Pinning down what makes it all so hard

[rockandhardplace]

So much about this is hard. I'm reading a lot about trauma responses and I think I'm falling into an almost collapse state often. It's impacting on my physical health now too, so I really want to break it down to see what is it that's so hard and what changes can I make so I can survive. After multiple last straws in the past year or so I literally cannot stand being in the same room as him. This makes it hard when we have children and still live together - though I do at least have my own bedroom.
Since he made my middle child, only son, GC (this after years of bullying him) my ds is changing. He's a teen now so I don't know how much that is part of it and I understand wanting to keep his dad's attention when he was ignored or bullied for so long, but I'm feeling so disconnected to him. We used to be so close. I've been so terrified of parental alienation if/when I leave that I haven't really been seeing just how awful living like this is for all of us. When I say that it's been all I think about, but yesterday something just hit me about the years wasted just holding the line waiting for right time to leave.
I have financial reasons to fear leaving, but mostly it's been the risk of PA so in trying to protect them from that we all live this barely alive existence. This realisation led me into really dark places of severe guilt and depression and hopelessness. So I again resolved to at least find little ways of reconnecting with my son and finding some light in our days.
But what I'm realising now is that it's not just that his dad is here 24/7 and he follows him around like a puppy it's not being able to even have conversations with ds now. I was a stay home mom until a few years ago and uPDh would come in from work around 7 after we'd all had dinner together. Since covid he's here every day and every night he monopolises the dinner conversation or this has been the site of some of the worst verbal abuse the kids have witnessed. With my other 2 there are other opportunities to talk and connect away from the dinner table so I kind of gave up trying to talk to them about things then so less opportunity to get yelled at in front of them. But I'm struggling to find ways to chat to my son. He's started engaging in some of the same rude behaviours that his older sister did, having learnt it from their dad, i.e. mocking me or rolling their eyes, using same language to put me down that their dad did. But this is what I've realised and what makes it all so hard. If their dad is around he will join them in their disrespectful behaviours. Trying to explain to your kids why disrespectful behavior is not okay does not work when their dad is encouraging them. I feel like I've made some inroads with my eldest by having discussions away from the home - usually in the car. They don't always go well and I have to be careful, more careful than other teen mums, not to sound critical. But with my ds I haven't got the same alone time these days.
A little thing came up yesterday where ds said something mean to my youngest. She was upset and I tried to talk to him about having empathy, asking him how he thought she felt. Luckily their dad was out as his latest projection is to accuse me of not having empathy for him. I think he overheard me talk to the kids about the importance of empathy so knows it's important to me so tries to accuse me of acting like him. I have these insane emails where I'm trying to work around his family commitment to get home to see my very sick mum and him showing not the slightest bit of empathy for me or her, but accusing me of lacking empathy for him. So if he'd been home he would no doubt have butted into the conversation and done his indignant huff and make some nasty comment about me not being one to talk about empathy.
I know there are advantages in how predictable their behaviour is but when that behaviour is so irrational and nasty it's so friggin hard to know how to give any kind of guidance to my kids. It's so hard  to not have a partner to talk to about teen issues but that's nothing compared to having the counter-parent undermine any of my efforts and having the knowledge now that talking to him has never ever worked it all feels impossible.
Does it even matter if they become alienated from me if I can't parent them anyways while living like this??

[notrightinthehead]

Rockandhardplace, I am so sorry! You seem paralyzed by anxiety and your head seems to be spinning.  How many times have you read here to put your mask on first? You need to take a step back from all this turmoil and confusion and chisel out a safe space for your own mind. Be it mindfulness meditation or therapy or long walks, it does not matter. For yourself only!
Your kids seem to act out. And talking seems to have no effect, quite the opposite- it gives others the opportunity to ridicule you and roll their eyes.  So, this might be the perfect time to role model boundaries and healthy behaviour.  When someone treats you in a disrespectful way,  what can you do?  How to protect yourself? Show them! Role model for your kids what self respect and taking good care of oneself looks like. And practice it at the same time.

[rockandhardplace]

Thanks Notright, I am trying to put my own mask on first but honestly one of the major impacts of a "relationship" with the uPDh for close to 20 years is isolation and not really even knowing who I am anymore. I am working on that, it's literally become my number one priority to find what it means to me to live a good life. Actually now that I think of it that's probably where the big crash came from. Things that make me happy, what I feel makes life worthwhile and meaningful is relationships, people, honest communications, respectful debates/discussions. This is the opposite of what my kids have grown up with. About 5 years ago I gave up doing the dance with uPDh where he'd say something horrible, yell or whatever and I'd retreat for a day or 2 and then going back to normal superficial talking. I was unwell and needed to focus on that. I don't know what I expected. That he'd be the one to bridge the silence, but he said nothing, did nothing and we fell into not talking at all except in short sentences about kids or house. This went on for months until I said we should try counselling and he said no. That's when his more subtle control tactics turned into more overt abuse. More raging, more verbal abuse. But a lot of it went online via emails or texts. He started saying the most horrible things to me. I asked many times why he doesn't leave if he hates me so much. He would find a way of deflecting from this by attacking me about something and I would JADE. I didn't see this at the time, didn't know about PD's, I just felt trapped and frightened by him. Because he was gone during the week from 7-7 we managed like this with me doing all kid and house stuff and then I'd be busy with toddler when he got home. One day I moved into the spare room and he said nothing. This situation is so beyond dysfunctional but I was a stay home mom and my family all live on the other side of the world. I have a few really amazing friends but my social life is zilch and I haven't worked in 15 years. When covid hit he started working from home and has never gone back to the office. But at the same time I went back to college to retrain so I've been so busy I've just tried to keep pushing through so I could finish and get a job and leave. But along the way I learnt about parental alienation and recognised that much of my issues with my eldest were probably caused by him elevating her above me in the family hierarchy and encouraging her to be disrespectful.  And now she's a lot better and I don't know if it's because he dropped her as favourite and started criticising her for bullying her brother - very confusing for her cus they used to do that together. Or probably a combination of that and me learning not to overreact with her rudeness but being firm about what's not appropriate etc. But we haven't got a great relationship. She just seems to tolerate me. But I also feel like I'm so scared of losing her I can't be myself and that's going to drive her away too.

Urgh sorry rambling again. You say to role model what to do if someone is being disrespectful to me. How can I role model something I have no idea how to do myself? The only thing I can do when their dad starts to yell, mock me, belittle me etc is to walk away. Which often results in him following me into rooms. The only self respecting thing to do in this situation is to properly separate but I'm not in a position to do that yet. With my son I am firm with him when he's being disrespectful but I also feel like it's not his fault. He's learning this behaviour from his dad. He is triggering me by copying his mannerisms and words. Like recently he did this shoulder lift and huff thing at me when I asked if everything was okay when he'd been a bit short with me. He had the same mannerism and language "stop making a bit deal out of this". I'd barely said 2 words. This happens a lot. I get accused of taking the youngest side all the time (I know their dad told them I favour her) and telling me I'm doing something I'm not - like telling me I'm yelling if I'm speak more than in a whisper (this is exactly what their dad does). They have no role models around them, they don't know that normal people chat about their lives so when I try and talk about anything they just get irritated but then if I back off it's like I'm reinforcing the idea that we don't need to talk about things? I think my son is really conflict avoidant - which is me too. There used to be lots of heated discussions with his older sister and he's seen how quickly his dad goes from 0 to yelling abuse so I suspect he feels like any disagreement is bad. When I had time alone with him/ with kids over dinner without their dad, I used to try and talk about how it's good to have differences of opinions and that conflict isn't bad, as long as we stay respectful. But now his reactions to me having any different ideas to him resembles his dad's so I don't know if he's really just avoiding conflict or becoming controlling.

I guess I just feel so guilty that this is their lives and all the schemas that they lay down at these young ages about the world and relationships etc what hope do they have to ever have healthy relationships? I know guilt doesn't help change anything, but it's hard not to feel hopeless.