DARVO by proxy through my kid

[Think-Albatross-740]

I left my abusive wife in April of last year. After a long period of careful planning, I just told her I was divorcing her. I wasn't asking, I was leaving. I moved out 3 weeks later.

Of course, our 10-year-old daughter took it hard. We told her that same night. And my STBXW laid a lot of grownup stuff on her right away. She didn't hesitate to have adult relationship conversations right in front of our daughter, lots of stuff about how I needed to give her a chance in couples counseling, how I needed to let them keep the home, how I needed time away to "find myself". I wasn't leaving her to find myself, I was leaving her to escape abuse.

Now my daughter's seeing a therapist, which is great, but my daughter focused on me being the abuser. She's said that I'm the one who's mean to Mommy and Mommy only yelled mean things at me because I was gaslighting her. These are the words she uses! I've never used that word in front of either of them. I've never called STBXW a narcissist, but somehow it's been repeated to me several times by both of them. My daughter blames me for "lying to her and Mommy" during the planning period leading up to my separation announcement. When all I was doing is protecting myself because I wasn't sure how explosively STBXW would react.

To her credit, she's been pretty nice and reasonable once she got over the initial shock. But I can tell, by things that my daughter says, that she's still discussing things at an adult level with the kiddo. And the therapist thinks the same thing. We had a phone call yesterday where she said "I'm hearing things out of your daughter's voice that sound exactly like STBXW, things that are STBX's trauma and not your daughter's". So the therapist wants to have a session with just me and STBXW to go over ground rules of what you can and cannot discuss with a child.

It's such a weird upside-down bizarro funhouse when you are gaslit and DARVOed by proxy through your child. You can't even explain because explaining puts the kid in a space that's way above her age level. What a nightmare.

[moglow]

That's sad for your daughter and I can only imagine your frustration. I went through much the same with mine, her continually blaming Daddy for the demise of the marriage and repeatedly saying "he left US" as if we were abandoned. It took a long time for me to accept the realities weren't as she presented them, as we were completely under her control until we moved out of her home.

I'm glad the therapist is talking things over with you, and I hope she's also helping guide your daughter away from things that are none of her concern. As a child, there's not much she can do but I hope that message keeps getting through - that's NOT her stuff, at all. Sounds like a heaping helping of parental alienation is at work there and that's never a good thing. A child doesn't have -and shouldn't be expected- to pick sides!

No one should have to tell an adult what is appropriate or not with a child, and I'm glad the therapist is stepping up to that plate.

[athene1399]

What a difficult situation, Albatross. I am glad there is a T who can help your D with some of this. I hope your stbx will listen to the T. This sounds pretty stressful. How have you been managing it on your end? It sounds like your D had parroted back a lot of hurtful things.

[Penny Lane]

Hi albatross. I want to recommend a couple books to you. One is called Divorce Poison and the other is called Don't Alienate the Kids! (which is, of course, exactly what your stbx is trying to do).

The common advice is to not put kids in the middle of the divorce. But the reality is that your daughter is being put in the middle of the divorce. I hope the counselor is able to impress upon your stbx that she needs to do the right thing. But, unfortunately, I think you should have a backup plan for proactively addressing these comments from your daughter. I really think you can't just let them go unaddressed in the long term; your daughter is having to navigate things way above her emotional pay grade, and you should be helping her with a roadmap to do so.

The books I mentioned above help with that. Briefly, the first thing to do is validate the feelings. She is expressing some big feelings even if she is saying incorrect things. So first you have to help her calm those down, THEN you correct the inaccuracies.

For example, she says "you left me and mommy."

You could say: "I hear you that you are sad that mommy and I are getting a divorce. It feels like I left you. That sounds like a really hard feeling. I want you to know that even though mommy and I aren't together, I will never leave you. I am always your daddy and I love you the same."

Another strategy I want to offer is asking her questions. "What makes you think that I am mean to mommy?" "Have you seen me being mean to mommy?" "What does gaslighting mean to you?" "Have you ever seen me using gaslighting on someone?"

Once the critical thinking part of her brain gets going, you can have a conversation. There are two goals. One is to help her calm down her big feelings. The other is to share your values. "I know that mommy thinks it was mean of me to initiate a divorce. My goal was not to hurt mommy's feelings. Sometimes two people don't feel the same way about a marriage. That is a really sad, really hard thing for all of us: for me, for mommy, and for you. I had to make a really hard decision that I knew would impact all of us, and I tried to do it in the best way possible. But the reality is that we're all going to go through a hard time right now. I think eventually, in the long term, all three of us will be happier - that's why I made the decision. Sometimes we have to make hard, sad decisions in order to bring our lives to a better place. I don't want you to feel like you have to fix it for me or for mommy, or to take sides. I do want you to focus on your own feelings and strategies that we can use to help you feel better."

From there you can talk about emotional strategies (deep breathing, journaling, etc - the counselor can help with this). You can also talk about ways to make the divorce easier. Decorating her new room, finding new fun things to do together like going to the zoo or baking cookies or taking a walk or whatever. It's not meant to make it all better, it's just finding joy even during a tough time.

Right now your stbx is basically trying to revictimize you through your daughter. But in the process she's also victimizing your daughter. My recommendation is to ignore what your stbx is trying to do to you, and really focus on mitigating the damage to your daughter. The benefits are twofold, first of all it helps your daughter and second of all it will hopefully lessen the stbx's ability to get at you through DD.

It sounds like your daughter has a great therapist who's seeing clearly what's going on. That is invaluable. But there is also stuff you can do on your own, as an adult modeling healthy responses.

Good luck. You're in maybe the hardest part right now. I'm glad you're here - you can hear from others strategies that have worked (and haven't worked) and hopefully get to a better place, sooner. Good luck.