My DH86 has never acknowledged SD's actions.  I do think he knows deep down but he never says a word against her.  He doesn't defend her anymore, he just says he will always be there for her.

My DH acknowledges SD's faults, but not really the effect she has. So "she's never apologized to anybody in her life" doesn't translate into "I know she's permanently damaged relationships".

He does, though, acknowledge and supports my choice of having no relationship with her. His days of making excuses and chasing her are over, and that's enough for me.

SS is another story. We never talk about him. Everything about him is distant--geography, relationship. We get along fine when I see him, but he's not been to our house in 12 years. He's kind of a non-entity until he needs money. DH has learned that I am not part of any available wallet.

I don't think that bio parents are as clueless as we may think.. or that their behaviors may indicate.

Especially as kids are into adulthood.. and issues are going unresolved in their lives.. clearly as a parent, they are seeing the issues.

HOWEVER.. as a SP.. do not ever think that just because they may realize or acknowledge those shortcomings that there is a green light for YOU to pile in and on regarding their kid's issues. It is never going to be ok for a SP to do any version of "see, I told you so".. "now you know what I have been trying to point out".. "convince you of".. "make you see the light" etc ....

In most cases.. even with a parent that may be disgusted with their child's actions.. they are still their child.. like a siblings that fight like hyena's with each other.. yet will defend to the death if someone attacks one of them.  They are still their child.. and despite their shortcomings.. there is almost always going to be some basic love or hope for better from their child.

When people mirror how others behave towards them, there is limited drama.

We have been fortunate with my SS. He has always been pretty well behaved.  We had some teen boy brain fart stuff and some SpermClan shallow and polluted gene pool drama to deal with but once he realized that mere existence would not be tolerated and we found the right fuel to keep the burning platform lit, he launched.

For a decade or so he was decently though on the light side when it came to communication. Over the past 6 years he has been very nearly totally on communicative.  It took time, but we including his mom, just put the onus on him beyond leaving V-mails a couple of times a week.  He now calls about once every 2-3 months.

The less we reach our, the shorter duration it is before he calls.  Each call goes about the same. It starts with sullen Eeyore syndrome crap then by the end of a 1-2 hour call his brain is engaged and he is clear headed and engaging.

We know very little about his life beyond that he serves in the military and his work specialty takes a high level of qualification and is stressful.  He has shared that he has been Dxd with some behavioral and mental illness issues. No details.  Since he is self supportive his challenges do not represent a burden on us beyond our concern and care as his mom and dad.

Interestingly, the longer it goes without a call from him, the lighter and more enjoyable our lives together are.  When he does finally all both his mom and me struggle with feelings and concern.  Since he is not forthcoming with much in detail, we find that the OMG WTF is wrong with our kid what ifs are burdensome.  So, we have evolved to the no news is good news model and try to make it clear that he is loved and that we want to know but that he is an adult and resolution for whatever issues he is struggling with is ultimately on him to resolve.  

So far he is not a burden on us.  He continues to serve in the military though there appear to be indicators that he is running into some issues with doing the basics required of his role and service.  Best case he can get his final 6 years under his belt and qualify for his full retirement. Second best is that he gets a medical disability retirement.  

My biggest fear is that without the structure and required accountability that the military provides and demands complete with legal consequences for failing to perform that he will go full basement troll hermit crazy cat guy in life.  We are struggling with the what ifs of how much do we help and how thoroughly we commit to our own quality of life and enjoying retirement in the next half a dozen or so years.  I won't let him be homeless, but.... I also will not destroy us financially by flushing our life's work down the toilet if he cannot or will not pull his head out and figure his life out.

It may be even harder to deal with one who is making their own life and non communicative that it is to deal with one who is in your face toxic all of the time.  One is a constant dance of trying to get information and the other is a simple matter of delivering escalating abject misery in response to their toxic choices until the pain is more than what they get out of behaving toxically.

Part of why we struggle with ours who is overall doing exceptionally well.

I love that you are having this lightbulb moment with your DH! My DH had a moment recently when he realized on some level the adult SS was wayyy out of line, incredibly entitled & behaving badly but the minute he saw the kid he melted like a pile of ice cream. It's one of the strangest relationships I have ever encountered...it is a mini-wife but with a adult large male. I have never been able to really understand it- but they had dinner together a couple weeks ago and DH was hooked - all the bad behavior right out the door. It's extremely hard to reconcile in my mind but I try my best to just take a deep breath and focus elsewhere. The SKID gives his Dad crumbs and he is so grateful to recieve them. It's hard to watch and accept that he's willing to get so little from this entitled big boy. On the flip end he's quite critical and focused on my self improvement...the irony of it all. 

For years I endured the mini-wife times 100 with SD35. DH was always willfully blind to her and SS33, but mainly towards SD. She could do no wrong at all. She's done horrible things yet not only would DH act like she didn't do it or that he didn't see it for himself, therefore it's not true, etc. but he'd actually make a claim that what SD did was wonderful. 

Over the years I tried everything under the sun to get DH to "see" SD for who and what she really was, but it never worked. Even if I mentioned something benign with a phony lilt to my voice he'd rip my head off and shit down my throat. It was unreal. I never understood how anyone could let their child turn out like that. The enmeshment and DH's defence of SD got ramped up times a thousand when SD become an adult. Over the years I continued trying to work on my marriage and to see how the enmeshment and defence of SD was impacting our marriage but it never worked. We even ended up in therapy. The second there was any sign of improvement or evolvement in SD's and DH's relationship, DH would knock everything back into status quo. Also, DH would sometimes acknowledge something that led me to believe that he would see SD for who and what she really was but two days later he'd do what I called "taking it away from me," by coming up with a way of defending what SD did.

Four years ago, maybe five, I can't remember. It was during the pandemic, I was being bullied badly at work (still am) and hated my life. I had one foot out the door. I completely withdrew from DH and I guess he got scared. I didn't say I was leaving but I think he knew I had enough and had started my excape plan. He approached me and wanted counselling individually for himself and us as a couple. I was already in therapy. In our first couples therapy session, the therapist and DH said name any condition at all that I require from DH for me to consider staying to work on our marriage. My condition was that DH must acknowledge who and what SD is and how his and her insanely enmeshed relationship hurts me. I need to do a lengthy rant about her and DH must sit there and listen and not fiercely defend SD and he must let me finish. He actually agreed and he actually had things to say about SD as well. From there, DH was able to end the enmeshment with SD and more and more he would tell me things about SD that he's totally aware of her being a less than ideal person. Fast forward to current times, DH often has way more to say about SD than I do. 

One of the things that came up in our marital therapy was why did DH sabotage any evolvement in the past. He confessed that he "couldn't afford to heal," when it came to SD. He was so afraid of losing her that unless he allowed her to totally enmesh with him the way she was with BM, a narcissist who requires full enmeshment and nothing less, he would lose SD and never see her again. Today, their relationship is completely different and I'm number one. Apparently, DH knew throughout SD's childhood that she was quite the little bitch but was too afraid to parent her or BM could easily convince SD to never see DH again.

DH's awareness has had a domino effect. A pleasant surprise for me. DH's extended family have started to say things and even SS and SDIL, who never say a word about anyone, have been expressing their resentment towards SD. DH and I never told anyone in the family what was going on, so their indications that they see SD for what she is has been an unexpected pleasant surprise for me. 

It was a gradual change that I saw in my DH. But it started when I told him I was done. My feeling was that, if I was willing to be a doormat, I would have stayed with my first husband and kept my children's family intact. There are people who would say that I made my DH choose between me and his kids. I disagree. I made a decision to remove toxicity from my life, and I was willing to walk away from my marriage if that was the only way to protect myself. I chose my own happiness. DH knew his family wouldn't change, and he decided he needed to be with me to protect his own happiness. I expected him to remain in contact with his kids (both in their 30s). But for them, it was their way or no way. So they now have no contact with DH. As much pain as they've caused, there are parts of me that still love them and miss them, and I hope things are different one day. The door will always be open when/if they can walk through it respectfully.

It feels like the light bulb clicked one day for dh when he witnessed it(because sd would always do it when she thought nobody was around).  She wanted to frost my dd's birthday cake. I stayed around because I knew she'd find a reason to ruin it... I pointed out that she was missing spots, I was offering to help her if she was having trouble. She lashed out at me and that's when dh walked into the room and yelled at her for it. He said how he could hear the whole thing from the other room. How i was being kind and didn't raise my voice, and that sd for no reason got an attitude with me. I took the cake to three other side of the kitchen and finished it.  I really think she was just trying to save the container of frosting to eat by herself later. For a two tier cake she was trying to use HALF of one small container of frosting. It wasn't going to work.  She was not a young child, she was like 14 or 15.

Fear drove my DH for a long time; fear is what got him into the situation he was in. He primarily feared the wrath of BM. That fear is what a lot of borderlines and narcissists rely on. It works. DH ultimately feared that his kids would turn against him. But no matter how many hoops he jumped through and butts he kissed, they basically did what he feared most, anyway. His kids are like, well, maybe distant cousins to him. 

Initially, it was ugly with us. Total denial on DH's part. I became a scapegoat. Almost destroyed the marriage. We went to counseling and that helped but did not 100% resolve the issues. It was slow going. Even after DH agreed that SD could not come back into our home without making a genuine apology to me, he was still defending her and her brother, blaming all of their behavior on BM. Yes, the skids were victims of BM, but they also grew into adults who chose to carry her torch.

Looking back, I think it might have been SD's wedding in 2020 that finally did him in. As I've said ad nauseum, we were treated like crap there. Although we had quite a distance from the skids at that point and DH had confronted them multiple times about their issues with me, he would still get defensive, so we didn't talk about them very often. But after the wedding, something switched off in him, and it was after that experience that we could finally have open, non-angry, calm and very truthful conversations about the skids and their behavior. He could openly criticize his kids to me, ask me for my opinion, advice, etc. 

While he had been "gently" confronting the skids for years, sadly, HE had to feel the direct disrespect and cruelty for him to finally, fully admit that they are who and what they are. He had to feel the full brunt of their dysfunction directed at him. Sigh. 

Congrats to all who have gotten over this awful hurdle! 

My DH did not get it until I literally had one foot out the door and counseling was started. Now he apologizes every now and then and understands that he and BM are the ones that ruined my relationship with the SDs, no one else's, and acknowledges how hard I tried and how I was the only stable one. Still doesn't bring back all that lost time, or SD relationships, but really, I don't have fond feelings, completely neutral, about the SDs.

I'm glad to hear your DH finally got it! From what I've read on this site, you're one of the rare lucky ones. Seems most of the partners with dysfunctional failed families, never get it or do and just choose to act deaf, dumb and blind and side with the Skids and/or the exes. 

I literally just asked in a post the other day, "What is wrong with them?! Why don't they want their parent to be happy? If their parents were miserable together, why are they mad that they found love with someone else?" 

My son got married in 2022, his father is remarried and I've been in a relationship for 6 years. There's been no drama from my side, but there's been nothing but disrespect and meanness from his side. I've never met his ex and still don't have a relationship with his daughters. She's getting married in Sept in Spain and told her father I'm not invited. He plans to respect her wishes, which would end our relationship.

So again, congratulations to you that the lightbulb switched on for him at last!