The other stepparent

[kells76]

I can't remember if any of you are also in a position where your partner's disordered ex has married/gotten involved with someone who is also disordered.

The kids' uBPD mom has been married to a NPD-type guy (not diagnosed, and DH's former best friend) for many years. They got engaged about 3 months after the divorce was final but had been essentially seeing each other during the separation, and perhaps before. Got married 6 months after the divorce.

The kids, and especially SD13 (oldest), idolize him. My gut feeling is that Mom can't/won't parent especially SD13 and Stepdad is the only one who can "make" her do stuff.

Stepdad has been a big player in the crossfamily dysfunction as he places his childhood issues as a "stencil" on top of DH's situation. Stepdad's dad walked out when he was a young teen, and it's been pretty obvious that his White Knight-ing for Mom was a reenactment of "My dad left us, but I'm not that kind of guy, I'm the one who stays and rescues". Therefore DH had to be the "persecutor" in the triangle, the "guy who left", Stepdad's dad.

He has, in my view and in the view of 3 different counselors, some issues with putting his, Mom's, and the kids' "emotional realities" as the most important thing in life. I.e., if Stepdad tells them a story where the kids are stars in the story and have pet mice, and then DH and I want to get the kids a pet snake, then we should NOT give them a pet snake, because it would upset their "emotional reality" of the story. This really happened.

DH & Stepdad were having a conversation a year or two ago and somehow it got on the topic of Stepdad saying to DH "I really support you, we should have open communication, let me know what you need and I'll do it" so DH was like "OK, how about you stop calling the kids YOUR kids?" Stepdad -- whether he realized it or not -- responded with "Well, it's my kids' emotional reality, and that's really important". That's when DH and I got up and said OK, we're done.

Anyway, I know there are some new folks here, so I wanted to know if anyone else is in the position of dealing with not one but two disordered adults with their kids/stepkids. It's just been ongoing and kind of relentless. Crazy as it sounds I feel like if it were just Mom, I could deal with her. Stepdad feeds the disorder in a significant way.

[livednlearned]

H's ex is now married to her affair partner and he's a doozy.

Except, in my situation the kids are are technically adults so the theatrics don't have quite the same impact.

The other step dad has told all three kids, "I'm your dad now." SD25 wanted siblings to help her stage an intervention with her mom to stop the marriage (which took place this year). Even though they're adults, the kids have different ways of toeing the line that I imagine must be challenging.

I can't imagine having to deal with the stuff about "emotional reality."  

You couldn't get a pet snake because of imaginary pet mice ...?

Wow.

[GaGrl]

DH's ex is partnered (since about 2002) with a very nice fellow who could be the dictionary photo illustration for "co-dependency." She has done the same thing to him that she did with DH - - serial affairs that benefit her financially, with no regard for him nor much attempt to hide it. His first wife was so disordered that he thinks the Ex is an improvement.

I think it would be worse if Ex's partner had a Cluster B disorder -- what chaos and stress that would cause! Ex seems to know she needs a stabilizing partner -- otherwise, she goes off the rails.

Our position is that we say a prayer each night for Partner's continued health and wellbeing.

But he has confided in our daughter that he is fed up and ready to leave, at which point all hell will break loose.

[kells76]

in my situation the kids are are technically adults so the theatrics don't have quite the same impact.

That is something to look forward to. Though I worry that having the theatrics start with them at such a young age will mean that the impact will still be strong even when they are grown.

The other step dad has told all three kids, "I'm your dad now."

Yup. When he and Mom were first married, Mom would refer to him around the kids by a "dad-style" name -- close enough to being a "dad" name that it basically was, but juuuust different enough where she could say it was "just a nickname". The kids called Stepdad by his first name for a while, but enough of Mom's "nickname" and they started to call him "dad name". I don't know if they realize what happened.

You couldn't get a pet snake because of imaginary pet mice ...?

I wasn't a big snake fan, but DH and the kids are. Back when this happened, the whole "you shouldn't get the kids a snake because of the story I told them" situation was so jawdroppingly bizarre that I decided I would save "my" money and buy "myself" a snake. So, technically our pet snake is my pet snake which I got for myself. It's just that DH and the kids happen to really enjoy hanging out with my snake. I didn't know as much about disorder back then, but I knew enough to smell BS.

I periodically forget about that episode in our history, as it's often overshadowed by things like The Art Show. 

Our position is that we say a prayer each night for Partner's continued health and wellbeing.

That is ultimately where I need to be, so that I can let go of the emotional ropes that tie me to Mom and Stepdad, that get pulled by them and affect me a lot. Whatever is up with them, my attitude about it says more about me than them. I left-brain know this and yet here I am, venting about stuff they did years ago. Haven't really let go of a lot of the frustration and anger and sense of injustice.

I suspect at some level Stepdad is not happy in the "marriage", as he talks loudly and frequently about how much he loves his life.

...

It's hard to pinpoint why these same, long-term frustrations are back now.

If I stay at the level of just venting, then I am probably not going to learn very much.

Maybe part of it is feeling tired of the whole situation. Just so tired after so many years of trying to do the right thing, and feeling perpetually one down, and feeling like nothing changes -- not just with Mom and Stepdad, but sometimes with me and DH. All these years, all this trying, and I still feel this rollercoaster of emotions before and after we spend time with the kids, and I sometimes resent when DH gets overwhelmed, and I feel powerless when I hear him talk about regretting every day not pushing for joint custody back when they divorced.

OK, circling back to one more vent, but sort of for illustrative purposes:

Mom got school clothes for the kids, which is great. We asked the kids if they needed anything else for school (no parent to parent communication is really going on right now). Got something for SD13 and tried getting boots for SD11 but had to order them in. Mom picked up the kids and SD11 was talking about being excited for these boots. Mom: "Oh, WE were thinking of getting her a pair of those, too!" Discussion turned to size; SD11 is at a half size so we ordered the whole size up. Mom: "SD11 is a X, so a Y will probably be too big..."  I was putting away a pair of shoes that Mom got SD11 for school this year; they're a size Y.

My patience for this kind of stuff is at a 2/10, not like an 8 or 9/10. I just want to snap at Mom and be like Cut the BS. Just STOP, please. Stop trying to prove that you're right and we're wrong.

...

So after all these years, I'm still pretty angry with Stepdad, and I've lost a lot of patience and empathy for Mom. I'm really tired of the dysfunctional dynamic at their house and how it poisons the kids. I'm tired of how Mom pulls the strings around counseling. Instead of having a "be the better person" attitude like GaGrl suggests, I sometimes find myself wanting them to have a messy divorce. There's that ugly part of me that wants them to fall apart and show their true colors to the kids.

I guess I really haven't let go of a lot of how I feel about them, even ~7 years into my relationship with DH. But now that I type this, I wonder what "letting go of how I feel about them" even means. Overall, I still feel deep resentment and bitterness towards Mom and Stepdad for their continued manipulation of the kids. This seemed like the place to continue processing all that again.

[livednlearned]

I totally understand the teeth gnashing. You don't want to play this game and yet there she is with the ball and he's got the whistle.

Bleh.

When I do get enlisted into a game I don't want to play, it surprises me how much I want to win  

I'm trying to figure out how to just not play but realistically I probably have to settle for being in at least some of her games.

At SD25's graduation dinner (with H's ex and her new husband), there was a lull in conversation and biomom asks me, "So what are you up to right now LnL?" Like we're old buds just catching up.

She knows I'm not working right now and wanted to have a one-up moment (she just got a promotion).

I said, "Helping my son heal from a year of surgeries."

It's like trying to fight a ground battle by inflicting paper cuts.

Because biomom isn't actively in our lives, there are fewer opportunities to be aggravated by her. Which are then picked up and run with by SD22  

My lowest point was reading text messages from SD22 to bio mom about me on an open computer. I can't seem to get past that one.

Everything else I turn to friends who help me process through a major helping of laughter. I get to be irreverent and blow off some steam through laughing which feels like a much more powerful emotion than anything SD22 brings into my life.

You're in the thick of it and that's a lot. When SD22 lived with us my nervous system was on fire. I was practicing mindfulness almost desperately and counting the seconds until my next therapy appointment. I created safe places in my home, put up privacy blinds in my office, avoided spending too much downtime with SD22, put a ton of effort into learning how to set effective boundaries.

Maybe be kind to yourself right now  

You're in one of the toughest situations you could be, and it's ok to feel exasperated.

[Panda39]

Hi Kells,

Things are pretty quiet in my corner of the world, the girls are now adults (18 & 23) one NC and one LC so they have pushed mom mostly out of the picture in terms of any interaction I might have with her. 

But that said I just wanted to let you know that I've been there too.  I arrived here just mad at everyone, the uBPDxw for all of her shenanigans, my Partner who was still working his way out of the FOG, and their daughters who because of Parental Alienation were siding with mom against dad.

Yes, we had clothes battles too,  all the clothes my Partner bought his daughters disappeared in the black hole of their hoarder mother's house.  My Partner was continually replacing socks and underwear! It was like why bother to wash them when dad will just buy you more!  It was nuts.

My Partner's ex has never had another Partner/Husband so thankfully we haven't had to deal with that, but there was a period of a few years where she lived with her attorney!  She had a personal relationship with her attorney who bought the victim stories of the ex and was an advocate for her both during the divorce and beyond.  Sadly, the attorney had a history of brain cancer (that is the only reason we can think of that she would get involved with the uBPDxw) and eventually her daughter had my partner's ex removed from the attorney's home.

Lnl, I relate to that competitive streak when it comes to the ex too.  I want to be a good step-parent to my partner's daughters because I want to and it's the right thing to do, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to wanting to rub mom's nose in it a little bit too.

Anyway Kells, just wanted to pop in and let you know you aren't alone in your frustration with the on-going crazy and how you're feeling is completely normal to me.

Maybe it's time to buy your snake a friend 

Hang in there,
Panda39

[livednlearned]

I wonder what "letting go of how I feel about them" even means.

How would you answer this?

It's probably a helpful exercise for any of us experiencing these relationships.

[GaGrl]

Kells, I remember the Art Show fiasco. Ugh!

Several times I've reached the low point of just being done with it all. I would have to tell DH I didn't care what he had to do to keep any mention of the Ex and children/grandchild matters away from my ears -- I needed a break.

There is a certain level of schadenfruede that kicks in sometimes. Having been given the heads-up that her SO is ready to leave her, I'm thinking this might be her karma, and wow...would I like to be driving that Karma Bus. But then the Nice Gagrl kicks in. I do have more compassion for her than I used to, because she really is non-functional / low-functional without a man at her beck and call.

[kells76]

You're in the thick of it and that's a lot.

the girls are now adults (18 & 23) one NC and one LC so they have pushed mom mostly out of the picture in terms of any interaction I might have with her.

I think that maybe two things are overlapping right now that contribute to me feeling sensitive once again to the shenanigans from Mom and Stepdad.

One is that I recall reading somewhere that it can take about 5 years for a stepfamily to feel like a "real" family. DH and I have been married >6 years, and looking back, that seems accurate for us. So we're now past the "let's find an activity to stay busy with" stage and more in to the "let's just be together" stage. Less "I feel like a babysitter" and more "how about you dry these dishes while you tell me about your day".

The other is that the kids are still kids, not adults. We are in the thick of it at 11 and 13.

I think there was a way that I could turn off/escape back when the kids were younger (with some guilt, but still) because we didn't have the years of connection that we do at this point. I remember feeling more tension before we'd spend time together and more relief when we were done. Now, I feel more enjoyment when we're together and separation pain when our weekends or times together are over. Plus, as much as the parenting has reverted to parallel, there's still "kid stuff to figure out when they're not here" -- do they have enough socks, did the cat puke in their room, SD11 wants a friend over in a week, all that planning.

So... there's this stronger "real" family feeling that is now here, plus the kids are still kids when this has happened, plus there are just a lot of little things to do for the kids all the time even when we're not together. At this point it does sound hard to me to pull a GaGrl and have DH put up a wall around all the kid stuff.

But then that leads to this question:

Quote from: kells76 on September 09, 2019, 09:59:24 AM
I wonder what "letting go of how I feel about them" even means.

How would you answer this?

It's probably a helpful exercise for any of us experiencing these relationships.

Namely, if all my thoughts so far are about my connection with the kids, then why would my problem be with letting go of how I feel about the adults?

I think it has to do with the relationship I perceive between Mom and the kids and Stepdad and the kids (and Mom and Stepdad with each other, maybe).

This might be a straw man that I've created, but my initial picture of "letting go of how I feel about Mom and Stepdad" looks like "I just don't care how they interact with the kids any more. I won't let it get to me". So then to interpolate, "how I feel about Mom and Stepdad" has to do with the way they treat the kids. Ergo I'm feeling angry, resentful, frustrated, aghast, etc, when I see/hear about them manipulating/coercing the kids, and so I feel angry at/about the adults.

So in that picture, "letting go of how I feel about them" would mean "letting go of feeling angry at their manipulation of the kids". I can tell already that this is kind of a false picture; it's leading to something like "Hey, you should STOP feeling angry about them and how they treat the kids".

I'm wondering if the verbiage "letting go" is kind of a hurdle here. It has connotations (for me, at least) of "not caring any more".

Another picture instead could be "accepting that they choose to manipulate the kids, without being surprised by it, and while making my own decisions about how to treat the kids irrespective of what they do or don't do" or something. Not sure yet where to go with this.

[Panda39]

Kells,

It really is about letting go...letting go of trying to control the other parent(s) and now that your kids are getting older its also about gradually letting go of trying to protect them.  It's really hard to do, no doubt about it.

My partner's uBPDxw was taking then D18 to Vermont to college and wanted to take D14 during dad's weekend.  He decided to let her go too.  Two days later we were eatting lunch and received a phone call from mom that she and D14 missed their flight home due to traffic (Traffic on Sunday in Vermont!  Must be absolute gridlock!).  My old knee jerk reaction would have been flipping out, was she kidnapping D14, D14 was going to miss school, mom was cutting even further into dad's time...omg what will we do!

Instead my partner just told his ex to send him their new itinerary.  He hung up and we went back to our lunch.  I knew in that moment I had arrived at a new place.  D14 was home the next day, and yes it cut into dad's time and she missed a day at school but the world as I knew it did not end.  In that moment I learned how to let go.

Learning how to let go combined with flipping somethings back on mom really improved things at our end.  

We would flip stuff like Mom wanted D14 to have dance lessons.  With the implication that dad pay for it and get her there,  he would say that sounds like a great idea you have my permission for her to participate if you pay for it and get her there.  Needless to say D14 got one lesson and the subject was dropped.  It sucked for D14 (or maybe it didn't who's idea was dance class?) and was hard for us to watch but in order for them to learn to protect themselves from their mother's behaviors we had to start letting the kids learn some things the hard way. My partner would warn and advise but the kids would decide if and how much they would trust their mother.  This was to have some very difficult consequences for both girls but they now both have set their own boundaries around their mother.

Panda39

[GaGrl]

It's a big difference between having adult children and having preteens-early teens who are still seeing adults as role models! My toughest times were when we had my SD 24 and GD4 living with us. The havoc created by DH's ex was so disruptive!

Letting go for me also involved letting the adult children deal directly with their mother's behaviors. They are still finding their way, but they are getting there. If they ask for coaching, I'm happy to give it. Otherwise, I maintain open space, safe space.

[livednlearned]

So in that picture, "letting go of how I feel about them" would mean "letting go of feeling angry at their manipulation of the kids". I can tell already that this is kind of a false picture; it's leading to something like "Hey, you should STOP feeling angry about them and how they treat the kids".

I'm wondering if the verbiage "letting go" is kind of a hurdle here. It has connotations (for me, at least) of "not caring any more".

Another picture instead could be "accepting that they choose to manipulate the kids, without being surprised by it, and while making my own decisions about how to treat the kids irrespective of what they do or don't do" or something. Not sure yet where to go with this.

I wonder if it's a "yes, and"?

If you perceive that they are "winning" (e.g. getting away with manipulating the kids), then you're probably going to gnash your teeth. Because you care.

Then the question seems to be, what is it that they're getting away with?

What is going on in a chronic way in the manipu-sphere that is building up resentment?

For me, with SD22 I noticed that I had become submissive in my own home. I felt resentful because she brought the battle to my doorstep and I opened the door wide open for her to enter. The resentment was more than just, "She is here." It was also "I am a doormat" and "I don't want to be someone I'm not."

Two things happened to help me turn things around. One was being able to specifically name and label the things where she gets under my skin and coming up with practical ways to block those moves. Is that something you can do with what you're experiencing? Maybe think of a list of things where you feel highly aggravated is a start.

The other is that I came to grips with the reality that I needed to a) acknowledge that SD22 has a medical disorder (I feel compassion for her) and b) acknowledge that she is not in treatment (I am on the receiving end of her aggression).

I was doing a bang up job with compassion and nothing about the aggression, which made me come across as submissive to SD22 and emboldened her. So I started to make small changes based on what felt to me like aggression, knowing that she is fundamentally going to get her needs met in ways that make things difficult for the people around her, including me. The compassion piece is important. It means that when I'm dealing with her aggression, I am not acting from a place of hate. She is trying to get a need met -- she is trying to win something for herself. I have no problem with the need and I don't really have a problem if she's trying to win something. But not if it means I lose or someone I love loses.

You would not think my SD22 is an alpha female when you meet her. She is almost waif-like and has poor social skills. But when it comes to getting her needs met, she is alpha all the way.  

I had to do forensic analysis of my interactions with SD that were almost embarrassing   because they weren't about anything, necessarily. But they were about everything! Each was a battle and I was losing them repeatedly.

I wonder if that might help you thread the needle between letting go or not letting go. I think there might be a middle way that's about being skillful at a micro level with the aggressions that are activating your protective instincts.

[Turkish]

Not to glad handle you all,  but I consider the step parents here the heroes of the site to make an effort to reach out and deal with BPD, NPD, and general weirdness.

My ex married her affair partner. He was 20 years younger than me (10 younger than her),  and even though a college football jock and bouncer,  he seemed afraid (or intimidated) of me.

I did,  however, hear things though the kids. The most concerning he told her during their DV drama was,  "I'll call the cops on you next time and the kids will end up with me!" He is what I call an "odd duck" with narc tendencies though he was always deferrent around me, in the beginning laughably obsequious. He had his "Insta family" though, and I knew he grew up in a dysfunctional and abusive home, and also adopted like me.  I had every reason to hate his guts, but I gave it a go.

If the kids told me things he said, I validated. Only S9 kind of understood mommy cheated, but he still liked SD. Hard place to be for a little kid.  If the kids told me something questionable he told them, I would validate and agree or disagree. Sadly, my ex engaged in step-parent alienation (my supposed probable role?) Which pissed me off in so many ways even if his odd views concerned me a little (he forbade her to divorce, "his kids"... no, but you can be a great stepdad minus the posseiveness, and if they also end up calling you dad, I wouldn't care).

At least he was a known quantity. Now she's in process of divorce and is already posting memes on FB implying she's searching for "that man." Her poor stbxh, I hope she blocked him because he is still desperate to reunite. I hate that kids get caught in the middle of these dysfunctions. She likes narcs. I called her out on it once and she laughed and admitted it. 

So in summary, though not as a SP, yes,  I've been dealing with two disordered and dysfunctional parents in the other home,  with verbal, emotional, physical abuse and one instance D awoke and saw the cops two years ago. S9 has told me many sad things these past few years.

[kells76]

Hi panda39;

Learning how to let go combined with flipping somethings back on mom really improved things at our end. 

That at least is getting better. Recently, SD13 said "I want to do X lessons, but I can't because they're too expensive". This is right after Mom texts DH to ask if he'll pay for X lessons, and BTW, the teacher "is a good feminine influence". (SD13 has recently expressed that she is a boy, which Mom supports, but knows that DH and I are approaching differently). I put together an Excel spreadsheet (!) of a bunch of different options with $, sent it to Mom, then found someone who could do a one-off free X lesson. SD13 planned to do a sport this fall but it didn't work out, so I sent another class info email to Mom, who never wrote back. Finally texted and heard that "SD13 wants to do Y sport and the practices might be on the same day as X class".

Gonna ask SD13 today what she picked... but in a good way, I don't care! I really don't care any more about doing the legwork to put all that in Mom's lap. Mom, who SO wanted SD13 to do X lessons that she would ask DH to foot the bill, now "is pretty sure" that SD13 wants to do something else. I think that Mom wants SD13 to do what Mom wants. And I don't care, in a very particular way. It is OK that SD13 is picking what Mom wants and not what I thought SD13 wanted. In fact, I think if I told Mom that I thought Y sport was a better choice, then she'd probably try to get SD13 to do X class instead.

So in that micro "battle", I do feel OK about doing the legwork, "informing" Mom about what I've done, and then stepping back and letting Mom "finish the transaction" if she wants. That is nice, that the tension over activities is lower.

...

It's a big difference between having adult children and having preteens-early teens who are still seeing adults as role models!

Again, I'm seeing that as a big variable in why I'm feeling this way right now. Things are a lot better than when DH and I got married, but worse compared to a year or two ago. I guess I wish the "upwards trajectory" would've continued until they're both >18 instead of falling off now, when they're pre/teen.

...

Have to cut this short, but I do want to come back to it. I think this

I had to do forensic analysis of my interactions with SD that were almost embarrassing  Frustrated/Unfortunate (click to insert in post) because they weren't about anything, necessarily. But they were about everything! Each was a battle and I was losing them repeatedly.

might be important for me to do in order to really understand the "black box" of mixed emotions I get after interacting with Mom. The inputs are really clear but the emotional output I generally just do some "hand-waving" about: "Oh, they just p1ss me off... oh, I'm just frusterated".

So, I think workshopping/dissecting a specific interaction would be a good idea, and then seeing if extrapolating that elucidated interaction structure onto other interactions is helpful.

All for now