Disengage as a Habit
Not a habit yet for me. SS18 cutting school again today, but I'm not saying anything so I don't get blamed or have to deal with any b.s. While I hate his patheticly dishonest & lazy ways, on StepTalk I'm learning that he's not my monkey, it's not my circus. I'm pretty sure I know what SS is up to and pretty sure it involves getting high, but not my problem. Unknown if he's actually graduating, an the ceremony is Saturday night. Might be bringing people to our home, which he's not allowed to do (but when did rules or respect ever get in SS's way?!), so that worries me, but even that has to be something I'm chewing my tongue over... because I'm outraged at DH being so passive towards SS's f*ckery, and that he believes the lies and gets mad at me. It has harmed our marriage, and I'm waiting to see if DH keeps his word & kicks SS out or if I'm gonna have to separate from the scene. I am anxious & frusterated & disguested, all at once. Sick over this being my reality today, and anxious about our tomorrows.
Thank you everyone
I have definitely been meditating on "I can't care more than DH & BM do" and, "Not my circus, not my monkey (wait- does Not my monkey come 1st?)." By habit, I meant I wish the Disengagement was more natural to me like a regular habit I don't think about (like brushing my teeth: I just wake up and do it, thinking about other things the whole time). So my emotional reaction is conflicted out by the need to disengage all the time, about everything. Because my emotional reactions set DH up to be defensive and that makes him mad at me (yes, easier go get mad at me than baby SS18). Disengagement is so much more logical, just not immediately satisfying.
The sick thing is, in all other areas my DH is NOT lazy. He is a hard-working man who regularly cooks dinner after 12-hour shifts, and owns other regular chores. His ex, SS18's BM, is that special kind of narc who is all about f*cking up the kid as part of her sick "revenge" game. DH is a former elite-level athlete (still looking GOOD) so it was a thrill for BM to attempt PAS, withhold visitation (with allll the same respect for the court order most of the nut-case BM's we read about on ST, meaning NONE), and park the kid in front of the TV/DVD/Tablet/XBox, etc., but no outside play, skateboarding, bike riding, sports. She slso fed him fast food 2 to 3 meals a day, for years on end, so SS was literally obese when DH got custody five years ago. All the great, healthy home-cooked meals combined with 6-inch height growth and SS is no longer fat (but needs to get in shape still). The physical cure is easy; the emotional & personality issues (she a Dark Triad Priestess I think!) are not so easy.
Also, based on great experience of others here on ST, last Fall we printed out a list of requirements that we'd untill then been verbally telling SS the whole time: that if he's working, paying gas & insurance, going to community college, or if he's been accepted into the military, he could live with us after HS graduation, but if he's not doing those things, he's out. The official Launch Plan. DH wants me to trust him to handle SS. So I'm waiting to see how it goes. It's graduation time, so the clock has almost wound down.
Constantly (re)disengaging
I have to continually disengage. I re-engage in ways that I think, at first, is not engaging. Like trying to talk to the skid (SS17) himself about his behavior, now that he's a bit older and maybe able to be reasoned with. This, however, was engaging in order to fix the problem, and his problems ("including but not limited to," as we say in contracts, when we're giving the non-exhaustive list of features) include deep entitlement, contempt for his mother, an enmeshed relationship with his mother which is more like a marriage (without sex, of course) in which he is the verbally abusive and passive-agressive sonsband and she is the in-denial, supportive helpmate and wifemom who is "always there for him."
But the other kind of engaging that kind of hits me from left field is trying to talk to my wife about this. You see, my wife is (otherwise) a reasonable and intelligent person. I can talk to her about all kinds of sensitive topics, except for "him who is not to be contradicted," the true ruler and leading actor (as in, much drama) on our household stage.
Of late I have tried to talk to her about his entitlement regarding getting a summer job. "I'm not going to work for less than minimum wage" was one of his takeaway lines, as was, "I'm not going to have some boss telling me what to do." (He had a less then minimum wage restaurant job last summer with a boss who actually took him under his wing.) This, among many other things, are the terrible things that go on here, and I often start a "here’s the problem and this is what we need to do" campaign with my wife, in an attempt to get her to see the problem. This has never worked, however. But you see, I engaged again. Not with the skid directly, but by trying to dialog with her about it. It's hard to do nothing, but nothing works either.
My latest stay up late, and can't fall asleep, topic is, the skid is turning 18 and we want to buy a house (we're in an apartment now), but I don't want to wrap a mortgage and debt around this situation, where teenage abusive skid behavior will now be adult skid abusive behavior and I have a mortgage with a bank that I can't walk away from if I want to get out. The skid will go to college for four years, which might give temporary breaks, but there is no definite move out date. I would have to engage my wife and engage this situation to "talk about that," but rules and boundaries, whenever "we've" tried them, are quickly repealed and relaxed by my wife.
I'm venting somewhat here, but I do want to add to the conversation on disengaging, especially on the need for it, and about how engaging expressly does not work, at least for many stepparents, while at the same time, I'm constantly compelled to engage and must constantly pull myself back.