Need help with parenting during divorce

gfuertes · March 09, 2019, 07:18:38 PM

During the past year that my husband has been in federal prison for fraud (related to the small business he owned), it has become clear to me that he fits most descriptions I've found, of narcissists/sociopaths/malignant narcissists. (I realize I'm not a psychologist, much less *his*, but having been the closest person to him for more than a decade, I think it's OK to state this, rather than offering 50 anecdotes that would inevitably lead the reader to the same conclusion.) I have decided - and have begun taking steps - to divorce him. I'd welcome any and all advice on these two subjects:

1) Our youngest son (the only child who belongs to both of us, and the only one who's still a minor at home) recently turned 11. We have not visited my husband, but he's in a very minimum-security "camp" with a cell phone and access to a computer, so we can communicate with him regularly. Our son was attached to him, looks forward to him coming home, and his memory is fading about his dad's volatility and some of the unpleasantness of living with him. However, I have noticed - and others have surprisingly mentioned - that my son is doing shockingly well, and seems more peaceful and happy in the last year, than he did before. How on earth do I tell my son I've decided to divorce, and that when his dad gets out 1.5 to 3 years from now, he will not be living with us?

2) I find myself plagued by a partially-irrational fear of my 11-y-o becoming a narcissist. I say partially irrational because there's a history of antisocial behavior in my husband's family. My step-son (who lived with us from age 8, until he moved out recently at age 19) exhibits some narcissistic and antisocial behavior (though not exactly like my husband's). I realize that there can be a genetic component to this, and that childhood trauma can contribute to it as well. Unfortunately, my 11-year-old has had to deal with some major stresses at home, most notably his dad going to prison. Of course, all kids are somewhat narcissistic in early adolescence. And my youngest son has always been a pretty empathetic kid, so it's probably unreasonable to worry that incidents of childish egocentrism foretell adult narcissism, for him. Nevertheless, I find myself thinking about my husband's upbringing, and whether he would be different today if he'd been parented differently; then I stress out and second-guess my own parenting. A few times in the last year (including this evening), I have gone too far discussing my son's behavior with him - picking apart how he handled something, to point out what would've been more considerate or appropriate; when a shorter, "That was rude," or "Don't speak to me like that," would have sufficed. Afterward, I worry that I'm going to make him think he's a bad person...and having a hyper-critical mother could be the thing that makes him narcissitic! In short, I just really, really don't want to screw him up, and I'm afraid that between my husband and me, we already have. At times, I am letting that fear obscure the fact that he seems to be essentially a nice kid, whose occasional behavior issues are pretty normal for a boy his age. Any tips for keeping my turmoil about having chosen my husband, and my anxiety about divorcing him from spilling over into my parenting, so I can be the stable, reliable, emotionally positive parent my son is going to need, going forward?

Thank you.

Poison Ivy · March 09, 2019, 07:35:59 PM

I think that pointing out more considerate behavior isn't hypercritical; I think it's more helpful than just saying "That was rude" or "Don't speak to me like that." Perhaps when your son is rude, you could say something like the following: "When you do X, I feel Y. Please don't do X."

Poison Ivy · March 09, 2019, 09:16:37 PM

Also, it's kind of you to be concerned about the effect on your son of you getting a divorce. Maybe you could talk to a therapist or counselor about how to tell your son. Best wishes. I think you're doing the right thing to pursue a divorce.

hhaw · March 09, 2019, 09:28:15 PM

There's a book titled PARALLEL PARENTING that helps parents understand boundaries, what's our stuff, the kid's stuff, and stuff we can't control, so we stop worrying about it.

It's a good read, not necessarily geared to your situation, but certainly gives glimpses into mistakes we can avoid, and mitigating mistakes we've already made.

About divorcing your husband..... I'd thank God you can do it while he's IN jail, unable to leverage your cherished belongings, child, and safety to best effect in his attempts to gain your compliance.

Honestly, it's a terrific silver lining to his being in prison, IME.

About your son missing his father..... he's what, 11yo now? 12? He's, hopefully, about to blossom into a very social teen, with social calendar that leaves little time, or desire, for much interaction with parental units. What are your feelings on this? You have older children. This is your son. What does your gut tell you about how turning into a teen will likely effect son's relationship with his father? Do you feel this son will blossom into a snarky teen with a super full social calendar, which naturally limits parental time for both your son's parents?

Also, the time sbtx is in prison is time your son has away from his father that you can't be blamed for. Time for your son to get more used to not having father in the family home. Time for you to get ds into therapy with a really great therapist who can help you both navigate the next years, which the PD may turn into a hell, if divorce with him goes like most divorces with PDs.

In fact, I'd consider scheduling video visitation for son, and father IN the T's office if stbx starts acting badly during that visitation.
The Therapist can:
1. End the visits early IF stbx speaks badly about you, guilts son, plays the victim, or asks son to guilt or bully you on his behalf...
2. Explain to son why it's not OK for his father to behave that way during visitation...
3. Buffer you from being the person ds blames for his father's inability to behave on visits
4. document visitation, and be son's advocate should you have to litigate visitation or custody when stbx exits prison.
5. T can help ds understand whatever ds needs help understanding about his father.... better some things come from professionals, IME.

::nodding::.

Getting a good T... be it a LCSW, Psychologist, or whoever comes highly recommended in your area.... in place before your stbx can screw it up would be a priority on my list.

Judges like to keep routines in place. They don't like to upend good routines, mindfully crafted by a parent who always puts her child first, and documenting that NOW, from the get go, will serve you well, IME.

When parenting with a personality disordered person it's always wise to document EVERYTHING well, IME. Be proactive. Everything in writing. Keep a good calendar. Have advocates for your son in place, and make sure those advocates are good witnesses on the stand, and can testify. 90% research... 10% execution when choosing advocates for your ds.

Be kind when speaking about the PD in front of everyone.... except maybe a couple very close friends who won't punish or judge you for speaking honestly. Always always stay positive when speaking about stbx to your son, so son doesn't feel defensive. You want ds to trust you, and be someone he can speak his truth to. If he believes you're hurting his daddy, he won't trust you, and he'll be easier for his father to manipulate him.

Take my word for it.... speaking with compassion about the stbx, always, will help you in ways you can't imagine right now. People, who can't understand what you;re dealing with, won't understand your PD truth, so keep your story simple, straight forward, and easy to understand. People understand a cheating criminal who can be abusive. They don't understand a normal person sabotaging his son's life, his wife's life, and his own life for reasons that don't make sense and will never make any sense, bc a personality disordered person doesn't operate under normal rules of engagement.

Make sure you tailor your divorce complaint around your evidence, and leave out all the crazy stuff your PD does and did, that YOU CAN'T PROVE. If you can't prove it, then it's not something you include. It cuts way down on confusion, and PD chaos manufacture, bc you'll look like the unstable one if you go round talking about all that with no way to prove it, IME.

Good luck,

gfuertes · March 10, 2019, 02:58:55 PM

Thank you for the replies, esp. hhaw, who took so much time! That was really helpful. No worries, if you don't choose to keep responding. There's value, just in me taking the time to think over and reply to what you wrote.

I totally agree that my husband's imprisonment provides an ideal opportunity to divorce him and let our son adjust to him not being part of our daily life, before he thinks of that as my choice, or anyone's fault. It also seems advantageous that I was close to my husband when he fought for and won sole custody of my step-son, so I learned a lot about our local courts; what I might expect from him; and what not to do - i.e., behave like his ex-wife. Certainly, it's much easier at this point for me to imagine the anger and frustration she must have felt toward my husband. He can be so charming and seem so great that I really couldn't understand her at all, at the time. In any event, she was openly hostile, petty, vengeful, and prided herself on cleverly circumventing court orders she didn't like, and she was often blatantly emotionally abusive to her child, to get back at my husband. I still think my step-son was probably better-off with us, if only because my husband is better than his ex, at "hiding his crazy". But poor kid! What a lot to overcome.

Luckily, in the past year I've been able to go from hopelessness, to realizing I could take care of the kids and myself just as well without him, to feeling furious with him; to where I am now: accepting how he is, even being able to sympathize a bit, instead of hating him, but feeling quietly confident that I am not responsible to heal, help or put up with him when he is clearly incapable and/or unwilling to heal or help himself, or to try to meet my basic needs as his partner. I feel sure now, that whatever I'm afraid of losing financially, materially or socially, and however hard it might be to parent my son through this, none of that difficulty is worth staying married to him, or continuing to give our son this example of what marriage should look like. (That's probably the first time I've put that in so many words. I feel good about it.) And I've been able to get from Point A to Point D without having to interact with my husband except in writing, to whatever extent I've chosen to; and without having to figure out how to share our son. I bet everyone divorcing someone with a PD would like that. It's probably the basic thing his ex-wife wanted.

Anyway, I should be able to behave well and not give him any opportunities to convince a judge or custody evaluator that I'm the problem, that I'm trying to alienate our son or something. But I also think my husband will be too smart to behave badly in front of anyone. He knows the game, and he's already won it once. I expect that, once he's out, he will play on our son's sympathy and encourage him to see me as the bad guy without overtly criticizing me ("Everyone has conspired or turned against me - the court system, my own family - but I still love you, son, and I won't let anyone keep me out of your life...") while simultaneously doing everything he can to be the "fun" parent, so I'm the only one setting reasonable boundaries, having reasonable expectations, or being responsible in my spending on entertainment. He will expect our son to want to live with him. That does freak me out, but I think if I keep striving to establish a solid, stable, consistent relationship with our son now - so somewhere inside he knows he can rely on me for what he actually needs, and not just for unconditional approval and indulgence; and if I am consistently focused on and responsive to his needs - it's likely that he'll choose to stay with me, and just visit his dad. My husband, I am sure, will sometimes be over-the-top fun, charming and cool, but other times he will seem detached, disinterested, impatient or unreasonably angry. I have to trust that our son will pick up on this and gravitate toward what is healthier for him.

That is what I saw with our older kids. My first ex - the father of my older sons - came into a trust fund after we broke up, and has become outlandishly wealthy. We were very friendly co-parents, but I did fear that as our kids got older they'd want to go live in his mansion. What kid wouldn't? But, objectively, I was the parent more focused on the kids, and who understood their needs better, and they never once brought up wanting to live with him. After my step-son came to live with us, his mom pulled out all the stops to be more of a "fun" parent than my husband; and by the time my step-son was a teen, my husband was vying to be the more fun parent me, such that I was basically the only one in my step-son's life saying he shouldn't be blowing off school work, or shoplifting, or smoking pot. I assumed he'd just hate me by now. But at 19, he's stopped visiting his mom, stopped speaking to his dad, but he comes home to see his little brother and me. Have you read What Maisie Knew by Henry James, or seen the movie? It's an exaggerated story, but even 120 years ago, people understood that kids want to be taken care of more than they want to be impressed, and that they see through manipulation. I try to trust that this will hold true.

I agree with you, that speaking kindly to my son (and people in our community) about his dad will be important. Not only is it smart in a potentially high-conflict divorce, but I know kids feel that criticisms of a parent reflect on themselves. This will take some conscious effort for me. Even this year, I have made frustrated comments that I thought came out sounding very non-specific, yet my son picked up on the fact that I was thinking of his dad, and was offended.

My biggest concern right now is that when I tell my son I've decided to divorce his dad, he will be very upset. From infancy, he's always been very attached to our home and his family unit. He wasn't the type of baby you could get to sleep by driving in the car, because when he got tired he'd cry, "Where is my HOME??" (He was a precocious talker.) He was very sad about his older brothers moving out, for college. The dad of one of his best friends died a year before my husband went to prison, and one of the biggest, conscious comforts for my son has been that even though - like his friend - he is without his father, at least his dad is coming back. He will blame me for, and have a hard time with, his dad not coming back to our home. He will demand discussion, hoping to change my mind, but I won't be able to offer him any sensible explanation, if I want to avoid criticizing his dad. Your suggestion of discussing this in the presence of whatever counselor I find for him is probably a good one. So far he's been resistant to counseling, but I am continuing to look for a person he clicks with.

Thanks! And I hope all of you are coping well, with your own situations.

hhaw · March 10, 2019, 07:27:05 PM

g:

You seem pretty well versed in how divorce with a PD works.

About your son, and engaging in conversations about the adult conflict and divorce....

here's my 2 cents.

Your son isn't supposed to be involved in or solve the adult's problems. He's responsible for his grades, his social life, chores, and finding his passions.

THAT'S IT.

The adults will all be fine, and they will handle their own problems, bc that's what adults DO. They don't ever involve children in their problems, or ask them to get involved. I'd hammer that one home in the time stbx is in prison.

I'd find a Therapist to help you hammer that home, and make it part of your son's heart... something he knows, without having to think. Something that gives ds permission to ignore his father's manipulations, if ds is up against them... likely, IME.

Tell DS that all the adults will be OK, even if you guys aren't under the same roof anymore, which has become the norm, btw. Everyone will be OK.

You've already felt your son's defensive responses to perceived criticisms against his father. You have to figure out how to shift into more positive ways to frame things, IME.

I hope you find a good T for your son soon. That the stbx won't do and say stupid things to your son during visitation, whatever form that takes, is a very good thing you might not be able to count on once you've filed that divorce.

I'd certainly try to get it over with before stbx gets out of prison.

Poison Ivy · March 10, 2019, 07:45:49 PM

Great post, hhaw!

hhaw · March 10, 2019, 10:44:13 PM

Thanks, Poison Ivy:

I'd also start thinking about the visitation schedule I want in place when the PD gets out of prison.

I'd craft it, and hone it, All communications with the PD would have some form of support, on my part, for supporting the PD to be the best darned dad he can be.

Of course, he's a convicted felon, unable to parent at all right now, and that's not going to work in his favor in the divorce, so make sure you're asking for something that makes supreme sense, and is documented 5 ways to the moon, on son's behalf.

A good T, advocating for your son, and on the same page you're on, will help mom's mental health. I found the forensic Ts charge more when they're documenting for court.... about $350.00 an hour, instead of $130.00 where I'm at.