How much to tell kids??

[rockandhardplace]

I know we can't tell our children that their other parent has a PD if it's not been diagnosed so what can we say to protect them from their craziness and/or denigration of us when we're not around?? My stbxupd is acting like super dad at the moment and despite the fact the kids have all seen him yell abuse at me and my youngest has experienced some pretty nasty behaviour towards her, they aren't seeing the other part of the jekyl and hyde. Sorry bad spelling and I don't know which is which but the fake nice dad stuff is unbelievable right now he's in overdrive at the same time as being absolutely disgusting to me when kids are at school. I need to escape. Courts won't stop him having joint custody as he acts like a good dad but I feel sick at the thought that he will take this all out on them when I leave.
Sorry just realised I'm probably repeating the same heightened stressed out message I posted yesterday...but I don't know what do do.

[notrightinthehead]

I don't know how old your kids are. You won't be wrong though if you describe observed behavior and then say something like "that hurts me." "makes me feel small, worthless, angry " . Also you won't go wrong if you ask them how a certain behavior makes them feel and then validate their feelings without interpreting or judging your partner's behavior. You can also make statements of what you want. "I want to be spoken to in a calm voice". "I want to be appreciated for the contribution I make". and encourage your kids to express what they want too.
This will strengthen their ability to be honest and authentic, which seems for a PD like water for the wicked witch in the wizard of oz.

[Poison Ivy]

Approach the conversation carefully. It can be devastating to learn (whether by observing or by being told) that someone to whom you're related, especially a parent, is an abuser.

[Penny Lane]

Hi rockandahardplace and

This is one of the hardest things! There is no perfect answer. Whether or not you are married to him, your kids will always have a PD dad and that will always be hard for them.

Right now if he's being superdad, they so much want to believe it's real. My husband's ex has gone through these cycles countless times. The kids know it won't last, they know she will go back to neglecting and/or yelling at them. But when supermom comes out they act like that's how it's always been and always will be. And it's especially hard because they know it doesn't last and they feel insecure and they sort of lash out at us, the safe household. But soon enough it always ends and my heart breaks for the because they are again devastated that their good mom is gone.

With my stepkids, I generally don't directly address their mom's behavior unless they bring it up first. And they do, sometimes - they are processing all the same things that we are, and with less tools than adults have. I will give them the kindest, most age-appropriate version of my honest opinion when they ask. Why can't mom come to the house? In the past she has yelled at me and your dad and tried to push our door open. I don't feel safe with her being here. Harsh? Yes, but it's true (and they were there anyway). And they learn that their mom's actions do have consequences. But I don't remind them of that incident unless they ask about it, which they only do sporadically.

However, I also find ways to talk about behavior that's like hers. When we watch a show, I point out if someone is untrustworthy, or if they are treating other people badly, and talk through what I would do in this situation. Both things like "I don't think it's a good idea to yell at a service worker - they are just people doing their jobs, and I think it's important to treat other people with kindness" and also "if someone lies to me like this character did, it takes me a long time to build back trust and in the meantime I check what they actually said." I also talk through what's happening in my life and how I choose to handle it. This gives them a blueprint for how to handle PD behaviors that they can choose to implement with their mom. I also try to model good behavior for them, like if someone is yelling at me I will calmly remove myself from the situation rather than yelling back.

I think there are several categories of his behavior that need to all be handled differently:
1. The way he treats them: This is something that I do hope you can address, although it can be delicate. Telling them that it's not OK for other people to call them names, or for them to call other people names. Etc. If they bring it up to you, you can absolutely say I don't like that your dad treats you that way.

2. The way he treats other people in front of them: You really don't want them learning that his behavior is OK, either for them to do or to be done to them. In person, if you feel safe pushing back, that is great. If not, again modeling and talking about appropriate behavior.

3. The way he treats YOU in front of them: Same as the above times 1,000. If he berates you in front of them, can you push back? I think this even extends to a separation. If they ask you why you are leaving their dad, I think it is OK to name his behavior. "Our relationship was not healthy for me. I did not like being married to someone who did things like called me rude names or (whatever). This will be hard, but in the long run it's better for all of us."

4. What he says about you when you're not there: This is very important. You will have some opportunities to directly address it. But also you can kind of predict what he's going to say and counteract it. When I met my now-stepkids, I made a point to say things about their dad that undermined their mom's parental alienation. "Aren't we lucky that your dad works so hard to spend time with you?" etc.

5. The way he treats you when they're not there: This is not their problem. They will see enough bad behavior from him. You don't need to add to it - believe me, they will get the point. You can definitely correct misinformation, though - like if he tells them that you are being sooooo unreasonable about something, you can explain the real situation to them.

This brings me to my final point that even though you are the victim here, it is not your kids' job to take your side. It is, overall, your job to help them use their critical thinking about their dad's behavior. Then to decide what kind of relationship they want to have with him and how they interact with other people as they go through the world. So your goal here is not to get the kids "on your side," but rather to help them navigate this. (Part of your goal definitely is to push back on his manipulations/parental alienation, however!)

Like I said, this stuff is all HARD. But in some ways it will be easier to have lots of time with just you and the kids. You will be a happier, healthier mom if you don't have to spend your time with him. The kids will flourish with some time away from him. And you will get better at these skills and at talking to your kids about this stuff - you'll figure out what works for you and for them. You are a great mom and I really hope you can thrive in the future!

 

[rockandhardplace]

Thanks Penny Lane

Most of that makes sense and something I do tend to try and do already. I do call out the overtly abusive behaviours when I witness them. But I guess what I feel is that it took me 12-14 years to recognise there was something not right and another 4 years on I still can't get my head around it. What chance have my kids got without his behaviour/PD being explicitly pointed out? As I keep getting Out of the FOG I notice more things. Like his habitual lying. He is always right about everything and I used to think he was just knowledgeable as he reads widely as was so sure of himself. Now I realise he makes most of it up as he goes along and will happily change minor and major details of our past to gaslight me. A simple example is him criticising me for taking 4 years to finish my degree by telling me that the part time option is only for people working full time. I had been stay home mom for 12 years and only a year into the planned return to study did he suddenly have an issue with it. But the lying thing is he actually says to me that it's on the university's website. Which of course it's  not as the part time option is open to anyone who wants it. These things happen all the time. I'm sure they happened every day for years and I didn't notice but doubted my own memory or intelligence. Once when I was brushing our youngest hair in a rush and she was squealing he made this bizarre comment to our eldest about how he did her hair cus I hurt them when I did it. It was so weird I think I just made some comment about how I was the one who had to learn to do these perfect braids for her dancing competitions. But afterwards I was annoyed thinking that he never brushed her hair at all. He might've pulled it back once or twice into ponytail but I did all the actual brushing and hours and hours of combing head lice and nits etc out. I know these are insignificant things but it took him rewriting our whole history for me to become aware of how compulsive this way of lying and twisting the past is for him. My kids are not going to ask me about every little twist of our history he tells them to put me down. That annoys me. But worse than that is I bet he is already gaslighting them. Making them think they did or didn't do things in the past. Telling them they misunderstood situations or news stories or ideas. Does that make sense? Those subtle ways of undermining me he'll be using on them. The subtle putdowns are more damaging that the overt yelling of abuse as that's easy to recognise. Once he started calling me names it was much easier to recognise him for the nasty bully he is.

[moglow]

Whether told outright or not, if they are intelligent, discerning, compassionate humans they will see it. Things will not add up and they may ask some tough questions. They may eventually butt heads hard with him -and you- over what they've experienced. In all honesty, Penny Lane outlined it well above. You're not responsible for explaining his opinion of your choices. Obv when they have questions, you answer - and you may have to softshoe some things rather than call him out as mentally ill. I'd suggest couching it as "I don't see it that way" and "I disagree", focusing on treating others as they'd like to be treated.

As parents, y'all are teachers and guides, the models of what they should aspire to as adults themselves. What you do/say and how you do it absolutely matters to them. You may not see it right now, but believe me they do. They already know what they can and can't get away with, and what buttons they can push with which family member. I'm sure they play you off against each other at times, just like a lot of other families [whether PD or not].

As for when you're not there ... that has to be hard, knowing what he's capable of and having no way to stop it. Courts aren't likely to block him from custody or visitation without documented incidents that endangered them. I have no doubt my Daddy dealt with all that for years, all while mother ran him down and said the most godawful things about him behind his back, that we weren't wanted, that he had a new family now and we'd be pushed aside. On the surface she played a good game and was very believable, even as badly as she treated us. Now -all these decades later- I have no doubt he left to build a safe place for us to go, one where we were loved and wanted, not abused and bullied, isolated from our family. My only regret is that it took us so long to figure it and she worked so hard to destroy our relationships. As the adult, the parent, she had so many other better choices. Hers was to burn it all down around us, without any apparent remorse for what it would do to us.

There are no easy or blanket answers unfortunately - every situation is different, and what works for one is way off the wall for another.

[Penny Lane]

Rockandahardplace,
That makes total sense. And I wish I had a good answer for you. But I have a bad answer, that DH and I came to after years of stress.

You cannot undo every single comment, all the instances of gaslighting. You can't do that when you're together, and you certainly can't do it if you're in different houses. It would be like playing blindfolded whack a mole to even try.

What you can do is help the kids realize the larger picture. They will catch their dad in a lie, just like you did. The question is, what do they do next? You can help guide them there. Like talking about how if you catch someone in one lie, it is likely that they are lying about other things. This is the same for all his behaviors. He's going to do what he's going to do, you can't change that. But you can make sure your kids are better equipped to deal with it than you were at the beginning.

I do think if they repeat a lie to you, or if he says it in front of you, it makes sense to correct it. I just don't think you should be trying to track down all the lies he tells them - like I said, whack a mole.

This is definitely a mindset shift. You spend the first years of a kid's life doing EVERYTHING for them. And then you separate and all of a sudden you have absolutely no control for a portion of their lives. You feel like it's your job to keep them safe but you literally can't, at least in the emotional sense. It is really, really hard. 

But if you think about it, teenagers have all these other influences, good and bad. So at some point you have to kind of let them go off into the world and experience a variety of people. Some will be on their side, some will try to harm them. The best thing you can do is prepare them and support them in whatever they encounter. I try to see this as the same - my stepkids just had to grow up and have that independence earlier than most kids.

Like moglow alluded to, this is a long game. The goal isn't to "win" in the short term, it's to have the kids grow up with their best chance of being happy, healthy and well-adjusted.

I hope this helps. It feels a little bleak, but it can also be freeing to let go of the pressure on yourself. That gives you energy to focus on other stuff - building positive relationships with the kids, healing yourself, and so on.