Im feeling stepmom challenges...

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

I am the stepmom to SD14 and SD10, both really awesome girls.  For those who do not know me, I have been in this role about 7 years (though have only been actually married to DH 4 of those years). 

This last little while, I am having a hard time with the powerlessness of my role.  In general, i do not want kids, love my relationship with the girls, and do not crave a mom role.  However, the combination of BPD mom and her demands, coupled with DH's poor planning is really getting me down.

What I am hoping for here is some sympathy and advice for ME, not for what DH should do.  If I was him, there is lots I would do, but I am not a legal parent so I do not have that power.  So hearing all the great ideas is insanely frustrating, because no matter how I try, he will not do it. 

Lately, I am just faced with so many frustrations about DH not doing things in a timely manner or planning for challenges in a way that creates stress and complications for me.  I am tired of having no say.

DH and I are really close, good friends and also in love, and have great counselors who help us work out the parts we have a hard time with alone.  We have lots of tools, but also a lot of stress dealing with BPD mom and parenting.  We have the kids 50% of the time. The bottom line of what is bugging me is that DH agrees to solutions, then does not do them (puts them off), and then there are 6 more problems, so he is totally engulfed, and life with the kids and BPD ex gets super stressful and hard. 

There are lots of things that have piled up recently.  First, every year I am the main planner for the summer, because if I do not plan it, it ends up chaotic as DH does not plan well.  This year has big particularly hectic for him as he is a business owner and has had a major change in the business this year.  So his hands are very full.  The long and short of it is that we were juggling vacation plans. The kids have the first part of the summer with dad, but there is some ambiguity about the exact date the summer plan starts.  DH and I had a meeting/planning session, and he was supposed to pass the results of our summer plans on to his ex as a proposal early enough to have it certain by the date reservations needed to be made.  So I made reservations, he put off the communication, and she now wants to take the kids to her home state for a wedding on the exact dates we have other plans. 

For part of the time, he has authority of whether to allow her to have the kids or not.  For the other part, it is not crystal clear because he never sent the email. 

So now, she has the power to not allow him to take the kids for half of the vacation. 

Secondly, I asked for DH to have the kids have a counselor if we are to be involved, long before we married, because from the beginning BPD mom has accused me and him of random inappropriate things that are totally her experience and not ours at all (stuff that happened when she was a kid that we would never do), and I wanted a neutral third party to have a perspective.  Also, I wanted this for the kids' sake, but as a Step person, I was not willing to "insist" for the kids' sake alone. 

So the had a counselor for years, who mom then trashed in front of the kids, so SD14 will not see her.  The counselor will not see SD14 if SD14 does not want to see her.  When that happened, I asked DH to get another counselor.  SD14 has been asking for one who "does not know my mom OR my dad." 

I suggest that DH ask for referrals and talk to them first, then suggest that mom pick one of those for SD14.  First I try to get him to ask for referrals, he does then loses the numbers.  So I do it and make him lists.  He calls one, then it goes on the back burner. Then we talk about it, he agrees to do it by... . March, then July, then November. 

The parenting plan says that the counselor in question is the kids counselor until they both agree to terminate in writing.  Further, the parenting plan says that both parents must "confer and agree" before the kids see new therapists. 

Now, mom has announced an appointment for SD14 with a counselor who is her friend, or therapists friend.  No name.  No info.  She will not provide anything else. 

So now, to have a say, he has to tell her to cancel the appointment.  The issue here for SD14 is that counselors with no experience with BPD just are wrapped around her finger, and she tells terrible tall tales about dad that vary with the audience, so it is impossible to know what we are dealing with, and the result for SD14 is that it takes YEARS, even with a good therapist, to get to the point where the T understands what is happening.  IOW, SD14 starts off thinking (because her mom thinks this) that a T is an opportunity to protect mom and get to live at mom's house.  So SD14 is busy telling T about how mom is the best mom in the world, how we are terrible, how mom never drinks or smokes or does drugs or leaves them alone all night while partying, how dad does not care and DOES NOT LISTEN, because SD14 has ALWAYS wanted to live with mommy and noone lets her. 

At first, the T usually assumes mom is a little crazy, and that much or some of what SD14 says about dad and mom is true. 

So then slowly but surely mom shows up drunk to an appointment, mom screams at the T, and over time, the T gets that mom is disturbed.  But still, T does not get to hear the hard parts, because SD14 is expert at saying mom is perfect, the problem is that mom and dad are divorced and she has no choice.  Very sympathetic.  A good therapist, three years in, sees that SD14 is desperately trying to protect mom and is giving up huge aspects of herself and childhood to do so.  That mom is partying and driving drunk and kids are lying to protect her, being told she will die if they do not do so.  That she will leave or kill herself if they are angry with her.  And the T starts to see that SD14 is splitting, not remembering how she feels at moms, feeling like a different person at dads.  Loving dad and stepmom at our house, hating us at mom's house.  And there is no bridge between the two. 

And finally, the T gets how much pressure that is on the kids.  Then, there is some event like a false accusation, that the T has to actually be interviewed about.  And BPD mom can read between the lines and see the T has not supported her story, so she trashes the T and the kids no longer see her. 

With one T, she just blindly accepted each of these stages.  With one, she went into it telling DH he must be willing to get a court order if he wants her to see the kids, because if mom says yes now, it will be no later.  But eventually, none of them last. 

So here we are, starting anew.  Only now, mom is calling the shots. 

In short, I feel completely frustrated. 

Meanwhile, SD14 got caught shoplifting when with mom, and mom has all the paperwork and DH none.  And he keeps putting off getting it, so it has been three weeks.

DH is very busy, does not have time to deal well with all this stuff, and is bad at follow through when stressed on top of the sheer volume. 

But for me, I am feeling out of options. I do not want to leave him.  I have asked for what I want many times, he has agreed.  He just does not do it.  So I am at a loss for what to do. 

I know the boundary/values work, and am thinking about what I value, but have such a hard time figuring out the boundary part.  I value peace, and clarity of plans such that I can actualize fun dreams, I value fun peaceful time with my DH and the kids.  I value accomplishing things, moving between point a and point be. 

I can see that the extreme boundary is to not plan or do vacations with the family if he is not willing to communicate with his ex in a timely manner so they happen; or to not plan them.  But that means not getting what I value, which is the peaceful time, so then we only have the stressful time.  I also have considered asking him to have a separate structure some of the time, so I can have peace even when he is in chaos, but that too feels so disruptive to our family, and I want MORE peace, not less.  I do not want to break up; it is terribly frustrating, but so much of our relationship works well.  It is just that in times of crisis, DH does not plan and takes on too much, so what I have planned with him either does not happen, or gets terrible stressful, and/or I have to push hard to get it which causes stress. 

I just feel powerless.  If I had parental authority, I would just send BPD mom the proposed plan when I wanted to, but it has to go through DH.  So I ask him, email him, remind him, ad nauseum.  I have tried not asking, too, and it does not help.  Plain and simple, these are areas where he has power and I do not, and I do not know what to do to have a reasonable schedule with reasonable advance notice.  So my in laws are all writing and calling me for clarification, and I cannot give it... . and they are upset because he will not call them back because he has not made up his mind or clarified it with BPD mom or whatever.  I just feel stuck. 

HELP! 

[ennie]

I am the stepmom to SD14 and SD10, both really awesome girls.  For those who do not know me, I have been in this role about 7 years (though have only been actually married to DH 4 of those years). 

This last little while, I am having a hard time with the powerlessness of my role.  In general, i do not want kids, love my relationship with the girls, and do not crave a mom role.  However, the combination of BPD mom and her demands, coupled with DH's poor planning is really getting me down.

What I am hoping for here is some sympathy and advice for ME, not for what DH should do.  If I was him, there is lots I would do, but I am not a legal parent so I do not have that power.  So hearing all the great ideas is insanely frustrating, because no matter how I try, he will not do it. 

Lately, I am just faced with so many frustrations about DH not doing things in a timely manner or planning for challenges in a way that creates stress and complications for me.  I am tired of having no say.

DH and I are really close, good friends and also in love, and have great counselors who help us work out the parts we have a hard time with alone.  We have lots of tools, but also a lot of stress dealing with BPD mom and parenting.  We have the kids 50% of the time. The bottom line of what is bugging me is that DH agrees to solutions, then does not do them (puts them off), and then there are 6 more problems, so he is totally engulfed, and life with the kids and BPD ex gets super stressful and hard. 

There are lots of things that have piled up recently.  First, every year I am the main planner for the summer, because if I do not plan it, it ends up chaotic as DH does not plan well.  This year has big particularly hectic for him as he is a business owner and has had a major change in the business this year.  So his hands are very full.  The long and short of it is that we were juggling vacation plans. The kids have the first part of the summer with dad, but there is some ambiguity about the exact date the summer plan starts.  DH and I had a meeting/planning session, and he was supposed to pass the results of our summer plans on to his ex as a proposal early enough to have it certain by the date reservations needed to be made.  So I made reservations, he put off the communication, and she now wants to take the kids to her home state for a wedding on the exact dates we have other plans. 

For part of the time, he has authority of whether to allow her to have the kids or not.  For the other part, it is not crystal clear because he never sent the email. 

So now, she has the power to not allow him to take the kids for half of the vacation. 

Secondly, I asked for DH to have the kids have a counselor if we are to be involved, long before we married, because from the beginning BPD mom has accused me and him of random inappropriate things that are totally her experience and not ours at all (stuff that happened when she was a kid that we would never do), and I wanted a neutral third party to have a perspective.  Also, I wanted this for the kids' sake, but as a Step person, I was not willing to "insist" for the kids' sake alone. 

So the had a counselor for years, who mom then trashed in front of the kids, so SD14 will not see her.  The counselor will not see SD14 if SD14 does not want to see her.  When that happened, I asked DH to get another counselor.  SD14 has been asking for one who "does not know my mom OR my dad." 

I suggest that DH ask for referrals and talk to them first, then suggest that mom pick one of those for SD14.  First I try to get him to ask for referrals, he does then loses the numbers.  So I do it and make him lists.  He calls one, then it goes on the back burner. Then we talk about it, he agrees to do it by... . March, then July, then November. 

The parenting plan says that the counselor in question is the kids counselor until they both agree to terminate in writing.  Further, the parenting plan says that both parents must "confer and agree" before the kids see new therapists. 

Now, mom has announced an appointment for SD14 with a counselor who is her friend, or therapists friend.  No name.  No info.  She will not provide anything else. 

So now, to have a say, he has to tell her to cancel the appointment.  The issue here for SD14 is that counselors with no experience with BPD just are wrapped around her finger, and she tells terrible tall tales about dad that vary with the audience, so it is impossible to know what we are dealing with, and the result for SD14 is that it takes YEARS, even with a good therapist, to get to the point where the T understands what is happening.  IOW, SD14 starts off thinking (because her mom thinks this) that a T is an opportunity to protect mom and get to live at mom's house.  So SD14 is busy telling T about how mom is the best mom in the world, how we are terrible, how mom never drinks or smokes or does drugs or leaves them alone all night while partying, how dad does not care and DOES NOT LISTEN, because SD14 has ALWAYS wanted to live with mommy and noone lets her. 

At first, the T usually assumes mom is a little crazy, and that much or some of what SD14 says about dad and mom is true. 

So then slowly but surely mom shows up drunk to an appointment, mom screams at the T, and over time, the T gets that mom is disturbed.  But still, T does not get to hear the hard parts, because SD14 is expert at saying mom is perfect, the problem is that mom and dad are divorced and she has no choice.  Very sympathetic.  A good therapist, three years in, sees that SD14 is desperately trying to protect mom and is giving up huge aspects of herself and childhood to do so.  That mom is partying and driving drunk and kids are lying to protect her, being told she will die if they do not do so.  That she will leave or kill herself if they are angry with her.  And the T starts to see that SD14 is splitting, not remembering how she feels at moms, feeling like a different person at dads.  Loving dad and stepmom at our house, hating us at mom's house.  And there is no bridge between the two. 

And finally, the T gets how much pressure that is on the kids.  Then, there is some event like a false accusation, that the T has to actually be interviewed about.  And BPD mom can read between the lines and see the T has not supported her story, so she trashes the T and the kids no longer see her. 

With one T, she just blindly accepted each of these stages.  With one, she went into it telling DH he must be willing to get a court order if he wants her to see the kids, because if mom says yes now, it will be no later.  But eventually, none of them last. 

So here we are, starting anew.  Only now, mom is calling the shots. 

In short, I feel completely frustrated. 

Meanwhile, SD14 got caught shoplifting when with mom, and mom has all the paperwork and DH none.  And he keeps putting off getting it, so it has been three weeks.

DH is very busy, does not have time to deal well with all this stuff, and is bad at follow through when stressed on top of the sheer volume. 

But for me, I am feeling out of options. I do not want to leave him.  I have asked for what I want many times, he has agreed.  He just does not do it.  So I am at a loss for what to do. 

I know the boundary/values work, and am thinking about what I value, but have such a hard time figuring out the boundary part.  I value peace, and clarity of plans such that I can actualize fun dreams, I value fun peaceful time with my DH and the kids.  I value accomplishing things, moving between point a and point be. 

I can see that the extreme boundary is to not plan or do vacations with the family if he is not willing to communicate with his ex in a timely manner so they happen; or to not plan them.  But that means not getting what I value, which is the peaceful time, so then we only have the stressful time.  I also have considered asking him to have a separate structure some of the time, so I can have peace even when he is in chaos, but that too feels so disruptive to our family, and I want MORE peace, not less.  I do not want to break up; it is terribly frustrating, but so much of our relationship works well.  It is just that in times of crisis, DH does not plan and takes on too much, so what I have planned with him either does not happen, or gets terrible stressful, and/or I have to push hard to get it which causes stress. 

I just feel powerless.  If I had parental authority, I would just send BPD mom the proposed plan when I wanted to, but it has to go through DH.  So I ask him, email him, remind him, ad nauseum.  I have tried not asking, too, and it does not help.  Plain and simple, these are areas where he has power and I do not, and I do not know what to do to have a reasonable schedule with reasonable advance notice.  So my in laws are all writing and calling me for clarification, and I cannot give it... . and they are upset because he will not call them back because he has not made up his mind or clarified it with BPD mom or whatever.  I just feel stuck. 

HELP! 

[refusetosuccumb]

I have no advice just lots of   

I can feel the frustration in your post. Can you find a T for yourself that deals with stepparent situations? Maybe they can give you direction?

Good luck and positive thoughts.

[Thunderstruck]

I feel your pain! My SO is terrible at standing up for himself and making decisions. He takes a loong time to mull over options and really think it through. In the meantime uBPDbm railroads him with her impulsive choices. When there are a lot of things going on my SO gets so bogged down and I'm throwing "you gotta do this, you gotta do that" on top of him that he just shuts down. I end up doing most of the work and just having him copy/paste/send it along which is NOT the healthy thing for either of us to be doing. I gotta find a way to stop it and let him do it.

Plus I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to feel like only one who works so hard to be sure SD9 is "cared for" when uBPDbm just uses SD9 as her weapon to hurt SO and SO is so damaged from the abuse that he would rather escape and do other things. Then when I try to make progress I get shut down because I'm not the biological parent. It sucks!

[livednlearned]

Ugh. So frustrating.

Because if you underfunction, then you lose what you want -- which is peace and time with the kids. If you overfunction, you still lose what you want, but maybe feel more irritated because you spent time solving things. And then get nothing in return.

Just thinking about the vacation example in particular. What would happen if you laid out a careful plan for D, with consequences -- except the consequence focuses on you being taken care of. If he does xyz, then you and the kids spend vacation with him. If he fails to do xyz, you take a vacation with friends. That way you don't end up being punished, and he experiences the consequence as a temporary loss of you, who happens to be having a great time in Costa Rica drinking big tropical cocktails on a white sandy beach with friends.

The therapist issue is trickier because the consequences seem bad for SD14, in particular. Bonding with a therapist, and then having things go off the rails can't be good for her. Is this the main thing that makes you consider leaving the relationship?

[ennie]

Truly, I really am not considering leaving the relationship.  I have no interest whatsoever in doing that.  It is just that in my life, I have either been in relationships where challenges of this level were about the relationship, so I left, whereas now, it is more about the circumstances and so I do not want to leave, but I do not have an alternative set of tools. 

We have lots of tools... . to negotiate, to see therapists, set boundaries, but we are really doing our best, and DH just has a hard time planning, and when I leave it to him it seems even harder for me.

But I REALLY agree that the answer is in the realm of "consequences" that are taking care of myself.  Ideally that solve the problem at least in the short term. 

I had the same idea (planning a vacation, if DH does not have his part together by April or may, I go on my own) in terms of next years' summer plans.  Here is the challenge for me:  DH says "Yes" and sounds like he is doing all the stuff I negotiated for, and then it just collapses at the last minute.  The problems at that stage are first that I have a really hard time making good decisions at the very last minute---I do not do well under that kind of time stress.  Second, if things seem to be going well in terms of plans, I have not made separate plans and we often have spent our money on the one vacation, so it is really hard to organize another last minute plan when I really want to go with them.  And finally,  some of the vacations we plan really require two adults, as they are adventurous, so me bailing out last minute would mean a change of plans for everyone. 

That said, I may want to just have a separate vacation next year just for the fun of it.  Part of why I am venting is because there really is no easy answer.  We are all doing our best.  DH is really working hard... . he is a great dad who owns a business so has a flexible schedule to take them to school and pick them up and talk about feelings and do homework on go on field trips... . and he also runs a business, serves on two non-profit boards, and so forth.  He is just really busy, and he is not good at recognizing his limits. We have good therapists, good negotiation skills, really loving communication.  But the reality is they he is more comfortable with lots of stress and rushing around than I am, and because I am not a bio mom, a lot of the big life decisions at this stage in our lives are made by him, so they fit more with his style.  I do not want to leave him.  I like him.  His style does not bother me when it does not involve the kids; he does not need me to be like him.  But with the kids, I am less likely to say "no" to something fun they want me to do with them because there is so much stress, I really cherish the fun times. 

But I am definitely considering next summer just saying "how bout if you guys get a vacation just with daddy, and I stay home and take care of the dog?"  If we make it sound special and fun, all but DH will be great with it.  It is just if they expect I am going they get really disappointed when I cannot join them.  I have done that before, and in some cases they bring it up years later, in other cases it is no big deal. 

But the bottom line is partly just that what I really want is to be able to just do stuff.  I really agree with the comment about doing too much or too little both creates chaos.  What I am longing for is just to be able to call the therapist when the kids need a therapist, you know what I mean? But I have done that too, and it worked, but also resulted in drama.  It is a "pick your poison" scenario... . I just lack the power to just make it happen, because they are not my kids.  I am glad they are not my kids in so many ways, and glad they are such close people in my life in other ways, so mostly I am quite happy with it all.  But I am just burnt out in this area.  I just want to make a plan and follow through without having to ask DH to talk to BPDmom who then throws a fit and then DH gets really firm, and then BPD mom gives in and then throws a fit and then SD14 comes home and yells and screams at us because we never let her mom do what she wants and then FINALLY WE ARE ABLE TO KNOW IF WE HAVE THE DATES WE WANT, and I go to make a reservation and it is too late.  Know what I mean?  And yes , I have been through all the variations on this theme... . making the reservation early without knowing, waiting to the last minute and making plans that can accommodate that.  Doing my own vacation.  And so forth. 

Thanks for understanding!  Things are better today. 

[NorthernGirl]

Hello Ennie! As you may remember, I'm a stepmom to 3 boys whose mom is UBPD. Reading your email reminded me so much of the position I was in a few years ago. Things have changed for us as the boys have gotten older, but I realize the pain you are in. 

An update on our situation -- SS24 is living with his gf, finishing up his last year of college and doing well. SS22 (an addict) is not in recovery but is managing. He has held a steady job for almost one year and finally broke away from living with his mom (they were co-dependent and she was a horrible enabler of his addiction). SS19 has special needs and is finishing up a job training program in a nearby city. He has support that allows DH to have less involvement in finding him a job, checking on his living arrangements, etc.

DH has many of the traits you describe. He is not very organized. He used to be very "busy" with work and doing things like driving the kids to sports, etc. He hated dealing with his ex so he would "forget" to tell her about vacation plans or not listen when I saw the warning signs that she was going to mess something up. So our vacations were always in jeopardy. We were at the whim of his ex, who knew this very well. She would hold on to SS19's passport until the day we were flying somewhere or tell us she had "plans" for the day we were leaving (that never materialized) once SS19 shared our travel plans with her, or she'd switch the agreed-upon schedule. I hated the lack of control I had in how it all played out. I had to come to a place where I was okay with us losing money if plans were changed or cancelled. And sometimes I would just not go along with the "planning" until I had some certainty that things would likely go ahead. We did a lot more last minute planning, often once she informed us of her plans.

DH's ex has interfered with every T SS22 had, and that was hard to watch. Each new T would slowly realize that her stories weren't ringing true and just when they were finally offering SS22 some useful help, she would pull him out of the program. I believe DH let a lot of that happen because he didn't want to be seen as the bad guy. He never told the T's what was really going on. If I was asked, I would share what was happening, and each time the T would be shocked as neither SS22 or DH had said a thing. I believe SS22 would have had much better therapy if DH had been more involved or had fought harder when his ex was trying to mess things up. 

But I guess I'm here to say that we lived through it all. The kids are pretty adaptable and have figured out long ago their mom is always going to cause problems. Just the other day SS19 said "well Mom blamed you for that problem -- you know how she is" with a laugh. They know their Dad isn't always the best at handling details so they got better at giving him reminders. Things aren't perfect but all three boys are doing pretty good. I have no doubt they have many challenges ahead but I also know that I have very little control over this. These boys (and their parents) had engrained habits and practices long before I came in the picture. And we all have our coping mechanisms that get us through. I have gotten very good at looking after myself -- eating well, exercising, doing things I like to do -- so the crazy stuff doesn't affect me so much.

I think the boys have a better idea of what a healthy relationship looks like from watching DH and I, so that is probably our biggest victory.

One thing that has made things better is that DH's ex moved back to live near her parents, apparently temporarily. This relieved a lot of pressure on the boys because it requires quite a bit of travel to get there so they don't go often. DH and his ex share joint guardianship of SS19, because of his special needs, so there is still some need for communication between them. I voiced my opinion that I didn't think joint anything with his ex was a good idea. But DH decided he didn't want to fight her, so they still have to make some decisions together. I told him when he signed the agreement that one of the consequences he was going to have to manage was that I wouldn't be picking up the pieces, managing the details or making things better when something didn't go well with DH and his ex making a joint decision. I have tried to stick by that. Again, I'm not perfect, but I really do just let some of that stuff go now.

I got better over the years of knowing where I needed to be involved or not. DreamGirl, my stepmom coach and others on this board and elsewhere helped me to decide what I should do and not do. I had people telling me to do nothing for the boys because I wasn't their parent, then I had others telling me that with their mom's lack of involvement and challenges, I should do more. Early on I did way too much - classic stepmom mistakes -- in an effort to try to make things better for these boys who were all struggling so much. For example, it was painful to watch as SS22 fell apart with his addiction and with his mom handing him money, looking the other way as he constantly stole, etc. But DH and I went to Al Anon, read up lots and I learned to step back quite a bit.

The "busy" thing is an interesting one. I started to realize that some of DH being busy was his way of avoiding things. Even when he describes the years of living with his ex, I realize that he travelled a lot with work so didn't see much of what was going on. But he also did tons of things with his kids (coached all their sports, drove them everywhere, helped them with homework, etc.) So they always felt his support and love. DH struggled when I pulled back because he had come to rely on me to do some of the stuff he hated -- planning ahead, managing the kids schedules, looking after all the small details. But it turned out that he could do a lot of that stuff when he had to or when the boys complained about things not going smoothly.

Hopefully you can figure out the right balance so you are as involved as you need to be for your own sanity. I don't think anyone can tell you exactly what that looks like. I'm sure (based on the insightful things you've said in your posts) you know there are no easy answers to what you struggle with when it comes to your role. But I also think you've come into this with a big heart so you'll figure it out. 

Keep taking care of yourself.

[GaGrl]

My three adult stepchildren are all in their 30s. DH and I have been married 8 years. If I had a dollar for every time we heard, "Well, that's Mom... . you know how she is," I'd be RICH!

[Panda39]

I'm new to this site and I am in the same boat.  I have been seeing my non-BPD boyfriend almost 4 years and it has taken me this long to figure out that I have no power to change things either.  I can suggest, I can nudge, I can nag but I have no control over anything going on in his and his childrens lives when it comes to the BPD ex and it is soo frustrating sometimes.  An interesting thing is that my guy tells me when he gets overloaded or overwhelmed he just shuts down.  He does which bothers me because I sometimes feel that is a cop out.  He shuts down and I'm at the other end of the spectrum spinning my wheels trying to solve problems and fix situations that I have no say in or control over. 

Feeling your pain

[ennie]

I actually do see that I have a lot of power in this situation.  And actually, today is another day, and I am not so distraught about it. 

But here is where I do have power. I have power to inspire, to love, and to work on my skills as a communicator and parent and to pass them onto the kids.  They are learning machines, and it is bizarre to see my imperfectly formulated values, that I am barely learning myself, be spoken eloquently out of the mouth of a 14 year old. 

We have just been through a particularly challenging spate of way too many things that DH dropped the ball on over which I truly have no control.  Most of my tenure as a stepmom I really have been fine with not having control over those things.  Medical decisions?  So stressful!  What school should they go to?  Their mom and dad argued it out and the compromise was a way better choice than I would have made, even with all the drama and the fact that mom does not really care, just wants the opposite of what DH wants.  Still, it serves to balance! And scheduling, tell me when the vacation is and I'll be there; heck, tell me what you want to do and if it sounds exciting, I will even make the reservations. 

So for me it is not that it has taken this long to figure out how little power I have.  It is just that the control issue is not the one that pushes my buttons first or the most.  I think I have enjoyed the part of things that involves figuring out where I can be useful, how to enjoy my life in the context of family, and so forth.  The biggest challenges in the past for me are often about dealing with the stress of BPDmom's rage and the pain of the way it impacts the kids, and the way that challenges our family.  For whatever reasons, right now BPD mom is not being as mean as usual, though she is drinking more and making crazy demands.  Still, the lack of meanness really decreases my stress and decreases the degree to which SD14 holds onto small issues between us as evidence to bring to her mom... . she just has not been doing that lately. 

So while planning has often been one of the only really challenging issues between DH and I, it just reached a critical mass of frustrating recently.  Which triggered really wishing I could just DO IT MYSELF, so I did not have to deal with all the stress of mom's needs overlapping with ours, kids being uncertain about the plan, all the chaos is just too much for me, and with my skills, it has an easy solution; with DH's, it is nearly impossible. 

But I am so present to the power I have these days.  And it is exactly the kind of power I want and love--the power of working together, of all of our needs getting met, and so on.  Had a big conflict with SD14 around the time I started this thread.  It felt terrible.  So the next day we talked, I told her the things I thought I could do to reduce stress for me so I did not find myself yelling at her to get her to stop being mean, and also we talked about her habit of using mean words and sarcasm to push people when she is not getting what she wants.  I talked to her about how hard that is for me, how my feelings get hurt, and how much I want to support her in finding a way to communicate through difficulty in a way that does not resort to being really hurtful to get what she wants.  That as an adult, dealing with conflict that way makes relationships really hard, and I want her to be really supported by her people, to have her and those around her feel safe and loved and capable of moving through hardship as a team. 

She really got it.  She told me she forgives me for yelling, and really wants to work on that too.  That she wants to try harder.  The last few days we had her, she really worked on staying polite to us and her sister even when things were not going great for her.  She cleaned the bathroom, washed dishes, made her bed, and when she was frustrated, told is clearly and respectfully why and what she wanted.  And I found it really easy to stay in a peaceful place myself, not to get mad at her.  The few times she used sarcasm with her sister, I just let her know that if she wanted to be downstairs in the family space, I really want her to speak respectfully.  And she did it, with a whole heart. 

This is real power, to me.  To get what I want by helping someone to be more of who they are, and to help them do things that are within their capacity and that feel really good when you can pull it off. 

DH and I will be meeting with our T this coming week.  I need to do some writing about my boundaries and ideas about what I want to negotiate.  How can I create the space I need and reduce stress without DH needing to change his ways?  What can I ask him to do that is within his power, and that he may be willing to do?