He knows my soft underbelly--my kids

[Elpis]

This one gets me every time.

Even when my uBPDh is talking crap to me via texting, if he says one of our kids is struggling I immediately feel bad and do something. I think this gives him some power, and I hate that I react!

The thing is, they're all adults. This time it was our 26 year old, last time it was the 44 year old. And he makes snide remarks with mean and manipulative assumption sorts of statements. i'm pretty sure his words cut so deep because i'm trained like Pavlov's dog to respond.

It's probably just more of his making everything my fault, projecting his own failure to do anything for Christmas with our son (the 26 year old) but of course I jump and check on my son.

Oh it's hard to break free! The tentacles of my guilt run through my life-- "I failed to make it work" "I'm putting my kids through something they don't need to deal with" "I'm a bad mother!" ... .all those words run through my head.

But I know I am a good mom, I know that if I had stayed I would be a babbling puddle on the floor. I know my children are adults and capable of working through this splitting of their parents.

But oh the guilt... .

[Mutt]

Oh it's hard to break free! The tentacles of my guilt run through my life-- "I failed to make it work" "I'm putting my kids through something they don't need to deal with" "I'm a bad mother!" ... .all those words run through my head.

Ouch. That's an awful lot of guilt Elpis. I'm sorry he's putting you through this.

My Achilles' heel is my children. I can relate.

My ex would criticize my parenting. It hurt when she said I was an awful uncaring dad. She would would erupt with disproportionate anger while I was trying to serve supper to the kids saying foul language in front of the kids. It hurt.

I'd tell her to not speak to me as such in front of the kids and she would continue this behavior. A boundary is if you do X I respond with Y.  What are your boundaries when he communicates in this manner now? My ex guilts me every so often with the kids. What helped me is that my head cleared and I'm detached and emotionally detached from her words. It's not triggering and she may send something once and it remains there ( 1 email ) She knows by now that she won't get a response from me. She called me a wall once It starts and ends there is my point.

You are correct you are a good mom and have a big    Don't let his opinions define you.

[Hawk Ridge]

My ex doesn't have kids.  Her ex before me did and she had high and unrealistic expectations for those kids.  While we were together, she would complain that I was childlike and had perfectionistic expectations I could never meet but one I did was being quiet as she liked to sleep and watch tv all the time, a very quiet lifestyle that fit well for two childless people.  I was a nervous wreck because of her expectations. Now she is with someone who has teen and adult children as well as one grandchild. I can't help but wonder how that is going, how well my replacement is handling the degrading perfectionism.  When I stopped by her house one day for a planned visit, the home was messy and obviously my replacement and the kids left stuff scattered around.  My ex was clearly depressed.  I wonder... .

[Elpis]

Mutt, what I've done so far (and i'm finally seeing) is that I will ask for clarification, and then even though he is goading me and goading me i'll stop responding. He does all these little "so you're not going to do anything? nice." things. So I need to not respond from the beginning--it's just so hard when I think one of them is upset. Even though I know they're all grown-ups now. (well, I don't know about my husband... . ) It's definitely something to go over with my T.

Hawk Ridge, that whole fear of their reaction is awful! My uBPDh would get so angry if any of us woke him when he was in bed, and with his job he might be on a different shift, he might have gone to bed ahead of us... .and if we heard the bed creaking like he was getting up we'd all freeze in place to see what the outcome would be!

Sleeping and watching tv isn't much of a life, eh? Sounds like she's either talking about herself not being able to be perfect or just wishing everyone else would be perfect.