Nothing ever changes but I need to
I need help. I need to learn how to live with my husband and his kids without having any opinion, letting their behavior get to me, or getting upset about how they treat my husband and our home.
How can I have no feelings or opinions when he vents to me? How can I just be supportive? How do I avoid getting upset when they disrespect my husband and he just allows it to happen?
Clearly his parenting style isn't going to change and IMO he's too passive and forgiving. He doesn't wanty opinion yet for years I've been responding to his ex wife via text as him (of course I show him everything before sending). He doesn't seem to understand or care about the confusing message this has sent me. I can be involved when it's supporting him but if I disagree with him my input isn't wanted. So to save myself from the emotional toll this takes on me I just need to remove myself. I just don't know how.
It's called Disengagement
It's called Disengagement around here. My therapist taught me to be utterly incompetent to solve any problems for DH. I recommend the book Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend. It has different chapters devoted to different people in your life and how to keep their problems from bleeding over into your life. Non answer replies are definitely needed. Stop thinking of yourself as the "hero" who can fix things and instead become detached from it all. Focus on yourself a instead of the drama. It takes time to master that mindset but in step world it's needed.
Thank you for the response
I know the term, I just don't know how! It's so hard.
I will definitely check out this book, thank you for the recommendation!
Sounds like he's all about
Sounds like he's all about his own comfort above all else.
Can you give us an example of how they treat your home? Because disengaging might not be what you need. If anything affects me directly, I continue to have opinions and expectations. But that's easy for me to say--haven't seen them in 2+ years.
Luckily they aren't here full time...
But when they are here they lounge around on the couch, they're loud, and their dad waits on them with little to no appreciation. Often times they don't get up because he'll bring them everything they need. I know it's his love language but it's enabling them. And they never clean up after themselves.
They've basically been taught that the world revolves around them and that if they want something they don't need to work for it.
He's been making empty threats for punishments for years and they know he'll never hold them to it.
I love them, I just don't like them most of the time.
those would be good days for
those would be good days for you to go off and do your own thing. have plans, even as simple as going to a movie alone or a drive, hike, trip to the farmers market, etc. let him serve his kids while you're doing your own thing and when you come home, offer vague comments to his complaints "hmm that does sound fun" "mmhhmmmm" "oh my" etc. if his kids have crapified your livingroom, head up to bed early w/ a book/movie/game and leave him to pick up their mess.
Even if you disengage
You still will not be disrespected in your home. You just don't become a punching bag. DH must inforce the home rules. He must insist on his kids respecting you. Disengageing means the kids don't take up space in your mind. As if...they eat or not. Not your problem...if they get to school or not..not your problem.. if they have to repeat 4 grade four times NYP. IF SK ever graduates school NYP. because they are out at 18. NYP. if they do there homework, NYP [ not your problem]. If DH is away on his parenting time. NYP. You are Not the automatic babysitter. He must return them or find child care. NYP.
'holidays/ birthdays/ school events/ sports/ parties/ all NYP
NYP
I really need to keep repeating that to myself. I tend to make his problems my problems. We're a team, I want to support him but unfortunately I don't agree with his parenting style.
Thank you for the response! This is what I need to hear
How old are they?
How old are they?
SK ages
SS 21
SD 19
SS 15
We've been together for about 9 years.
Wow, I thought they were much
Wow, I thought they were much younger than that! How often do they come over and why are two ADULTS still occupying your home? Are they at college? Do they have jobs?
I am a full frontal direct
I am a full frontal direct confrontation proponent myself. Pain changes behavior. Apply the right pain that hurts more than the benefit the prepetrators of the behavior get out of the behavior... poof.... the behavior stops. Feed the benefit they perceive they get from the behavior, the behavior continues. KISS.
So, stop making it comfortable and start making it painful. Not for you, for them.
IMHO, you are looking to abdicate authority in your own life, marriage, blended family which I will never recommend. So, own their idiot asses, make their stupidity hurt.
1. Stop pretending to be your DH in texts to his stanky failed family womb donor. Make him do it. You are taking his discomfort away by keeping his balls in your pocket and being the only one with any testicular fortitude. Don't do that. Rub his nose in the stench of this particular stain in his life's carpet. Stop rubbing your own nose in it. Point it out, make him fix it. This applies to every stinky stain he drags into your life and marriage.
2. Stop allowing him to allow "it" to happen. Whater "it" may be. Grow a spine, get in his junk, tell him that he deals wiith "it" and that he fixes each and every issue immediately when it happens or you will and he nor his failed family baggage will like it.
3. Lather
4. Rinse
5. Repeat
... as is appropriate to the idiot behaviors they choose to perpetrate. You and only you decide what is appropriate.
Stop trying to abdicate standing, authority, and the outcomes in your own life. Own his idiot ass and the idiot asses of his failed family baggage.
When people show you who they are, you have to believe them. Categorize them by their actions and do not be fooled by their words. See it all with clarity, not as the foggy edged art you wish it was.
IMHO of course.
I like you!
Great response! And thank you, I needed to hear that.
We're a team, I like helping him, supporting him but I need to stop. Because clearly he only wants my help and support when I agree with him.
I hope you can get to being a
I hope you can get to being a team. Right now, collectively you are not a team. IMHO anyway.
YOU are the team. A team of one. You and only you are setting any standards of behavior and performance that he, and they, will be held to. You are the ony one who has planted a flag on the blended family hill and apparently you are the only one defending that hill. The problem is, IMHO, the person who is to be your mate ... .isn't.
I am a non breeding Sparent myself. Fortunately I took the role when our son (my SS-31 who asked me to adopt him when he was 22) was 2yo. His mom and I raised him together. So, any jacked up Skid behaviors we get out of SS-31, I created. Fortunatley, there are not many.
His mom gives me the look any time our kid pulls a cranial gas (brain fart) flare up. "He sounds just like you!" I own that. Proudly.
His SpermClan is a trainwreck. His mom and I were able to counter the stench from their shallow and polluted end of his gene pool and raise him with standards of behavior and standards of performance. He has little to nothing to to with any of them and hasn't for nearly a decade.
He is an only in our marriage and the eldest of 4 in the Spermidiots brood barn of out of wedlock progeny by 3 different baby mamas. Spermidiot spawn #2 is on the dole, #3 is in prison, and #4 is not far behind the inmate.
Please take care of yourself. If you don't, you and DH will never be the team that YOU have earned and should be. This is his fault. I would surmise that your key contribution to the challenge is that you covered his ass with his failed family baggage. Stop that.
Take care of you.
Thank you
I really appreciate your input. I'm tyring hard to focus on me, these kids are just so fucking rude!! I love them I just don't always like them. I've been doing my best to stay disengaged, I think my biggest issue is how unattractive I find it when he let's them walk all over him. It's weird because he's a very manly guy, in touch with his feminine side but a man. He doesn't allow other to treat him poorly but when it comes it his kids they get away with some awful behavior. Just last night his daughter had friends over (privilege not a right) and was so incredibly rude to her dad when we went into the kitchen while they were in the living room. If it were up to me she wouldn't be allowed to have friends over for the rest of the summer, but I doubt anything will come of it.
Same, in terms of decreasing attraction!
I've stopped dancing around issues a while ago (and I'm a straight shooter in other areas of life too) and said to my SO that a kid manipulating/walking all over a grown man is an ultimate passion killer for me. No one can argue with what you find attractive/repulsive. No amount of reasoning/railroading will increase or decrease it for us. I generally find my SO very attractive in every way, but in those moments when I see his kids with that shitty twinkle in their eye getting him where they want him, I feel physical revulsion. He knows it, I said it. And the more frequent these moments, the higher the risk that eventually revulsion just won't leave one day. Thankfully, it's rather infrequent in our case.
Learned Helplessness
Learned Helplessness - and I am doing this also with husband and princess powersulks schooling/parent portal.
You need to read this on repeat: You cannot have full responsibility without full authority.
1. Do not get in the middle between DH and his ex. He bred with her, he deals with her. When he vents, practice the following:
~ BM doesnt respect me and my opinion, what a b!tch! you: "oh wow bummer, hmmm"
~ BM doesnt parent these kids, I need to rescue them from her! you: "hmmmm. Ok."
2. He can do whatever he wants with the skids, meaning he wants to be their b!tch and fetch slave, he can go do that. But he better not slack in anything else, and expect YOU to fill in the blanks. He needs to be a strong partner to YOU. And dont you dare cook for them or clean their dishes or bathrooms. And when spawn-slave erm DH acts like hes so put upon, schedule a mani-pedi and leave for the day.
3. They dont clean, all they do is lounge? Are they living with you full time? Dont they have JOBS? SOMETHING?
~ Well, during their lounging make certain to do all the loud stuff. vaccum while they lounge, vaccume early in the morning - blast your music. Tell them they must clean after themselves. If they dont, go to DH and ask him to clean up "his ie their" mess...
Enjoy your disengagement.
Only one thing to add ...
" go to DH and ask him to clean up "his ie their" mess..."
No, you TELL him to clean up their mess.
He doesn’t want
Help or support, He wants you to beva servant to serve his kids So he looks looks in fronts of his kids. Remember, you can't do more then the bio parents do ........ Bio dad is doing nothing so you have to do less then nothing
Love the comment
This statement is spot on....if Bio Dad is doing nothing you have to do less than nothing. Love it! I will implement this starting today!!!!
I am in this type of
I am in this type of situation. My SO lets his kids use and disrespect him. He complains constantly to me wanting my opinions and then not liking my opinions. I have tried to disengage but then he is upset that I am his partner and wants to share everything with me. Our therapist even told him to stop involving me. I am in a no win situation with this. My SKs don't stay with us anymore so at least I don't have to worry about messes . But just last week SD needed help with work forms and SO rushed home from work out of town so he could help her. I had my meals planned out for the week and he decided to last minute ask them to eat with us, by last minute I mean 15 minutes before they were coming. They will only say yes when they are using him for something. He asked me what I could fix. I said I am reheating a meal I made for myself, I don't know what YOU are making for them . He of course sulked and then when he saw I was not going to do anything he made Mac and cheese. He will never understand that just because he gets his jollies when the kids spend 2 seconds with him. I do not. I do not jump for people who treat someone I love the way they do. But it is very hard to disengage. I wish you luck.
Good for you
If DH wants to invite his kids for dinner, it's up to him to figure it out.