What can we tell the kids to do?

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

Background: SD15 and SS13 live with us out of state of their uBPDm. Their mom gets limited visitation and there is nothing written into the order about summer visitation except "other visitation will be as the parties agree to it". Since the kids do love their mother and want to see her, DH consults the kid's T's when making his decision about how much summer visitation he will agree his ex can have. Naturally, ex thinks she should be entitled to have them all summer because she is, in her own mind, a good parent who never did anything to warrant losing custody in the first place. She was given two weeks to start, then three weeks this past summer, and now she is back down to getting two weeks.

The reason she is only getting two weeks is because the kids have both grown a bit and have the distance to see her for who she is. SD is sick of being interrogated and yelled. She complained recently that her mom is incapable of seeing anyone else as their own person with their own thoughts and feelings. She is angry at how much of her childhood was spent being her mom's counselor and parent. SS has acknowledged that he walks on egg shells at his mom's and he spends most of the visits hiding in the bedroom he shares with his younger step-brother, whom he likes a lot, but who he also watches his mom tear down. Again, they are going because they do love her and want to see her and their siblings. But they don't want to be in the pressure cooker for more than a couple of weeks because that's as long as they feel she and they can handle.

DH has explained to his ex that his decision on how long the kids go is based largely on what the counselors advise him is in the kid's best interests. (He would not want to be seen in court as not giving her more time to because he is mean or punishing her, which is what she claims is going on.)

The issue is that apparently now on the phone with the kids she angry at them because she feels they must have said something bad about her in counseling for her to only be getting two weeks. The kid's are anxious. They are walking a tight rope between setting boundaries they are not prepared to verbalize and risking abandonment if she sees them as abandoning her. I don't know what to tell them about how to navigate her questions.

[Nope]

Background: SD15 and SS13 live with us out of state of their uBPDm. Their mom gets limited visitation and there is nothing written into the order about summer visitation except "other visitation will be as the parties agree to it". Since the kids do love their mother and want to see her, DH consults the kid's T's when making his decision about how much summer visitation he will agree his ex can have. Naturally, ex thinks she should be entitled to have them all summer because she is, in her own mind, a good parent who never did anything to warrant losing custody in the first place. She was given two weeks to start, then three weeks this past summer, and now she is back down to getting two weeks.

The reason she is only getting two weeks is because the kids have both grown a bit and have the distance to see her for who she is. SD is sick of being interrogated and yelled. She complained recently that her mom is incapable of seeing anyone else as their own person with their own thoughts and feelings. She is angry at how much of her childhood was spent being her mom's counselor and parent. SS has acknowledged that he walks on egg shells at his mom's and he spends most of the visits hiding in the bedroom he shares with his younger step-brother, whom he likes a lot, but who he also watches his mom tear down. Again, they are going because they do love her and want to see her and their siblings. But they don't want to be in the pressure cooker for more than a couple of weeks because that's as long as they feel she and they can handle.

DH has explained to his ex that his decision on how long the kids go is based largely on what the counselors advise him is in the kid's best interests. (He would not want to be seen in court as not giving her more time to because he is mean or punishing her, which is what she claims is going on.)

The issue is that apparently now on the phone with the kids she angry at them because she feels they must have said something bad about her in counseling for her to only be getting two weeks. The kid's are anxious. They are walking a tight rope between setting boundaries they are not prepared to verbalize and risking abandonment if she sees them as abandoning her. I don't know what to tell them about how to navigate her questions.

[livednlearned]

What a tough spot for the kids, and tough for your DH.

One of the things my son's T said to him when he was put in the middle, was to say, "I don't know the answer to that. This sounds like something between you and mom."

I'm not sure if that will do much to alleviate the chronic pressure your step kids feels. It did seem to help then S13 with aggravated messages he received from his dad by phone. He just wanted some language that would help get him off the hook, and that phrase seemed to work for him.

[Turkish]

Was it the kids' decision to only go two weeks? They are old enough,  especially given how open they are about their feelings,  to make the decision themselves,  maybe? Can you theirs it into their court? "Can you guys do two weeks or three? We think you guys are old enough to make this decision without pressure from either home.  We'll support you whatever you decide."

[Nope]

Thanks L&L, I may put that to them. Though it does seem that for now she is back to just blaming my DH. She spoke to the kids tonight and SS told me she's still complaining to him that she is only getting two weeks and saying that DH is blaming the Ts, but she knows better and that he's just choosing to do this to her.

The decision is what the kids told their Ts they wanted. They both want to see their mom, siblings, and mom's boyfriend who is always very nice to them. But by week three last summer they were really ready to come home because of their mom's behaviors. SD won't openly admit to that and just says she doesn't want to be gone that long from her friends and her cat. Though she freely admits to being very uncomfortable at her mom's a lot of the time and was much more vocal than SS about only wanting to go for two weeks.

SS said he felt bad that his mom was blaming his dad for what was ultimately his and his sister's decision. We told him not to worry about it because she is going to believe what she is going to believe. She has full access to their Ts and if she really wanted to know what they thought she would have called them directly.

They told us (and obviously their Ts) what they want. But they are not ready to express these feelings to their mom because they fear being abandoned by her. uBPDm told SD a couple of weeks ago that SD wasn't putting enough effort into having telephone contact with her. She told SD that she has two other daughters who do want her time and attention and that SD "can be replaced". The kids fully believe if they make their mom mad enough she'll totally cut the out of her and their siblings lives.

[ForeverDad]

Most kids would not like to be put on the spot, placed in the middle of the conflict (targets) as the ones who decided.  I noticed the ex was already blaming the kids for talking to the therapist who supported a shorter visit.

I believe the kids would prefer T and dad decide overall what vacation length would be best.  I feel sure ex will try to pressure them while with her to call and guilt him to extend the visit.  But smart dad will say, "Sorry, but we already have plans written in stone for when you get back."  Lay the blame (deflect attention) on the "plans than can't be changed", not dad, not T and not the kids.

Something similar was done by my county's deputy sheriff, though he denied later not intentionally doing it.  My ex was demanding he trigger an Amber Alert but he wrote in the incident log that he told her "the complaint did not meet the criteria for Amber Alert.  In effect, he didn't tell her No, the "criteria" did.

[Nope]

Thanks FD. She was putting the pressure on them to tell their dad they wanted to go for longer well before the decision was ever made. Despite all of her pressure the kids still told their T's that they only wanted to go for two weeks. I'm proud of all of us that the kids are now becoming strong enough not to melt under the weight of her FOG, particularly SS, who feels a lot of inappropriate guilt and responsibility when it comes to his mom.

And yes, the plans for before they leave and when they return are now all set. It's tough though. While they undertanably don't want to be in the middle, they are teenagers and it's only a matter of time before they are going to have to learn to navigate their relationship with her themselves.