Various frustrations/still learning

[Penny Lane]

Hello! I haven't posted an update in awhile, BM is being kind of sucky lately, and I thought I'd come here for some venting/commiseration/advice.

So we had several months that were blissfully BM-free. She just totally checked out. It was great. Then DH decided to start talking to her about money (during the time she checked out, she also checked out of paying any bills at all for the kids or reimbursing DH for anything).

So I guess she went back and looked at all the expenses and realized how not involved she has been. And somehow that's DH's fault! She sent him an angry message about not "letting her" be involved in anything or taking all her opportunities to like, buy things for the kids.

So he took all the low to medium priority tasks we had on our plate this week. And he sent her separate messages asking her if she wanted to handle them or if she wanted him to. She sent him a bunch of sarcastic messages about how busy she is but SHE GUESSES she can handle them. (She got in some digs about his job, our relationship, etc as well). Again - she complained about how he didn't give her opportunities to be involved, then she was rude when he gave her those opportunities.

1. Getting DSS school supplies: She did it, but she wouldn't let DSS bring his backpack to our house before the first day of school. So he went to school without a backpack.
2. Signing DSD up for an extracurricular: Suggested that DH pay more than half for the supplies. DH declined and asked if she's still going to move forward. No reponse, deadline is approaching.
3. Flu shots: No movement. My guess is they will not get flu shots until DH takes them. He's going to give her another month, it's not urgent until flu season ramps up.
4. Working with DSS on a major school project: He hasn't started. We're going to encourage him to start at our house.

The things that impact the kids, they got so stressed about that it sort of put us off ever asking her to do anything ever again. They know she's unreliable. And I feel bad that they couldn't rely on us to do it like they normally do. DH really wanted her to have the opportunity to be involved, and then hopefully stop asking to be involved in things that she clearly doesn't want to do.

This was all like three weeks ago. Again, this was just one week's worth of stuff. This doesn't even include the high priority things, like scheduling doctor's visits. Since then DH  has had that many things come up, at least, and he's already done them all without complaint and without even involving her. But she can't even manage to do four things in one month (and really in one year).

Then she sent him another message about how he's not coparenting, because he messaged her about a thing, she sent a rude response, he sent clarifying questions, she didn't respond, and then DH moved ahead with what they had discussed. It's a total lose-lose situation. She wants him to include her. But when he does include her meaningfully, she refuses to engage. And then she says "you made a decision without me." So either he can send her a bunch of messages begging for a response, or he can let the kids miss out on whatever it is, or he can move forward and get a nasty email when she decides to tune in like 6 months later.

A serious concern: She has been leaving the kids home alone late into the night while she goes to bars or on dates or to parties or whatever. Setting aside that we're still in a pandemic, the kids are not old enough to supervise themselves late at night. Then we found out that she hosted a sleepover for BOTH KIDS' friends at once, and LEFT. So teenage boys and preteen girls, all in a house with no supervision. So now we're in the position of, should we alert the other parents? Should DH say something to BM? So far we've landed on, we should talk to the kids really seriously about the dangers of having friends over unsupervised, and strongly urge them that if they don't think their mom will be there the whole time, to go to the friend's house instead. I don't know how this will go over, but I think they're just young enough that they might still listen to us. Do we have any other options?

Oh and she has started using DSS's counseling sessions as a way to complain about DH. Apparently she's not getting much traction with the counselor. And the counselor has private sessions with DSS before the parents get on the phone. So hopefully the counselor sees through it. But I worry that BM isn't getting the positive feedback she craves and she's going to try to pull him out of counseling.

And finally, it seems that all her bad behavior comes down to money. DH is ready to make a push on this topic again. We really could use the thousands of dollars she's not paying to him. But, would I pay thousands of dollars in order to get her to stop being terrible to DH and the kids? I sure would. DH really struggles with this, given that he feels like she stole so much money from him, took more money in the divorce and then continues to take his money by not paying for anything for the kids or reimbursing DH for anything. If he can't let it go, I wish she could just pay him via child support (He waived child support to avoid court, and she ASSURED him that this wouldn't be a problem in the future. He knew it was a lie but really didn't want to go to court.) so that it's not an argument every. single. month. And he gets mad all over again when he learns about her buying concert tickets or new furniture or a $500 purse or whatever.

Even all this being said, things are as good as they've ever been. The kids are so great, DH and I are happy, we're really living our best lives. BM is ... not, she's cycling through boyfriends again and we think she might have gotten fired. I know I would rather be us than be her! Thanks for letting me vent here, it helps to get things off my chest even though this all feels so minor compared to what we've dealt with in the past.

[Stillirise]

I can completely relate to the root of the problems being about money—and control.  In some ways, I feel fortunate that I do have primary custody.  I already know that the day-to-day things like managing schooling, scheduling, being the taxi, etc., will fall to me.  I get some child support, because at the time of our divorce, his income was 10x more than mine.  I don't even suggest he pay anything toward expenses, activities, etc., other than the computer I asked him to buy for his home.  It will be years before I'm back on the financial footing I want to be, but I'll get there eventually.  I try not to concern myself in the least when I see what he chooses to spend his money on.  I'll choose the investment in my children any day, over a fancy new truck, or whatever.

I put events like appointments, practices, etc. on a shared calendar. That way, he can't say he didn't know about an event.  He never offers to help with shuttling, but does occasionally show up to games.  He usually walks in late, and acts like a spotlight should shine directly on him, for gracing us with his presence.  He then acts like I make it hard for him to keep track of what the kids have going on—open the calendar, or just ask them!!

I, too, have concerns as the kids get older, about the degree of parental supervision.  DS and DD are pre-teens, and are 20 months apart.  The boys/girls thing seems like a giant minefield for the next 8-10 years!  I'm not sure what to do about that either, except do my best to teach them to know how to set, enforce, and respect boundaries.

So, all of that to say, yes, I understand how hard it is to raise kids without much help.  I also know I wouldn't trade all the difficulties for one minute back in our old life.  DS freely admits things are better now.  DD still wants to see her dad as the man she wishes he could be. It's hard to watch, especially when I know the disappointment will finally hit her.  However, as I've been reminded here before, our job is to to the best we can to be the parent(s) our kids need.  Either the PD Co parents will step up, or they won't. Either way, we've done all we can do. 

I have tried to frame this new co-parenting gig like I do retirement planning, or eating well, or exercising.  I can't really see the benefit of my choices today, and maybe not even on the horizon.  However, I have faith that if I stay the course, someday I will see the payoff from my investment.  It's the only way I can stay sane some days.

[Latchkey]

Hi Penny,

These really aren't all minor things you are talking/venting about. It all adds up even if it feels minor. I don't have a ton of relevant advice to offer regarding the unsupervised time. How do the kids feel about it? Maybe get the kids alone to ask them rather than both together and see if anything else is going on before you take any action or make decisions.

I can totally relate to just wanting to keep things quiet and just keep paying rather than bringing it up. Still, keep tabs and keep track and keep it all documented. It helps to keep your sanity when you don't have to do all the lopsided parenting care math in your head.

I have tried to frame this new co-parenting gig like I do retirement planning, or eating well, or exercising.  I can't really see the benefit of my choices today, and maybe not even on the horizon.  However, I have faith that if I stay the course, someday I will see the payoff from my investment.  It's the only way I can stay sane some days.

[pushit]

Penny - I can relate so much to your post, I'm in the same situation of not really dealing with big things but it's a million small things.  (Though I think your issue of unsupervised teens is a bigger issue)  I don't post on here or talk to my therapist about it, because it's one thing after another and it changes every week.  Arguing over who buys school supplies, arguing over who pays for the cell phone, her trying to schedule doctor appointments during my time and me needing to tell her no ten different ways, etc.  One comical one recently is I've been tracking expenses in a spreadsheet for us, she sent me an email with a bunch of undocumented expenses from several years ago that were unnecessary and completely her decision.  She claimed I owe her about $1,000 for items that I never knew about or have seen.  I told her no and so far she hasn't come back about it.  But that's the pattern - lie, deflect, start a different argument, etc.  It's like swatting a fly that keeps buzzing your head.   

I agree with the above sentiments that it's really about money and control, those are the cornerstones all my exPDw's arguments come back to.  The only way I've found to minimize the drama is to expel her from my life as much as possible.  If the kids need something I just buy it, if I need to coordinate an activity or appointment I leave her out of it and go to the source for information.  Any type of argument she tries to start with me, I send her a BIFF response and slam the door on it.  No engaging in battles, just please go away.  But I know you don't need my advice, just throwing it out there for anyone else who might benefit.

I know I would rather be us than be her!

I feel the same way.  My exPDw lost her job and was unemployed for most of 2021, it hurt her big financially.  My gut feeling is she won't keep her current job either, based on recent behavior.  She's been in a spiral this year but her family keeps propping her up.  I've put hard boundaries in place, now I sit and watch her flounder while her family scrambles to keep everything afloat and acts like everything is normal.  It doesn't bring me joy because it affects the kids when they're with her, but I also can't do anything about the parenting situation right now.  My life is good.  The kids and I get along great, stable job, I'm putting money into savings every month, starting to date again, while her situation is still the same three ring circus.

[Penny Lane]

Very good insight and excellent commiseration from you all, thank you very much.

Several things I want to respond to here but first an interesting update. DH has stopped engaging but BM is continuing to escalate. Most recently it was a long rant about every single flaw she sees in DH, dating back to the divorce (literally - her complaints about his behavior during the divorce). It was a LOT of projection, like it basically read as if it were a list of everything that she's done to him during the divorce and some things she was doing in that exact thread (gaslighting, deflecting, refusing to have a real discussion about the issue at hand). And in the middle of it she accused him of thinking he was a better parent than her. I kind of think what she was really telling him was that SHE thinks he's a better parent than her. Which like ... is pretty objectively true. It's astounding the degree to which she is not involved. And then of course leaving them at home. But it's interesting to think that maybe deep down she knows that she is the problem, and that DH is doing pretty much everything right. And that instead of being grateful that she has a coparent who can pick up the slack for her, she reacts with anger.

I totally agree it's about control, and I would even say that maybe money is just a way to measure the amount of control she has. Or the amount she's "winning" over other people. I have realized over the years that she is so bad with money and that's never going to change. She does not have the capacity to, say, save money for a health insurance premium later this month when she wants to get a tattoo RIGHT NOW. It's almost like her lack of control over her life turns into her lack of control over her own spending. Of course like any adult she could work on learning good spending habits, etc. But I don't see that ever happening, and the situation as it is is that the kids are going to have one parent who is never ever going to budget for their needs even in small ways.

Stillirise it's interesting you bring up the calendar because calendars are a huge headache for us. They had a google calendar, she deleted it. DH made a calendar. She refused to look at it. Then she picked the kids up from school on the wrong day because her calendar was wrong, and DH couldn't check it. You wouldn't believe the amount of back and forth they had over the calendar. Now they keep a calendar in Our Family Wizard, where you can see when is the last time the other person looked at something. She NEVER checks the calendar and then she tells the kids that DH didn't tell her something, when not only did he send her a message about it but it's also in the calendar. Literally available at her fingertips at any moment. We actually had an incident where (among other things) she was telling the kids that she had no idea when DH had signed them up for lessons. And when they were all together DSS asked her if she would come to the next lesson. She turned to DH and said "will you put the lessons in the calendar?" and DH said "they've been in the calendar for six months." It was kind of heartbreaking to see DSS realize that the problem was NOT that she had no way to find out when his lessons were, the problem was that she was choosing to not come anyway.

I like to think of dealing with BM as a household chore. Someone has to do the dishes. Someone has to vacuum. Someone has to do laundry. Similarly, someone has to expend some amount of energy dealing with BM's nonsense, even if it's just deciding not to respond. Mostly DH has to do it. But sometimes I can take some of that load off him. You can automate some of it (set up boundaries and decide what kinds of things you're going to engage with, etc - the roomba of dealing with a PD I guess) but at the end of the day it's designed to be emotionally draining and it's hard to be unaffected. It's part of our jobs to do that for the kids just like driving them to school, signing them up for sports and all the other thing we do with them. And sometimes it takes more work (setting boundaries just like organizing a kitchen) on the front end in order to make less work in the long term.

Latchkey, I think the kids are uncomfortable with the sleepover situation, however, we didn't hear it directly from them. They're in kind of a tense space around her right now so I don't think they'd acknowledge that they don't like it. I'm certain they would not want us to say something to her - and the reality is that saying something to her probably wouldn't stop the behavior, it would just lead to her putting more pressure on the kids to hide it. I hope they're somewhat uncomfortable because then they'll be receptive to us giving them the tools to shut it down.

pushit, our BM LITERALLY did that exact thing with an expense spreadsheet. "I don't owe you money, you owe me money!" She put stuff like, her rent. It was that ridiculous. That's part of the reason they ended up at Our Family Wizard - her lawyer said it would "help them organize expenses." Ummm the problem wasn't disorganization it was that she was trying to scam him. But whatever. Now she doesn't use the OFW expense tracker either, so that is unsurprisingly a mess as well.

You're right about shutting her out as much as possible. It was probably a strategic mistake to ask her to do all that stuff. Maybe I as a stepmom sometimes feel a little guilty that I'm doing things the mom "should" have a chance to do. And maybe sometimes I need a reminder that she will not, does not and can not do these basic things. It's not about fairness to her, it's about fairness to the kids and making sure they get what they need. In this case too her initial messages were sort of productive, and we felt like we should encourage that productivity. But of course the productivity never really lasts. You'd think we'd have learned by now. The one thing we did do right (and this was a hard earned lesson) was that the less productive she's gotten, the less DH engages. To the point where he's waiting a week or several to send a BIFF reply, or if there are no action items, he's stopped replying altogether. We'll see how long she can sustain the nastiness when it's one-sided.

[oak_tree]

Thanks for sharing, PL.

It's so interesting (sad, but interesting) to see the patterns everywhere. Not letting your DSS have his backpack...wow. My SO's uNPD stbxw does similar things. Thankfully, the kids are old enough to see the absurdity on one hand, though they still see nMom as the victim somehow too. I don't have any advice besides the advice you've given me, and that's essentially to be the parents the kids need. They are on their own journey and will see a strong relationship modeled with you and your DH.

But, would I pay thousands of dollars in order to get her to stop being terrible to DH and the kids? I sure would.

It's funny how we allow ourselves these fantasies   As if any amount of money would actually make it stop. There would always be another fight, always another grievance. I find my self saying "if only she would get some self-confidence, get a job, feel valued, feel good, deep down, about herself, things would be so much better." But the truth is, she won't do those things. 

Even all this being said, things are as good as they've ever been. The kids are so great, DH and I are happy, we're really living our best lives. BM is ... not, she's cycling through boyfriends again and we think she might have gotten fired. I know I would rather be us than be her!

I'm so, so glad to hear you say that.
Best wishes!
OT

[Penny Lane]

DH made that point, even if we let the money go she's still going to be terrible.

It's funny you say the thing about self confidence, job etc. I've seen BM cycle through boyfriends, through jobs, through friends. She keeps talking about moving. But wherever she goes, there she is. I feel like she left DH because she had everything she wanted and she still wasn't happy. Nothing she does makes her happy. It's sad for her, although it's hard to be too sad for her when she's trying to bring everyone else down to her level.

[Penny Lane]

Well BM is full on spiraling. It's gotten real bad the last week or so. She is constantly messing things up, changing things, dropping the ball, etc in ways that DH has to mitigate. And she's been sending him increasingly aggressive and unhinged communications that in many cases don't even make sense. Everyone is on edge, us and especially the kids.

I remembered last night that she's always especially bad around the holidays, although this is pretty early for it to start. And she's REALLY bad right now. It's been years since she was doing this badly.

So I'm very stressed right now. I woke up with a sore back and a sore jaw, I guess from all the tensing up I did yesterday. That hasn't happened in years and I've worked so hard to not let her affect me like that.

I think the older the kids get, the more I learn about PDs (and I've recently made some friends who had parents who are a lot like BM, so they're kind of filling in my gaps in understanding) the more I realize how hard it truly is for the kids. I mean I know it's hard, I know that we don't want them to have to experience it, but I'm realizing that it's so much worse than just the stuff we see.

Arghhh!

[oak_tree]

Really sorry to hear that it's so bad, PL.

Watching and imagining the future impact on the kids is the hardest thing (a close second being seeing the result of SO enduring the abuse for 15+years). Are you in a situation where the kids can come to you and your DH at any time if it gets too bad for them? I suppose they feel responsible for their mother, though, and that breaking the schedule may be a "betrayal". That's certainly how my SO's uNPD xW would frame it.

Take care of yourself. When you do that, you can be there and at your best for DH and the kids. I know, easier said than done. 

[Penny Lane]

I don't know how bad it would have to get for the kids to call us to come get them. I do know that in the past DSS has implied or maybe said outright to her that he wanted to be with us more, and she started a manipulation campaign and we didn't hear more of it.

I guess the good, ish, news is that BM's last mess up was so great that it sort of jerked her back into paying attention to the kids. But on the other hand that's the bad news too because she's paying attention to the kids, and not necessarily in a good way.

She's also been hyperfocused on me. She's clearly interrogating the kids about my role in their life in particular. She's trying to interrogate my husband about me and what I say to the kids.

I was thinking about that wheel of post-separation domestic violence that sevenyears posted recently. And the one entry about sending an overwhelming amount of aggressive communication - that hits SO close to home for me. (Of course, that's exactly what she accuses DH of doing).

In other news, things have gotten so crazy that we still haven't talked to the kids about what to do if they're left home alone at their mom's house. Gotta do that soon because who knows when she'll start leaving them alone for the entire weekend or something.

[Boat Babe]

Such a tough one, knowing the kids are being exposed to this and there's nothing you can do when they are with BM. However, when the kids are with you, they are loved for who they are, healthy relationships are modelled, communication is kind and honest, integrity and authenticity are the bedrock of your marriage and they are safe. All this will go a long way towards mitigating any damage that BM may inflict. All the research on Adverse Childhood Experiences show that there are a number of factors that increase resilience in a child's life and everything you are doing contributes to that. There are a number of other factors too and you may be interested in looking these up. (They're all good things that are also fun 😊)

As pressure mounts from BM, do increase your self care to match. Hugs.

[Penny Lane]

Belated thanks Boat Babe, and especially about the self care reminder. It's so easy to get focused on the kids' needs but we can't fill from an empty cup, as they say.

I have some ... confounding updates.

First, BM paid DH back the thousands of dollars. Didn't say anything, just transferred the money. We're confused both about how she managed to save up so much at once, and about why she suddenly cares about this debt that she has never cared about before. I was a little concerned that she would file something in court (although, what? trying to get DH to stop picking up prescriptions?) and she was preparing by making sure her own house was in order. But that doesn't seem to have happened. Best guess is that her parents gave her the money. Maaaaaybe they told her "we don't want to fund another court case, you have to follow the order"??? That seems very unlike them. So as much as I'm glad to have that money, I'm a little worried about whatever pressured her into doing it and whether there will be other repercussions for us.

Second, BM has been letting DH see the kids during her parenting time. She is very rude about it and it's not ideal (basically she demands at the last minute that he take them for an unspecified period of time). But this is a vast improvement from leaving them home alone while she goes to parties. I like to think that DH's strategy of not asking about this, not demanding ROFR, basically just not saying anything, led her to a place where she believes it's her idea and she's putting him out. I don't know how long it'll last but we're certainly enjoying the extra time with the kids, even when it's just for a few hours. And I want to think that it's helpful for the kids to have that dose of stability in the middle of the chaos of her parenting time.

As for the things that DH asked her to do (in the first post):
1. It turns out that she got DSS a bunch of subpar school supplies or things that straight up don't work, so we had to send him to school with a bunch of stuff from our house. BM lied to DH about what she had bought DSS, like, proactively told him "I got X" when that wasn't true.
2. Did not get signed up for the extracurricular. There's another season coming up so maybe DH can get DSD into that. BM says she's "working on" coming up with her half of the very modest cost of supplies.
3. Never took the kids to get flu shots. DH eventually took them. BM complained and said she had been planning to take them.
4. DSS did the school project at our house. BM had told him that she was going to help him so he waited and waited and at the last minute had to scramble to get it all done.

Relatedly, it seems that BM has a new seriousish boyfriend, although the kids haven't directly said, I imagine they've met him. Maybe his presence has something to do with all this. It's hard to not connect the dots that he showed up on the scene and all of a sudden BM is dropping the kids off with DH whereas she previously refused. (I have no idea what, if any, affect he had on the finances piece).

And finally, I kind of got into it with DSS and I feel so, so guilty. For context, in the past he and I used to have these long conversations about things like "why doesn't dad let mom come to the house" and sharing his feelings about how much he hates the tension between them. BM found out and put an end to those talks, but did agree to get DSS into a counselor, so hopefully he's sharing those feelings there.

Anyway so right at the height of the tensions I described earlier, like when BM was sending DH daily interrogations about himself, me, what the kids do here, etc., DSS wanted BM to bring over gaming console. WE HAVE THE SAME GAMING CONSOLE! Hers just has different games on it at her house. I said no, I'm not comfortable with that. He kept asking and asking why and I finally told him, look, the last time your mom came to the house to pick something up she refused to return it, and it seems that her dropping stuff off or picking it up just causes more problems than it's worth.

Well he got so upset, he said I was being "crude," he tried to get me to agree that BM "hadn't caused any problems at the pickup itself," and I said he was cherry picking details and that "you're right, she didn't cause problems until she caused a problem." He was very upset at me and I wasn't really 100% on my game until it was too late, and I had already said too much. And then he started crying about how his friends with divorced parents are allowed to bring their gaming consoles back and forth and how unfair it is that he has to deal with all this. He specifically said that it's my fault and not DH's because I was the one saying no (which was true, DH was trying to find a way to make it work and I was not comfortable with it in any scenario). I got nervous because I've been feeling like BM is going to go after my relationship with the kids by manipulating them, and it felt like this was proof.

I tried to salvage it at the end by saying, look, I try to walk the line of telling you what you want to hear without telling you things you don't want to hear. And we work hard to keep this tension from you. Obviously I failed this time. But if you don't want to hear this, I need you to trust me that I'm working in your best interest in the long term. Short term, you want your console, but long term it's better for you if there's less tension between your parents.

He didn't say much, he just went to bed.

So a combination of, BM is trying to do her thing + I was already tense about it so I handled it badly.

We decided to buy him one game on the console. He made the argument that it wasn't fair to have to buy games twice, and that actually seems reasonable to me. He and I have an outing planned for next month so hopefully that will shore up our relationship some, despite what BM does. Hopefully we were able to salvage it. But it's by far the biggest misstep I've had re BM in a long time, and I'm really kicking myself for basically falling into her trap.

[hhaw]

You're a great stepmom, PL.

You're also human.  Don't beat yourself up.  You're showing ss how to handle conflict through this.  He knows who you are.  Keep being your level, authentic self and it'll smooth out, imo.

[Penny Lane]

Thank hhaw. It's so easy to be calm when she's going after DH's relationship with the kids. I am totally confident that his relationship is stronger than her manipulations. I think I need to feel the same about my own relationship with the kids. They've told me that they see me as a parent on par with bio parents, and I just need to trust that the relationship we've built is sturdier than whatever BM throws at it.