childress later, things cooled down for a year or so. Both D's, especially older, relaxed noticeably around him (and me).

H has been good at finding ways to spend time with the kids on his own terms (can you guess that one of uBPDxw’s big deals is control?). He’s been volunteering at their alternative school for the past year plus as a recess assistant, and it went great – so well, in fact, that the school wants to hire him to teach in a classroom (again, it’s a small alt school, so they can do this). UBPDxw just found out last week, and apparently wants to convince the school to un-hire him because she believes it will negatively emotionally impact the girls. You know how different situations with the kids’ other parent have different feels to them, and some things feel like they’re gonna explode vs other situations you can just tell aren’t a big deal? This is one of those dark clouds gathering times, you know?

Anyway, I can start another thread for my specific questions about that upcoming situation, so, long story short again, thank you guys so much for being here. I’ll post more about the whole school issue later today.

[kells76]

This site has been an incredible resource over the past year that I've been lurking. Thanks in advance and in retrospect for all your insights. While I was hoping I'd never really need to join, I guess I should've learned from reading that some folks' behavior doesn't get better over time. It's feeling now like the other shoe is dangling pretty precariously, so here I am.

A little background (although, frankly, I keep metaphorically looking over my shoulder: what if she finds this site?): my wonderful H has two lovely girls from his past marriage. He and his ex (undiagnosed, but some behaviors on the spectrum) separated over 4 years ago (after 10+ years married) and divorced 6 months after the separation. He thought he & uBPDxw could coparent reasonably, even if they couldn't be married, so he let her have full custody. I can imagine your faces now.

Long story short, over the past years she's come up with every reason under the sun to slowly whittle away at DH's parenting time -- most framed as "what the girls really want". At first, DH tried to just be flexible (that's what they all tell you to do, right?). Later, he pushed back -- and it came out as older D being resistant to spending time with him. One big blowup with uBPDexw and her husband (in front of the kids), 4 mediation sessions, and a few good articles by Craig Childress later, things cooled down for a year or so. Both D's, especially older, relaxed noticeably around him (and me).

H has been good at finding ways to spend time with the kids on his own terms (can you guess that one of uBPDxw’s big deals is control?). He’s been volunteering at their alternative school for the past year plus as a recess assistant, and it went great – so well, in fact, that the school wants to hire him to teach in a classroom (again, it’s a small alt school, so they can do this). UBPDxw just found out last week, and apparently wants to convince the school to un-hire him because she believes it will negatively emotionally impact the girls. You know how different situations with the kids’ other parent have different feels to them, and some things feel like they’re gonna explode vs other situations you can just tell aren’t a big deal? This is one of those dark clouds gathering times, you know?

Anyway, I can start another thread for my specific questions about that upcoming situation, so, long story short again, thank you guys so much for being here. I’ll post more about the whole school issue later today.

[livednlearned]

Hi kells76,

Welcome to the site! I'm so glad you had some success turning around the alienation before it hit the point of no return. Or maybe it just went underground and is now resurfacing in a new way? My SO has a BPDx who kinda moved down the line with the kids. As each one began to gain more independence, BPD mom would then start to work on the next one.

Does your H still lose his parenting time? Glad to hear that Childress was helpful. Was that to help you H understand what was happening and why, so that he could see it was alienation?

[Panda39]

Hi kells76,

I'm so glad you decided to surface from the the land of lurkers to a full-fledged poster 

I'm here too because my SO has an uBPDxw and like you have found so much support, new ways of looking at things, tools and even challenges to my ways of thinking, all of which have been helpful.

I'm glad we another stepmom added into the mix and encourage you to tell your H about us too.  My SO and I both come here and it has really helped us have a common language and strategy when it comes to his ex.

So jump right in and "Post" away! 

[kells76]

Hi LnL & Panda39;

Thanks for the welcome!

Panda39: Yup, I'm definitely looking for support & tools -- seems like these high conflict situations aren't really made for traditional stepparenting support groups. I can picture myself in one now: Me: "But she has the kids call Stepdad ':)ad', lets them decide if they want to see H, and won't let go of the negative engagement!" Moderator: "Can't you be more understanding?" Me: 

I will certainly keep posting away!

LnL: yeah, I think the alienation is more like whack-a-mole -- it shows up in one form, we sort of figure out how to deal with it, and it pops up in some other random area. Mom identifies strongly with older D and so has focused more "independent thinking and emotional health" efforts on her (if you know what I mean... .aka the opposite of that). Now that older D has more a mind of her own, I'm wondering if Mom might start putting pressure on younger D, who is much, much more credulous (i.e., she's said the two people she thinks are automatic ins for heaven are Mom & Stepdad). So yeah, the situation sounds potentially similar to yours.

Childress' Jiu-jitsu Parenting was super helpful and an article that H appropriated for himself. I think usually H gets swamped by uBPDxw but he was really able to see the good in that article and apply it. H hasn’t used the term alienation and frankly I kept hoping over the past year+ that it wasn’t and that I was just projecting fears onto the situation. Seems more likely now, though.

In terms of if H still loses parenting time, it's pretty bare bones right now, but on the up side, older D has started to choose to spend time with him instead of going to optional sports practices (possibly suggested by Mom) on H's night. I think that might be starting to trigger Mom, along with older D starting to talk back to Mom/get a bit of an attitude. Might be time to teach older D S.E.T.

Mom wants to readjust the summer schedule (no detailed PP on file, so they do this every year). She says she doesn’t want any major changes which I think means she wants major changes. Also says it’s based on feedback from girls. Sort of seems like if you’re at Disneyland and you ask the kids if they want to stay at Disneyland of course they’ll say Yes. Maybe if they’re at Mom’s and she asks do you want to have weekend vacations with me and Stepdad then what else are they supposed to say?

That’s just a little more background on where we’re at… I’ll try to get a different thread on the school situation going, because I could definitely use feedback  -- again, not really something you can bring to a normal stepparenting group. But you all know what that’s like