Mia, has your DH ever had any psychotherapy?  I ask because my DH went for 3 yrs, after the debacle with SD30 in 2022, and it has helped him to understand how his upbringing affected the man he became. For instance, he was the eldest of 3 boys, growing up in Africa, and was sent to boarding school in another country aged 8.  His biggest realisation was that his parents saw him as a "project" and that has never changed. 
Some therapy might help your DH to look into his checking out behaviour when he feels overwhelmed, and other aspects of his parenting.  It might not help his relationships with his kids but hopefully it would help him. 

Rags wrote:

Mia,

I am sure it is heartbreaking to come to the realization that DH did abandon his children and was and is a terrible parent.

Providing for children is the duty of the adults who create them. However, that is not parenting. That is providing. TProviding and parenting are two very different things.

Parenting is involvement, setting examples, establishing boundaries, standards, and enforcing them, raising children to viable adulthood of character and standing in their life, career, community, and their own family.

An even more frightening thing to face is ... is a spouse who does not keep reality front and center with their mate truly a good partner? Coddling anyone in any role we may have is often failing in that role.  It was not easy and it scared the hell out of me, but having to be direct with my bride that her failure to enforce the terms of the CO on the SpermClan because of her fear that they would take "it" out on SS was naive and that I could no longer just have her back. She had to step up, enforce the CO, and truly protect our son and if she didn't I did not want to hear another word about it.  It was no easier to communicate the end of my rope regarding my ILs either.  That I framed differently since the CO, SpermClan, visitation, had her clearly labeled as the Petitioner and as infuriating as it was for me, the Courts were clear that I was "not a party to the case".  With the challenges regarding my IL clan, she is my wife and I will not tolerate anyone behaving disrespectfully towards my bride.  When I said "Oh hell no!" her eyes bugged out of her head and she went scorched earth and no quarter on her own family because she knew if I did it, the body count (figurative of course) would be notable.

That SD had her drunken moment of clarity and that you recognized her comment as poignant speaks extremely well of you.  I am sorry you had to live that epiphany.  It is sad that DH did not fight for his children, protect his children, and keep his XW firmly in her place.  Which IMHO is exactly were an X belongs. Firmly kept in their place.

Loyalty in broken families is to children, not the X.  The superordinate loyalty is to the partner.  Not the X, and not even to the children. IMHO of course.

Deep breaths.  Take care of you. 

Good ole black and white Rags! (I am not black and white--I am very gray.)  

I do believe, as I said, that DH abandoned his children on an emotional level. That is big and that is serious. He did not abandon them on the "provider" level at all. He also was not the parent who took off and moved hours away. So, in my view, there was abandonment at a certain level and there was also his commitment to the kids. What worsened this was that BM capitalized on his faults and ran with the "abandonment" story, refusing court-ordered visitation, not paying her court-ordered share of skid transport re: visitation, and, mostly, feeding the skids lies. DH and I talked about all of this ad nauseum. Much of it boiled down to him not having the funds to fight her in court (although earlier on he was scared of her--perhaps because he didn't have the money to fight her). So, it's messy and it's fuzzy and it's very gray. He was at fault and she was at fault. The kids paid the price. It's tragic. 

I don't believe DH is or was "a terrible parent." He wasn't a good one. He wasn't as great a parent as I once thought he was. So, that's that. Over the past 5 or so years, DH has had some heart-to-hearts with his kids. He has apologized for mistakes he made and he has also defended himself against lies. As a daughter myself who chose to forgive a father who made some really bad moves as we were growing up, I also believe that we sometimes should give others some grace, especially if the others try to do better. While the skids want a relationship with him, I don't believe they have given him any grace; that would be a betrayal to their mother. They also managed to be banned from our house because of their behavior (perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy on their part). 

Your description of what parenting is is something I agree with. I would add having the money to raise children in a stable, loving environment where their needs are met. This is exactly why I never had kids. I had decided that I would only bring life into this world if I could meet all the "requirements" I came up with to be a good parent. 

The coddling ended years ago. It was a major issue in our marriage--primarily, his coddling of BM out of fear, and then his coddling of the skids (out of fear and guilt). At the two-year point in our marriage, when I wanted a separation, is when it began to change. 

It sickens me that DH "did not fight" for SD. She was salvageable. Both were. I get that between his living expenses, child support, all the extras he was funneling up there, etc. that court battles would have probably destroyed him financially--and I was not going to be a part of that. . . I needed to protect my own financial well-being. At the time when most of the conflict was occurring, I had a friend whose husband was well over $30k into a custody battle that was nowhere near ending (both DH and I had looked into possible costs). But had he had firmer boundaries and been more confrontational, things might have changed a bit. He is paying for it now. 

I have created a separation between myself and his family (skid) goings-on. I'm not going to beat him up for his past mistakes. It's that I have seen more of the skids' point of view, which still does not excuse the viciousness we experienced from them through the years--or, especially, them using me as the scapegoat. Most of it got loaded on to me! ("What the hell did I do?!") I do take good care of myself. I don't allow DH's episodes of depression to impact me (call me cold): I go to the gym, I take very long walks, I work, I eat well, I have my own projects, I stay upbeat. His ADHD does leave me mumbling curse words now and then, saying "WTF!" quietly at times. lol. 

As with almost everything in life, in my view, things are a bit messy--rarely if ever all good or all bad--such a mix of colors and flavors and smells that we have to bushwhack our way through. 


 

Last edited by MorningMia (1/10/2026 10:49 am)

Tryingjusttrying wrote:

Thanks for sharing your honest assessment about your husband's parenting limitations. My dh has limitations too that he doesn't acknowledge and they contributed to SS's problems. I was just trying to imagine a scenario in which DH owned up to them and tried to do better, but I really can't picture that. I think that's one of the hardest things to do, to say one failed one's own child. Even my sociopathic narcissist father thought he did a good job (my siblings and I were stunned when he said that in our presence). It doesn't help to have a problematic ex. For dh, the fact that BM is a narcissist and fights with SS all of the time makes it easy for him to point a finger and sit back with the notion that she's the only problem here. But what do they say? When you point a finger at someone, there are four fingers pointing back at yourself.

I want to say something about his role as the passive parent. That was my mom too. It took a while, but at some point I realized that I was really mad at her for enabling my dad to abuse us. Not only that, there were times that I honestly felt she put us in harm's way to save herself. But if she had not married my dad, she would probably have been a good enough mom. She was easy going, and wanted to help people. So it's not just her passivity, but the fact that that was paired with a highly problematic person that caused so much grief.

I wonder how you feel about your role in all this. Sometimes I feel like I should be doing something, but when I look back at the times I did, I'm not sure if I made it better or worse. When I first met DH and SS, I actually actively campaigned to end some of the byzantine ideas about parenting that they had, driven by the BM. I won't go into all of the details, but they were heavy on the punishments, light on the guidance, and I spent months trying to convince DH to go on his own and to stop supporting BM (which he did in the name of creating a unified front). He slowly did get out of the habit of automatically jumping whenever she barked. Did my interventions help? SS became far less angry and defiant than when I met him, as did DH. For a very few short months early on, SS seemed to cling to me as a safe person unbelievably. I was gentle but insistent when he violated rule after rule. But later I learned from his therapist that his biggest problem was respecting boundaries and "getting away with it". I don't know what "it" is because I just heard the reports from dh. My point is that my style of parenting was so different from theirs that they probably needed solutions that were more fitting for them. My BS uses his freedom responsibly. If instead, he was raised to use deception and manipulation to get his way, then perhaps my gentle approach to parenting would have lead to just enabling those bad tendencies. Btw, my BS just got his semester grades and he got all A's and one A+. The A+ was in a creative writing class despite the fact that he's dyslexic. I'm very grateful for how grounded and hard-working he is. If he wasn't that way, I'm not sure how I could force him to. At this point, they are who they are.

Thanks for this response. This is interesting. For the first two years of our marriage, when all hell broke loose from BM and she dragged the skids into it (as weapons), I felt like I had been thrown into a pit of fiery mayhem, and I was very upfront about my thoughts about BM and the skids and how DH was handling things. I remember saying to him, "You have mismanaged this situation."  It was shocking to me. During one crisis, I told DH to get in his car, drive up there, and straighten out the situation. He did. During a similar situation, I suggested the same, and he didn't. During counseling, we learned to work together as a team to handle the PAS situation and BM, but in hindsight, I don't think the therapist gave us good advice about the skids: "Keep sending cards and gifts and they'll come around." No, I was more like, "Go up there and ask them what the hell is the matter and why they aren't talking to you."

Regarding other issues, I bought DH a book on ADHD that he never read it (that sounds kind of funny now). I read and read and read about Borderline Personality Disorder (BM), step situations, etc. Then I got tired of it. My focus had become fixing their situation, and I didn't want that to be my role. It wasn't my situation to fix. It was a hard lesson, as SS had been arrested for drugs and had destroyed his first two years of college classes, and SD got into trouble regarding naked or underwear pictures or something at her Christian school (yes, I am laughing). They were literally destroying BM's image of them--and (perhaps more importantly to her) her image. Her reaction was to put the fear of God into her children to bring them back to marching in lockstep. I don't want to say what she did, but she put her life in danger. We felt so horrible for the skids, who were scared to death, and that was when we had the horrible Thanksgiving holiday. We wanted so much for them to feel secure and to let them know we were there for them, and they came to our home and acted like animals. (By the way, BM's act worked like a charm; skids have been cult-like loyal to her since then, and that was over a decade ago.) 

It was then that I began down the road of "Not my circus; not my monkeys," and bowed out. I had to emotionally detach from the situation. While DH and I had set boundaries as a couple, I also set my own. I decided how I was (and was not) going to be treated in my own house. I finally accepted the fact that I would never be liked or accepted by the skids no matter what, so I certainly wasn't going to wring my hands over it. 

I felt badly for the skids early on. I really wanted to be someone who was there for them, but I didn't push that.  There were times I probably should have said more than I said. I still feel badly for them at times, even though I don't really like who they are. I stay disengaged. For me, it was a losing battle from the beginning with them; I just didn't see it. 

MorningMia wrote:

Rags wrote:

Mia,

I am sure it is heartbreaking to come to the realization that DH did abandon his children and was and is a terrible parent.

Providing for children is the duty of the adults who create them. However, that is not parenting. That is providing. TProviding and parenting are two very different things.

Parenting is involvement, setting examples, establishing boundaries, standards, and enforcing them, raising children to viable adulthood of character and standing in their life, career, community, and their own family.

An even more frightening thing to face is ... is a spouse who does not keep reality front and center with their mate truly a good partner? Coddling anyone in any role we may have is often failing in that role.  It was not easy and it scared the hell out of me, but having to be direct with my bride that her failure to enforce the terms of the CO on the SpermClan because of her fear that they would take "it" out on SS was naive and that I could no longer just have her back. She had to step up, enforce the CO, and truly protect our son and if she didn't I did not want to hear another word about it.  It was no easier to communicate the end of my rope regarding my ILs either.  That I framed differently since the CO, SpermClan, visitation, had her clearly labeled as the Petitioner and as infuriating as it was for me, the Courts were clear that I was "not a party to the case".  With the challenges regarding my IL clan, she is my wife and I will not tolerate anyone behaving disrespectfully towards my bride.  When I said "Oh hell no!" her eyes bugged out of her head and she went scorched earth and no quarter on her own family because she knew if I did it, the body count (figurative of course) would be notable.

That SD had her drunken moment of clarity and that you recognized her comment as poignant speaks extremely well of you.  I am sorry you had to live that epiphany.  It is sad that DH did not fight for his children, protect his children, and keep his XW firmly in her place.  Which IMHO is exactly were an X belongs. Firmly kept in their place.

Loyalty in broken families is to children, not the X.  The superordinate loyalty is to the partner.  Not the X, and not even to the children. IMHO of course.

Deep breaths.  Take care of you. 

Good ole black and white Rags! (I am not black and white--I am very gray.)  

I do believe, as I said, that DH abandoned his children on an emotional level. That is big and that is serious. He did not abandon them on the "provider" level at all. He also was not the parent who took off and moved hours away. So, in my view, there was abandonment at a certain level and there was also his commitment to the kids. What worsened this was that BM capitalized on his faults and ran with the "abandonment" story, refusing court-ordered visitation, not paying her court-ordered share of skid transport re: visitation, and, mostly, feeding the skids lies. DH and I talked about all of this ad nauseum. Much of it boiled down to him not having the funds to fight her in court (although earlier on he was scared of her--perhaps because he didn't have the money to fight her). So, it's messy and it's fuzzy and it's very gray. He was at fault and she was at fault. The kids paid the price. It's tragic. 

I don't believe DH is or was "a terrible parent." He wasn't a good one. He wasn't as great a parent as I once thought he was. So, that's that. Over the past 5 or so years, DH has had some heart-to-hearts with his kids. He has apologized for mistakes he made and he has also defended himself against lies. As a daughter myself who chose to forgive a father who made some really bad moves as we were growing up, I also believe that we sometimes should give others some grace, especially if the others try to do better. While the skids want a relationship with him, I don't believe they have given him any grace; that would be a betrayal to their mother. They also managed to be banned from our house because of their behavior (perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy on their part). 

Your description of what parenting is is something I agree with. I would add having the money to raise children in a stable, loving environment where their needs are met. This is exactly why I never had kids. I had decided that I would only bring life into this world if I could meet all the "requirements" I came up with to be a good parent. 

The coddling ended years ago. It was a major issue in our marriage--primarily, his coddling of BM out of fear, and then his coddling of the skids (out of fear and guilt). At the two-year point in our marriage, when I wanted a separation, is when it began to change. 

It sickens me that DH "did not fight" for SD. She was salvageable. Both were. I get that between his living expenses, child support, all the extras he was funneling up there, etc. that court battles would have probably destroyed him financially--and I was not going to be a part of that. . . I needed to protect my own financial well-being. At the time when most of the conflict was occurring, I had a friend whose husband was well over $30k into a custody battle that was nowhere near ending (both DH and I had looked into possible costs). But had he had firmer boundaries and been more confrontational, things might have changed a bit. He is paying for it now. 

I have created a separation between myself and his family (skid) goings-on. I'm not going to beat him up for his past mistakes. It's that I have seen more of the skids' point of view, which still does not excuse the viciousness we experienced from them through the years--or, especially, them using me as the scapegoat. Most of it got loaded on to me! ("What the hell did I do?!") I do take good care of myself. I don't allow DH's episodes of depression to impact me (call me cold): I go to the gym, I take very long walks, I work, I eat well, I have my own projects, I stay upbeat. His ADHD does leave me mumbling curse words now and then, saying "WTF!" quietly at times. lol. 

As with almost everything in life, in my view, things are a bit messy--rarely if ever all good or all bad--such a mix of colors and flavors and smells that we have to bushwhack our way through.  

Your DH is blessed to have you.  As for my black and white world view, it may be much like your DH's choices as a divorced dad.  Self preservation. Black and white is easy. It takes no emotional investment. "It is what it is" makes addressing issues comparatively simple.  If "it" is unacceptable, then assertively ending "it" decompresses the situation even if it does not resolve the problem for the one perpetrating "it" whatever "it" may be.

See it, end it. Move on.  Lather, rinse, repeat with escalated assertiveness if the perpetrator choses to resurface "it".

I have a level of empathy for your DH in all of this.  Sometimes self-preservation takes precedence over all else even if it means not being what is needed for kids some of the time. 

Like you, I have no BKs.  That was not a black and white choice or plan.  I just have never had the overwheming urge to replicate myself within a commited relationship and managed to avoid being an OOWL parent.  Though not due to any significant effort of my own during my teen and young adult years.   Once DW and I married I was not willing to jeopardize her health by having a Rags spawn.  She was very ill during her pregnancy with SS, with severe toxemia/pre-eclampsia that put her in the hospital for 5wks until SS was born 5wks premature.  Nope, she is my person and I would not risk her life or health for any reason. Particularly just to perform a basic biological process.  That, and having lived as a T-1 diabetic for 13yrs before meeting DW (45 years as of last month), I was not keen on propagating those genes and running the risk that my child(ren) would have the disease as well.  As it turned out, I have a son to propagate the family name, though as a gay man that will likely be through adoption, and the genetic risk in my line of the Rags clan ends with me.  So far, my brother's kids and GK are autoimmune disease free.

I get some comfort out of the deal that I have with Mt Olympus to keep all of the chronic diseases for myself so the people in my life can be healthy. 

  Wow, even when I am trying to see things otherwise, my black and white brain is showing.

 

MorningMia wrote:

Kes wrote:

Mia,  

He has been seeing a therapist virtually, but it seems he deals with everyday things in the present--health issues, for one. But when it comes to facing things that happened in his childhood, especially when it comes to the way he was raised, that seems off-limits. He was raised very strict Catholic, and he knows he still grapples with that Catholic guilt. No one will get through that wall. Maybe he fears that more guilt will enter if he faces his upbringing and how he has handled parenthood. It is clear that his "job" as a child was to keep his mother, who was doting to the point of restricting (and damaging), happy, and to try to stay clear of his father. The same goes with his ADHD. He refuses to face it head-on. I think part of that is that if he regained completely clear thinking, immense regret would take over. He was on Prozac for a short period and was reading voraciously during that time--he was amazed, but also very very sad, as he finally realized what fully absorbing information felt like and recognized that he had missed out on so much; he stopped taking it because of side effects. He does mindfulness meditations and says they help a lot, particularly re: living more fully in the present moment. Honestly, at this stage of his life, I think this is what he's going to do and where he's going to be. He wants peace in his life and for the most part he has that. I think.  

Mia - At the time it did not stand out to me as a critical step.  Though in hind-sight I have a better understanding of it.  When my XW and I (35+ years ago) were in marriage counseling our therapist spent the first couple of months of the 6mos we were in therapy together working on each of us and our family histories including a family session between me and my family, and a session between XW and her family.  Interestingly, my XIL clan are Catholic though that does not seem to have had any bearing on my serially adulterous XW and her choices in life.  She is apparently able to bury any sense of guilt or has none at all.  My XFIL would break out in tears each time we saw each other during and after the divorce. According to my XFIL, for a decade+ after our divorce my XW was still attending mass and taking communion though she never had our marriage annulled which was heartbreaking for my XFIL. Particularly XW adding two OOWL children after the divorce and another OOWL (her 2nd cheat baby) after marrying her cheat buddy/first baby daddy after their second was born then cheating on him.  Breaking commandments and church doctrin was about like eating a guilt free bag of potato chips for my XW.  Not that XW fell far from her family tree as my XMIL turned out to be an embezzler of $Millions over decades and a federal convict prison inmate.

I am not sure how Catholic guilt works into all of that considering the devout Catholic facade and the family facade as upstanding high-quality members of the community that my IL clan lived behind.
 

Last edited by Rags (1/10/2026 5:42 pm)

Merry wrote:

Mia, our journies share more than a few similarities. My DH laments that he wasn’t a better parent. I’ve defended him, but he was pretty absent.

He and BM didn’t divorce until the youngest was in college and they lived in the same house up until then, but DH was gone A LOT. Day job then band jobs that kept him away lots of evenings and weekends. He claimed part of it was that they needed the money (he and BM both freely spent money they didn’t have). Music is also a passion that gave him some of the happiest times of his life.

He was friend-dad when he was around. Permissive, indulgent, gave the kids (especially SD) all the power. Their long-established enmeshed and unhealthy family norms just about destroyed us. I saw the red flags but denied they were really red.

And I have always thought undiagnosed ADD was part of the equation. Scattered, la-la land, unfocused. It affects us too and I consciously practice patience.

Now, he just wants peace. Hasn’t seen his kids in several years. None of them make the effort and I am not about to “fix” it for any of them. I’ve learned that lesson.

While a lot of this is sad, the worst part is that none of them seem to want anything else. Too hard, requires facing hard truths, rewrites the scripts where each of them are the heroes of their own stories. I know they all carry hurt from things they won’t talk about.

Relationships are complicated.

Relationships definately are complicated.  I think that it is okay to be the hero of your own story. As long as that story is not based on self-delusion.  IMHO it really is on others to make that determination as most individuals are incapable of seeing their self delusions. 

My wife has periodically had the same stuff regarding lamenting that she has not been a better parent.  She does not easily see that she has been and is an outstanding parent.  No parent has a manual. We all have to write that document for ourselves as we navigate being a parent in real time.  As parents of any flavor, we all make mistakes.

In some ways I have been a solid parent. In others, far from it.  I do not lament. That is outside of my no gray existence.  I analyze and adjust working hard not to repeat mistakes.  Though even at that I am not always successful.


 

Last edited by Rags (1/11/2026 8:18 pm)

Merry wrote:

Mia, our journies share more than a few similarities. My DH laments that he wasn’t a better parent. I’ve defended him, but he was pretty absent.

He and BM didn’t divorce until the youngest was in college and they lived in the same house up until then, but DH was gone A LOT. Day job then band jobs that kept him away lots of evenings and weekends. He claimed part of it was that they needed the money (he and BM both freely spent money they didn’t have). Music is also a passion that gave him some of the happiest times of his life.

He was friend-dad when he was around. Permissive, indulgent, gave the kids (especially SD) all the power. Their long-established enmeshed and unhealthy family norms just about destroyed us. I saw the red flags but denied they were really red.

And I have always thought undiagnosed ADD was part of the equation. Scattered, la-la land, unfocused. It affects us too and I consciously practice patience.

Now, he just wants peace. Hasn’t seen his kids in several years. None of them make the effort and I am not about to “fix” it for any of them. I’ve learned that lesson.

While a lot of this is sad, the worst part is that none of them seem to want anything else. Too hard, requires facing hard truths, rewrites the scripts where each of them are the heroes of their own stories. I know they all carry hurt from things they won’t talk about.

Relationships are complicated.

Oh, we are ADD sisters!  Yes, our situations are very similar. DH, too, has been permissive. He was never a man people could "get away with" yelling at/scolding/being rude to. . .except the skids. It was shocking. I have witnessed SS YELL at DH in a scolding manner. Last time he was here (when DH was recovering from surgery), SS sat on our couch and haughtily and loudly criticized everything about a TV show DH watches, as if DH is some kind of dolt. No, they do not respect him. I'm not sure why they even keep in touch with him except they probably think they're in his will.  

When the skids would get unbearably out of line, DH confronted them, they'd back off a while, but the behavior would resurface. It was clear to me that they knew where the line was. SD in particular used that line to put passive aggressive behavior (especially toward me) into 5th gear. 

Our patience. Oh dear Lawd, it is an effort. 

Peace: That word has been used a lot around our house. The skid/BM chaos is more than 98% behind us. SD has created a life of extreme stress and pressure, and it seems to be getting worse. For DH, it's like watching a bomb that he knows is going to explode one day. I stay out of it. 





 

Tryingjusttrying wrote:

@morningmia - "I felt badly for the skids early on. I really wanted to be someone who was there for them, but I didn't push that.  There were times I probably should have said more than I said. I still feel badly for them at times, even though I don't really like who they are. I stay disengaged. For me, it was a losing battle from the beginning with them; I just didn't see it." 

In blended family life with challenging SKs, regret is unavoidable. I feel regretful when I'm disengaged and see behaviors that I want to help solve but don't. I feel regretful when I do help, and then get stepped on. I vow to enforce boundaries, but then my DH will tell me a sad story, and I'll cave again. Then I'll learn that the sad story when seen in full context was manipulative, and wished I didn't cave. On and on. There is no perfect path, just a path we can feel reasonably comfortable with and that we can sustain.

This has my black and white perspective "engineeric" brain synapses firing all over the place.  Absolutely there is no perfect path.  There is also no perfect sight picture when building a solution.  We know only what we know at any given time.  We make decisions with the information we have at the time we make the decision. Nothing more.

My competitive shooter background has instigated what I refer to as my "Guided Missile" theory.  Basically, if we wait for all of the information and the perfect shot, we never pull the trigger on a solution and nothing improves.  So, I coined the GM theory.  Basically, point the solution/missile in the general direction of the goal/target and push the button then adjust.  The missile launches within the context of the "now" in play when se push the button. Then the missile tracks as the target shifts.  It is not a perfect straight shot. It jinks all over the place until the solution impacts the problem with some form of the goal. Not the form we planned, nearly never anyway, but some solution. Which beats never pulling the trigger.  While doing nothing is always an option, doing nothing changes nothing.

IMHO of course.

Keeping the facts front and center helps to mitigate the interferance and distraction of feelings.  So stories do not change the behaviors that require the solution, nor do they devalue the goal.

Which is where my focus on the what rather than they why ties into my black and white world.  With the people in a blend, IMHO anyway, it is about what they do, and not so much why they do it.  I get the baggage, the influence of emotion and feelings, but those are not often a key element of implementing an effective behavior modifying solution.

Fire and adjust. Until the issue is addressed.  Keep adjusting and pulling the trigger until the solution impacts the problem.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Some things the individual will have to choose to either accept in themselves or adjust when they reach adulthood.  We all have baggage from our upbringing that at some point becomes our problem to either solve, or not.  The why is on the individual. What is the boundary we have to establish and enforce with those who refuse to behave reasonably. 

Maybe anyway.
 

Last edited by Rags (1/15/2026 1:19 pm)

@morningmia - "I think I can honestly say that I regret each time I gave the skids any grace. I always had the sense that their mother was telling them that their father would never "allow" me to disengage from them, keep them from our home, and so on--that I "had" to be accepting of and nice to them; therefore, I think it was a huge shock to all of them when they realized that DH was no longer willing to tolerate their bad behavior in our home and that his primary commitment was to me. Lesson: Don't push anyone to have to prove something to you that you do not want to see."

This is so interesting. I've been thinking along similar lines. In all of these years, SS has never shown any regret or remorse for his treatment of me. When he turned 18, we had it out to an extent. SS had asked dh to stay with us though it wasn't his scheduled time with us. DH twisted my arm as usual, and they did this pretty regularly. I didn't have any remarkable plans, but did have plans to do bath stuff and a face mask, etc. DH insisted that I could do that with him here. As usual, I caved. So SS comes over with all of his stuff, ready for an unscheduled week here. On the very first day, he made faces at my mask when he needed the bathroom, invited a friend over without asking (dh wasn't home), and I texted dh who asked SS to tell his friend he couldn't stay. SS confronted me very angrily and that's how I learned that in his mind, all he ever did was act like a normal teenager and that I was pretty much the bad one who was always mean and excluded him. So ironic that he was telling me how nice he is and how mean I am at a moment when he was totally disrespecting me by inviting people over without even giving me a head's up.

As I've been posting, SS has effectively stopped having overnights here. I think the shift has been quiet but palpable. When dh started standing up to SS trying to control the narrative, SS became less interested in coming around. But for the year prior to SS leaving for college, i was baffled by the times he did want to come here while I was present. I'm realizing that those times were carefully planned by him which involved controlling the narrative. Pretty much, DH doesn't force me to spend time with him anymore, and I'm realizing that SS and BM never imagined that DH would take steps to consider me and protect me. I think that SS actually was fine coming over here during the times that he did because it was proof to him that no matter how awful he's been to me, he knew his dad was going to welcome him with open arms. I think now SS must be coming to the realization that his dad is limiting time here for my sake. I wish that DH had put his foot down earlier. If dh had made it clear that SS had to behave respectfully towards me as part of the condition for staying with us, could it have made it possible for us to have a better relationship? We'll never know. But so long as DH was permitting SS to treat me like crap, SS felt pretty fine to continue to do that. In fact, I think it made him feel like he won. I didn't think of it that way at the time. I just wanted to be the good wife and SM, and tried to be patient and understanding until SS matured enough to make peace with me. But the truth is that SS was never going to seek peace with me. He was either going to be victorious or he was going to avoid me altogether.

Last edited by Tryingjusttrying (1/18/2026 7:42 pm)

MorningMia wrote:

Tryingjusttrying wrote:

@morningmia - "I think I can honestly say that I regret each time I gave the skids any grace. I always had the sense that their mother was telling them that their father would never "allow" me to disengage from them, keep them from our home, and so on--that I "had" to be accepting of and nice to them; therefore, I think it was a huge shock to all of them when they realized that DH was no longer willing to tolerate their bad behavior in our home and that his primary commitment was to me. Lesson: Don't push anyone to have to prove something to you that you do not want to see."
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 Pretty much, DH doesn't force me to spend time with him anymore, and I'm realizing that SS and BM never imagined that DH would take steps to consider me and protect me. I think that SS actually was fine coming over here during the times that he did because it was proof to him that no matter how awful he's been to me, he knew his dad was going to welcome him with open arms. I think now SS must be coming to the realization that his dad is limiting time here for my sake. . . . But so long as DH was permitting SS to treat me like crap, SS felt pretty fine to continue to do that. In fact, I think it made him feel like he won. . . . But the truth is that SS was never going to seek peace with me. He was either going to be victorious or he was going to avoid me altogether.

This, a thousand times over, THIS!  It is a game of "Where does your loyalty lie?"--the key word being "GAME." Why can't it be both ways? Why can't a bio parent love and respect both their spouse and their kids? 
I've always said that my skids (with BM's prodding) started the challenge, the game that they never should have started because they ended up losing. It didn't have to be this way. 
 

Amen! Just want to add, if there is a game, it's all in their own minds, so they only lost because that's how they're making it out to be. If they changed their framework, there wouldn't be a loss, just a SM who could have been a friend. But psychology, they can't do that because we've become the receptacles for their problems and anger. Without us, they'd have to take a hard look at themselves.

MorningMia wrote:

Amen! Just want to add, if there is a game, it's all in their own minds, so they only lost because that's how they're making it out to be. If they changed their framework, there wouldn't be a loss, just a SM who could have been a friend. But psychology, they can't do that because we've become the receptacles for their problems and anger. Without us, they'd have to take a hard look at themselves.

Absolutely! I believe SD didn't have a choice at the beginning, but she never grew into her independent self--never grew out from under the mommy pressure. SS and I got along very well early on. It was to the point that I was concerned that his "enthusiasm" over/for me could irk his mother. I was careful, but it still did affect her. But it was all about more than that. Our marriage irked her, too. She is the person who drove the wedge between the skids and me and I know their behavior toward me was driven by her, sometimes planned by her, and done to please her and get her acceptance. I do believe she told them (probably constantly) that I was, as you say, the reason for most of their problems . . . if it wasn't for me, DH would be her/their puppet on a string. SS's behavior toward me changed suddenly and drastically after his mother put herself in danger several years ago--a move that clearly was made to put the fear of God into the skids so that they would march in lockstep with her (both skids had been acting up but have walked the straight and narrow and worship her ever since). Kind of like a suicide attempt but not one and in some ways worse. 

Although my skids' behavior was commanded and orchestrated by their mother, what you say is still true: 
But psychology, they can't do that because we've become the receptacles for their problems and anger. Without us, they'd have to take a hard look at themselves. My existence helps to keep them not only from taking a hard look at themselves, but taking a hard look at the monster that is their mother/cult leader. That is a boatload of psychological turmoil to wade through. 

The cult leader thing was a thing in our blend as well.  SpermGrandHag belongs to a fringe Christian cult and she and SpermGrandPa raised their kids in that environment.  It is a very misogynistic environment that is very male dominated though the Hag reached some significant level of status within it.   SpermGrandPa does not appear to be particularly active participant but was part of it.

When my then not yet met DW refused to join and comply, she was labeled as evil incarnate.  No recognition of the Spermidiots years long penchant for perpetrating statutory rape on under age teen girls.   DW was the first of the three Spermidiot baby mamas.  SpermGrandHag attempted to assymilate the other two baby mamas as well but they took the money and ran.  The SpermGPs paid all three baby mamas CS. DW is the only one who did not go with the breeding for dollars plan and abandon her child to the Hag.  Over time SpermGrandPa's serial cheating and stable of mistresses, and the Hags blind backing of the Spermidiot got her marginalized in the cult.   She is apparently still actively on the fringe.  The Spermidiot's sister and her DH are in it and have raised their children in it.

Interestingly, SS is the only one of the Spermidiot's spawn who was raised nearly completely separate from the cult and is the only one of the 4 Spermidiot spawn who is a viable adult of character and performance.  

Hmmmmm?