Is this normal adult skid behavior or a special kind of crazy?
Adult SD has sent a barrage of disparaging (about me the SM) and accusatory texts to husband in the last two days. These texts are very rambling and contradictory. When reading back over them you can see where the story changes paths and tone and the aggression rises in what looks like an attempt to manipulate the situation and illicit a reaction or desired outcome from my husband.
My husband defending me after some of her disparaging remarks about me enraged SD and she accuses him of having me write his responses. When he replies it was him responding she informs him that I should have no voice at all - even though I am the one being disparaged. (Please don't get hung up on that point as I'll explain the importance later).
My husband was overwhelmed by the barrage of what on the surface appeared to be rambling nonsensical texts that never directly addressed her not receiving a party invitation to my daughters engagement party (which was the catalyst for all of this) so he ask me if I could figure out "what she wanted?
What I discovered in trying to decipher through the reams of text was the same thread/request over and over:
She wants her father to rise up with his mighty sword and fight me so that she can "win" the war she started. She implored for him over and over to stand up to me (I've just disengaged-that's all) for her and her teen babies. She even goes so far as to ask her father if he is truly happy with the way things are. All that has occurred at my hands is that I don't invite her to things and I don't see her or her brother.
Since all I have done is disengage from the drama, turmoil, and madness this is the only thing that she could possibly say I have done or that she could be wanting to fight. Her telling him I should have no voice to me indicates that she feels she can cajole and badger him into overriding my disengagement and she and her daughters can then waltz freely back into my house and treat me like a doormat because after all in her eyes I get no voice and have no rights over my home, my money, my children......
She knows the house is mine. She knows I am the major breadwinner. Why in the world would she think that I would stay with or tolerate a man trying to demand that. I suspect that she figures the next best thing would be to cause the marriage to implode.
It's obvious that she has absolutely no desire to reach her goals by trying for peace between us due to the level of hostility and nastiness thrown at me in these emails. Nope instead she wants to guilt, manipulate and get dear old dad to defend her against the worlds most lethal enemy -SM.
It would seem so much easier to apologize and ask for a second chance. But no when he told her she needed to apologize to me for this latest barrage of nastiness she claimed she hadn't done anything and then launched into a paragraph about apologies being worthless and actions meaning much more. :jawdrop:
Yep. Her actions excluded I'm sure......
So based upon your experiences does this seem to even remotely be a normal thought process on her part or is she as I suspect a special kind of crazy?????
:?
How's her marriage? Let's put
How's her marriage?
Let's put it this way--this is normal, textbook behavior for a woman who never learned/was never taught proper coping skills in life and instead, somewhere along the way found that manipulation, blackmail, and aggression got her what she wanted most. This behavior, reinforced over time, becomes part of her personality and therefore makes her personality-disordered.
Normal... yes? Acceptable? No.
The question I posed above is because dollars to donuts she uses the same kind of behavior to intimidate her partners, and likely her children.
No, your SD is lashing out in
No, your SD is lashing out in the same immature fashion that many skids use. It works on weak parents and smacks of manipulation and a lack of insight. Classic stuff really.
Your daughter's wedding, and the knowledge that SD is being excluded from the celebrations surrounding it due to past poor behavior, has apparently triggered jealousy and old resentments in your SD. That you are being targeted is not surprising and shows that your DH has never given her the hard, cold truth: that HER actions have brought things to this pass.
One intrinsic flaw in these situations is that the crucial player, the leader, is the DH, and so many of these men are poor communicators and/or conflict avoidant. Telling an adult skid that they need to apologize to their SM is like waving a red flag in front of a bull - seldom do you get a positive result.
At her age, SD's issues are her own and she seems to have been stroking them like Golem with a ring. Leave her to it.
Just keep repeating this: Not
Just keep repeating this: Not my circus, Not my monkey!
It is not your job to invite her to anythings, it's not your job to entertain her, it's not your job to entertain her craziness.
slap her upside the head with
slap her upside the head with a cease and desist letter.
She's a grown adult right?!
Well it's time she gets treated like one.
Lay it all out there-she wants to treat you like shit therefore she needs to stop
causing her OWN DRAMA by involving her father.
And since she wants to throw it up in your face you're nothing to her...well the same can be said to her.
She's nothing to you or YOUR daughter therefore there's no reason for SD to be invited to your family functions.
Tell your DH it's okay to block her....it's okay to ignore her phone calls/emails.
I had a cousin who treated THEIR OWN PARENTS this way because of jealousy issues with their own sibling-guess what....
Drama Llama Cousin got cut off from the entire family. Nuclear family too!
There's no reason for you or your DH to be suffering from this. End it now and be done.
By disengaging you have
By disengaging you have driven her to irrationality and that means that you have her firmly by the short and curlies. Don't adapt your strategy until she makes a change and then adapt to keep her firmly under control.
I hope your DH is consistently supporting you through all of this.
Good luck.
Remind DH that when he's had
Remind DH that when he's had his fill of her nonsense texting, he can always just block her. Currently SD isn't believing it's actually him she's having communications via text anyway. So why bother.
If she has something she'd like to verbally say to Dad, she can call him on the landline. He can hang-up when he choses.
Unfortunately, this is quite
Unfortunately, this is quite normal for some adult skids
Your SD is jealous and insecure, especially about her inability to control your DH & you
She feels as his oh so important DAUGHTER, that you should not even matter in comparison
My OSD felt the very same way, and was in for a very rude awakening when she realized it wasn't the case.
Boy did she throw a fit, many fits, not unlike your SD
Remain disengaged from her crap.
When she is ready, however unlikely, one day to be an adult and treat you with mutual respect, then maybe she might actually be invited to your family events
Wow...your step daughter
Wow...your step daughter really has issues. You're lucky she's dumb and blatantly shows her idiocy and nastiness. If she was smarter she'd be more passive aggressive (something some men totally fail to see) or more manipulative. I wouldn't doubt if my boyfriend's kids (mainly daughter) haven't done the same but he would never tell me about it. His latest method of dealing with brattiness is to totally ignore if it's a text which it usually is.
Just ignore the woman, she's
good thing DH is supporting you, he should just put his foot down and tell the SD... enough if have nothing good to say stop contacting me all together, you are an adult not our boss and we can do as we please...
Update - thanks for all of
Update - thanks for all of your great recommendations and insights. They were very helpful and appreciated. As an update - the rants have stopped for know. He hasn't responded to her about her demands to fight me yet. Don't know that he will. Looks to me as though he's avoiding her as long as she stops ranting at him.
I don't know if I would rather he confront her about the issue and she implodes(cause I know she will) or go on mute.
The trouble with him going on mute is that he has sort of tried to placate her with his last responses so going mute now loses its effectiveness as she thinks he's sympathetic to her. If she thinks she elicited any sympathy or attention I see this crap starting again over and over.
I did find out something interesting in her rants though. A few years ago when my husband and I were going through a rough time together he must have confided in her that he wasn't happy with my disengagement because she mentioned in her texts that henhad told her that if he had it to do all over again he would have handled things differently. :jawdrop: v
Seeing as though he can't make me interact with her I'm not sure what he meant by that. He knows my boundary is fully in place on this issue and I've already informed him that if he doesn't like it don't let the door hit his posterior on the way out. He elected to stay when I emphatically told him I would not tolerate any more abuse from his first family and that I was disengaged. His only option was and is to leave to be with his adult princess but he hasnt made that choice yet.
It is more likely he told her what he did to placate her as he has taken no action to leave in all of these years or to badger me to change my stance on the issue. He always takes the path of least confrontation with her so I can see him placating her like this. I still feel,it was a betrayal of our marriage.
However, until or unless she fires off these rants to him she is not even a blip on his radar. We Never discuss or mention her. It's a shame but I don't think she even enters his mind. That however, is their issue to resolve. I've disengaged.
I mentioned to him that I noted that little tidbit in her rants. I don't think this part of her rant was a lie. In fact I would say it helped encourage her to think that she could badger daddy to fight me in these latest rounds so basically his actions or inaction once again resulted in me being attacked by his daughter. The only reason it's taken her a few years to act on it was because she was preoccupied for the last few years in a nasty nasty divorce from her ex so the ex replaced daddy for a little while.
It was nice to have peace while she and her momma's efforts and hatred were focused on SD's ex!