I'm sorry it keeps escalating please don't hate me

[firepoetry]

My ex is trans, and we have a daughter in common. He came out as trans on my other daughter's birthday. As indicated in my other posts, I've been getting better with boundaries, so, now he's using dd as supply and triangulating.

My general belief re: trans people, is that its not really my business. Adults are able to do whatever they want, so long as it doesn't violate laws or other people's consent. I'm very much against other people putting labels on me, such as "cis". I believe language is power, and by using prefixes it takes away my personal power over the telling of my story of myself. In terms of my ex, he, of course, tries to make everything about him, and now being trans, has changed his name a few times, and his pronouns. I haven't really done so, because I'm trying to have boundaries around my life, and in some ways it affects my own identity if I start thinking of him as a woman, and its an identity I don't wish to have. And, with the dv, and the violence, and all of the other things, I believe he is the kind of person who gives all the actual transgender people a bad name. No, I don't think he's actually transgender, and frankly, he is just as boundary breaking / forceful / scary / masculine as he's always been.   

My daughter, in the past, has attempted to play police with pronouns with my ex. I had told her at the time that I had a certain relationship with him, and a long history with him, which makes it so that I am unwilling to change my pronoun use.

I thought that was settled. But, then she came home last night, and she advanced from policing to military invasion in my mind.

She basically yelled at me, and wouldn't speak to me, because I referred to her father as "him" and she later ranted at me because she thought I was selfish, mean, didn't consider anyone else's feelings, etc.

(I think he likely explained to her how I'm a narcissist, which he gets kicks on doing, calling everyone a narcissist. I have worked on my own personal boundaries of late, so, I believe he is likely focusing on our child for supply, and this is the result.)

She bought into his argument, that everyone needs to affirm his identity, and there was no logical argument I could use to defend myself. I asked if he wanted to be her mom, and she said yes. I probably over-reacted and said I'm not going to have the same role as your other parent, so, I can't be mom anymore. She also said, I don't respect him, I need to basically support him (I tried to argue that he never supported me during our actual relationship, didn't matter, also didn't matter he was violent and we ended up in a dv shelter, and that I don't owe it to him to support / take care of him, didn't matter either).

She later said, he said he could be either mom or dad. But, there is no or, it is and, and so, I said, I have to figure out what that means in terms of our relationship because your other parent is both parents, which basically means I'm not your parent anymore.

She didn't care. She's done with me so long as I don't cave, and only accepts me if I accept all his language and names, and I get to be my own police and remove my story, my identity and replace it with what he wants me to, and then I erase myself. So, I've decided to erase myself, because it is the only way I keep my daughter.

I believe this is his way of escalating the fact that I have been so good at having boundaries. Now, I have no idea what to do, because it is coming from my daughter now. Do I just play pretend and violate my own sense of self and cave my boundaries and use all his pronouns and names? Do I invent a new role for myself? Did I ruin everything?

[notrightinthehead]

This person seems to be very invasive and seems to occupy your mind most of the time. Is that the same person who did the meditation stint?

If that was my daughter I would throw my arms in the air and let them sort it out. To me it would appear that it's just not my problem and I want to have nothing to do with it. If daughter wants to be involved in that self centred self absorbed person's life - I would let her be and experience the consequences. I would allow her to learn her lesson. And be there for her solid, practical, reliable, safe, when she comes back to reality.

I am a strong supporter of the philosophy that people should be allowed to experience the consequences of their behaviour themselves.

Have you read up on JADEin the Toolbox?

[Rebel13]

notrightinthehead's suggestions sound good to me! This is such a difficult topic. A lot of people's emotions run high around it, for all kinds of reasons. Depending on her age, is it possible you can medium chill with your daughter around it? Can you use the other parent's name? "Oh, Sam said that? That's interesting." "How about that." "What do you think?" Try as hard as you can not to get sucked in and defensive, and change the subject as soon as you can. You can also say calmly, "I don't really want to talk about that any more. How was school today?" It's perfectly fine to have your daughter's relationship with her other parent NOT be a frequent topic of conversation in your house. Especially if you sense the other parent is using a particular topic to get supply from/bond with/wind up your daughter, and to criticize you in the process. You don't have to play.

[Associate of Daniel]

I haven't been keeping up - how old is your daughter?  I ask, as her age would determine the complexity of your conversations with her regarding this topic. (Or any topic, for that matter.)

My thinking is that it would set a good example to her if you quietly stuck to your own convictions and continue to refer to her father by the male pronouns.  It would illustrate to her that people have differing opinions and convictions, and that they have a right to live according to them.  It's a lesson that applies to all sorts of things in life. (Obviously there is a caveat regarding harm.)

I can't help thinking that if your daughter starts to refer to her father and you as both being her mother, she would soon grow tired of having to explain the confusion that that is more than likely going to bring.  It's confusing (and I imagine frustrating) enough for a child to continually have to clarify which mother is their biological mother, as opposed to their step mother. (Or father/stepfather)

I also wonder if there are people who would distance themselves from your daughter if she refers to her father as her mother.  She may lose a number of friends and even family for doing so.

I must say I've not thought of this scenario in all of the gender confusion.  I can feel your pain in your words.  To a point I can identify with your situation.  My Ds's uNPD smother so often essentially tried to pass herself off as his biological mother.  I lost count of the number of times I had to step in to explain to medicos and other people that I was his mother.

I'm sorry you're going through this.  I don't know that there's much more that you can do, other than be consistent and be a soft landing for her when your daughter needs you.

AOD

[Stepping lightly]

Hi Firepoetry!

I'm so sorry you are in this situation, it really is difficult.  One of the things we learned dealing with an NPD BM, the more chaos a subject brings up, the more the NPD will dig into it and keep it going.  I am definitely not suggesting you give in to ypur boundaries, but maybe there is a way to just not engage on the topic.  Your ex is going g to do what your ex is going to do, you have no control over that.  All you can control is how much life you breath into the topic.  When your daughter addresses the topic, say something like "I appreciate your feedback, thank you for sharing your thoughts with me, i wil take them into consideration" and move on.  Easier said than done, but the trick is to stop caring what the ex does, claims to be, calls himself.  NOTHING takes away your role, own it. 

From my experience, if the PD can't get at you with something, they move on to something new (not always better,but at least different). 

[Associate of Daniel]

Well said, Stepping Lightly. And so true.
How are you going, Fire Poetry?

AOD