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ennie
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« on: January 11, 2014, 11:19:25 PM » |
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I have not posted in awhile, but I am just so touched right now I just wanted to tell someone how great my stepdaughters are. SD9 is just a lovey dovey, in such a great place right now.
But really, tonight I am just really touched and impressed by my SD13 and our relationship. The thing I love the most right now is how skillful and willing she is to work through conflict and to stay connected.
In general, I have been really clear, particularly with SD13, that I am not her mom. We are close, I am a grownup in the house and totally empowered to have boundaries with the kids, but especially with SD13, who is totally enmeshed with BPD mom, it is really important to her that I make that clear.
But here she is, hormonal, 13, totally exhausted as she had a late night sleepover last night, then worked all day for a community group she wanted to support, and then her dad makes her do dishes. The were arguing about it, and at a certain point I said, "Look, you guys can negotiate however you want, but I just do not want the result to be that I have more dishes than if you guys did not negotiate, because that is not fair to me, and I am the one who does the vast majority of dishes."
SD13 said (for one of the 5 times she has ever said this to me), "You are not my mother! You can't tell me what to do!" and stomped up the stairs. I followed her and let her know that this was not about me being her parent, but about the fact that doing everyone's dishes is NOT my job, and that we live together so I am going to have some boundaries. That is just the way it is. She then went into how she does not want to live here and does not want me in her life (which is what she does say when times are hard at mom's, but has not done lately. I do not think she really feels this way, but must say it to be loyal to mom; she really seems to love our place and her dad and me and the house we built together).
Usually, I am intimidated and hurt when she says this stuff in response to me expressing boundaries, which I think is why she has done it on the 5 or 6 occasions she has. It is her ultimately power play. What gets me about this is how frustrating it is because this is her mom's story about me, SD13 LOVES the ways I actually do parent her (not with boundaries about how much cleaning I do, but by giving her a massage, helping her when ill, making her special treats, etc), ONLY brings this up when I am asking her to do her fair share (as opposed to doing it for her, as many moms including hers would). But what gets me the most is the fact that it is totally the opposite of how I am with her, at least in my terms because for me, it is really clear that I do not need her to love me or be a daughter to me, as some SMs really do. I am not looking for her to be a daughter (though of course she is in ways). But that is not a hunger I have, and I am not using her to feed a hunger.
So, normally, I get hurt and retreat when she does this and let her dad handle it.
But this time, I took it on. I thought she was old enough for some more info about how that impacts me.
First, I expressed that I was angry, that it did not seem fair to me that she says that kind of stuff only when I am asking her to do her share, and not 30 minutes earlier when she wanted me to give her a massage, or to tell me all about her sleepover, and so forth. I said that it seemed like she was saying that not because she does not want me to be close in the ways I am or that she feels like I am too mothering, but because she knows it is something that gives her power because it hurts me. And that she has that power because I care about her and want to help her be her own best person, and she knows it would really hurt if she or I felt that I was doing that out of my need to be a mom rather than out of care. And that if she caries the habit of hurting people as bad as you can with words when they express a boundary (about dishes or whatever), that creates pain and fear in people you love.
I then stopped lecturing, and just really let her know how I felt. I let my voice wobble, told her that it is very painful to me when she says things to hurt me and push me away because she is mad. That I am really open and not often hurt when she tells me these things for other reasons (which she sees, as she has complimented me on that openness in the past), but that when I am feeling open and close and she is asking me to massage her leg and putting her arm around me while I am making dinner and being loving, and then says something really mean, it really hurts, because my heart is open. And that my heart is not just going to close, and she is not just going to live with her mom if my feelings are hurt, that where she lives is not my choice at all, and that neither, really is me loving her. I do not love the kids because they are my stepdaughters, but because I love THEM. Period. And no amount of meanness or anger from her will change that. So I will be hurt if she says really harsh things to me, not because she is so mean, but because I am open and because I care. I told her I do not need her to change; she gets to be who she wants to be. But that it is important to me to let her know how powerful her mean words are, and that they are powerful because I care. That not all step moms are like that, many do not care, but I do.
I kind of went on and on.
And she REALLY listened. This last part sounds a little lecturing and self righteous, but it really was not. I was really open, not trying to get her sympathy (children are really not the right folks to go to if you want sympathy), but really wanting her to feel the effects of her words, wanting to describe what happened in me when she said what she said.
And she really took it in. I apologized for going on and on, and she said, "Oh, that is fine. I do that all the time with my friends." And she said she was sorry for freaking out at me, and that she sees how it is different to tell me she wants to live with her mom, versus yelling at me that i am not her mom, she does not want me in her life, and that I am always trying to be her mom. She said she knows I am not trying to be her mom, and that she just was feeling testy because of staying up late nad because her friend was mean to her in small ways (her friend actually has some emotional issues that are like her BPD mom), and that she was hurt and then grumpy with me and her dad and took it out on me.
At some point earlier when she was yelling, she said, "if you did not want kids, why are you with a man who has kids?" At that moment, I said, "I DO want to be in your life, but as your stepmom, not as your mom." The whole, "YOU ARE NOT MY MOM!" thing always seems like a trap... . like a test. She is angry and is saying "Back off!", but also saying, "But if you do back off, you do not really love me enough." So I try to to sidestep the trap, and let her know I love her totally, and do not want to be a mom, but really want to be there for her in the ways that are good for both of us. The fact that I am not trying to be her mom does not mean I love her less, because if I was trying to be her mom it would be for me, not her, because she has a mom.
But later, when she was really being loving again, I let her know that I have a commitment to her well being, not because I am her step mom or parent, but because of something deeper, and that if I really thought based on what she said or I felt that me not being in her life would be best for her, I would do it in a heartbeat. That I care about her whether she likes me or loves me or not, whether she needs me or not. That it does not matter where she lives or who she lives with, or how angry she is at me. At this point, she tears up and holds my hand.
I also said, "One really big thing your mom and I have in common is that we both do most of the dishes in our respective homes. So if you find us saying the same things about dishes, it might not be because I think I am your mom, but because I am doing your dishes. You are old enough to sort of figure out why your mom and I are saying some of the same things, and to figure out it is not just my trying to be your mom." She cracked up,put her hands on my shoulders, and said, "Yeah."
She said other things that made me think she really had FINALLY, maybe for the first time, gotten that when she says "I do not want to live here!", she is saying it not because it is true (which is what her mom says when being hurtful, "I am just telling the truth!) but because it is a path to power by intimidation in that moment. She also really acknowledged that I am open to hearing how she wants to live with mom or how she wants me to treat her differently, and that this is not the issue when she says those words. This is HUGE for her, to distinguish between her story and WHY she is telling it at that moment in those words. And, she has been avoiding telling me she loves me for the past 6 months, and after I said, "Look, I know you love me, and I am sure I would not be as close or nice to you or love you so much if you did not love me for the past 7 years. My heart is not that dumb. My brain might be, but my heart is pretty smart." She said, "Yeah, I do." But then, for the next two hours, she let me know she loves me in lots of ways, saying in an angry yelling voice, "Ennie! I love you!" And we joked around about how since she did not want to be caught being a teen who loves her stepmom, she could just say it that way when she wanted me to know she loves me--in a yelling, mean voice. She loved that.
I also asked her how it felt to hear that her words really hurt me, whether that mattered to her, whether that had an impact on her. And she said, "Actually, while you were saying that stuff, the reason I was hiding my face is because I was crying." Me: "About my feelings? Or about not living with your mom? Or other things?" Her: "About how I hurt you, and how I am feeling in my life, and just all of it. I just felt really sad all of a sudden. I am really sorry I say such mean things sometimes." Me: "You really are not so mean, and the things you say are only mean because of how you say them and when you say them, but I also know that those are your real feelings, just that you are using them to hurt me not when you do not want me to be loving or parental, but because you want me not to tell you what to do. I know you want me not to be your mom, but I also kind of think you know that I am not trying to be your mom."
Anyway, reading back over this I think it sounds more sappy and manipulative on my part than it was. The core of it is that I really feel she is growing into a young woman who 1) cares about the people around her for real; 2) is able to notice her impact on me and others without making herself wrong, and without making me wrong; 3) is able to back down and apologize; 4) is able to empathize enough to see that my experience is not the same as hers, and that there may be other reasons I seem like a mom than that I am trying to be her mom (and also to receive that I see that her saying I am like a mom at that moment is reasonable given her experience of what a mom does)--in other words, that she can see that we see things differently and that neither of us is right or wrong.
I am so happy about this for two reasons. One, these things mean she is going to be her own person, with some of her mom in her, some of her dad in her, some of me in her... . but mostly, she is going to be her own person and not just enmeshed or in rebellion.
Second, it is just so satisfying to express some of that grief at loving kids who have some strong dose of their mom's meanness in them, which is sometimes directed at me, and to have this kid REALLY get her impact on me, get her role in it, without making herself or me wrong. It feels great to help teach her to do that, and get the awesome reward of a deep, great, conversation about something tricky, difficult, painful. To have us both go form hurt to feeling great and strong in ourselves and in our relationship.
In sum, I have got to say that I really like being a stepmom. I like that it is close, but there is that distance that allows a kid to be so real with me. I like that if I am upset, the kids know it is me, not them. I like the huge opportunity to make a different, and that fact that there are other people to blame if it does not work out! Just kidding on the last one, though I am grateful for the lack of responsibility for the big life choices for the kids. I really do like the fact that a lot of stuff is just not my choice, which gets me out of some of the hot seat with big decisions. And I am grateful for the hard stuff, that makes us have to be really great to make it through, because these people in my life really are great.
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