Tag Hostile Negotiations

Beware of Lightning While Reading This

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Seriously, we’re going to talk about the one thing we feel so incredibly guilty and ashamed of that we might whisper it to our spouse or best friend, but we’ll very quickly follow it up with a Karmic Save Statement such as but of course I don’t mean it…. Then we’ll spend an inordinate amount of time mulling over such a terrible thought that we totally shame ourselves for ever having it.  What kind of person are we?!?!  Do unto others as we would do to ourselves.  Wait – Did I just condemn myself to a similar fate???!!!  SHIT!

The Ex asked if we could watch the 12-year-old for a few days while she went to the hospital.  Never mind the fact that it was technically our visitation week anyways that they’ve refused to comply with… and the fact that the only time we get to see the 12-year-old is when it’s convenient for the Ex such as having friends in town or, in this particular case, needs to seek overnight medical care.

Admission – We felt NOTHING upon receiving this information.  Then felt guilty over the fact that it crossed both our minds in that very moment about how much easier life would be IF…. Cue ominous music – Dun Dunn Duuuuunnnnnn!  I can’t even write it.

So we discussed this “void” of any emotional response with the simple question – “What does someone have to do to illicit absolutely NO compassion whatsoever from another?”  And believe me, we are totally compassionate people.  My husband tears up during Lifetime movies and I’ve had to ban the new Babies show on Netflix as it totally freaked me out watching the baby hippopotamus almost get swept away by the river and the baby seal get nipped at by a hyena.  This is for kids?!

So anyways… our list started out a bit like this…

  • She’s alienating and programming her daughter to hate her father… and her daughter has NO idea why she hates dad – she just DOES;
  • She regularly makes threats to call “her friends in blue” and “sue for full custody” (she’s an attorney who works for Metro – Abuse of badge much?!);
  • She’s playing best friend and lets her daughter do whatever she wants – Even if that includes enabling her daughter to make bad choices that could result in irreparable harm;
  • She enables her daughter to either avoid altogether or walk out on dad during his visitation time;
  • She lies to her daughter – Convincing her that dad doesn’t do anything nice or buy her anything, when reality proves quite differently;
  • She’s convinced her daughter that she has social anxiety and level 1 autism as an excuse for why her daughter doesn’t have to go to school and as to why mom doesn’t have to be a parent and enforce going to school;
  • She’s lied to every therapist her daughter has seen, making sessions more about her than her daughter’s needs.  And when each therapist starts to see through mother’s lies, she fires them and forbids her daughter from seeing them… And we’re left trying to get his daughter therapy all over again;
  • She aggressively engages in smear campaigns to get everyone on “her side” – In one instance, to the point where a friend’s mother actually asked if his daughter was “safe” at our house;
  • She agrees to one thing in front of the therapist/teacher/counselor/judge/etc. to placate and look like she’s the only one trying to resolve issues… Then does whatever she wants and blames the resulting fallout on dad;
  • She one-up’s our experiences, then tells her daughter that our experience never happened… So our trip to Knoxberry Farm was reduced to an hour stop-over while driving through town while her trip to Disneyland with mom was an all-week “fast past” trip of perfection.

And this is just the tip of the bitch iceberg…

“Well…” I interrupt our list, desperate to change the subject and enjoy the rest of our rare lunch together.  “At least this proves that her claim that she can’t make her come for visitation is total BS.”

Why yes, yes it does…

And while we had a rare moment (and I do mean moment) with his daughter, within 10 minutes of dad setting the expectation that she would be going to school the next day, mother miraculously healed and was released from the hospital.

Whew!  No lightning… For now…

Stone Cold B!&@#

FSH 1 Comment

Let’s just start by saying that I’m very hesitant to use the “B” word with regard to an almost-teen.  But when she’s mirroring her mother, there really isn’t any other word that even comes close to describe her behavior.

The therapy session with dad started with full-blown tears as the 12-year old listed off all the reasons why she hates dad and wants to live with her mother full-time.  It’s not worth describing every point made for even the 12-year old struggled to come up with actual reasons why.  I’ll summarize:

“You never listen…” = “I’m angry that I’m not getting my way.”  This mostly pertains to having to go to school and limiting WiFi at night.  Dad’s not listening is actually dad being a responsible parent by making sure his daughter gets an education and the sleep she needs.

“You’re stubborn…” = “I’m still not getting exactly what I want and no matter how many times I make my argument, you stubbornly say no.”  In addition to going to school, this includes dad’s insistence upon adding something healthy to her otherwise all-sugar diet.  No, we don’t consider Nutella a healthy food group nor do we allow her to take the Costco sized tub of peanut M&Ms to her bedroom.  The last time she did that, the entire tub was eaten in less than 36 hours.

“You never buy me anything…” – “I feel entitled to buy everything I want and resent any restrictions whatsoever.”  Despite the fact that the brand new gaming computer box is still sitting upstairs at our house, everything that makes its way to mom’s house, the 12-year old has been led to believe mom bought for her.  This goes for clothes, room decorations, dad’s personal skateboard, and a bike from grandma.  It is truly beyond my understanding how mom can convince her daughter that she is the only one buying things.

“All my friends hate being here…” – “My friends and I would rather be at moms where there are no rules.”  Never mind the fact that we’re driving everyone to the ski slopes and paying for private snowboarding classes…

Weak reasoning aside, the therapy session took a dire turn the moment the 12-year old reduced dad to tears.  Although she had used her own tears for added affect throughout the session, the moment dad finally cracked, the 12-year felt she had finally won.  She turned stone cold – ZERO emotion – Earning nothing short of the “B” designation.  Even with the therapist’s guidance that she would regret this decision to alienate her father, the 12-year simply replied that she didn’t care and that it was her regret to have.

Whew…  Seriously, where do you go from here???

Her reactive sense of calm, coupled with her total lack of empathy, in response to her father’s distress, is what disturbs me the most.  In a way, this 12-year old is acting out the exact same behaviors that her mother used to.  Since mom no longer has the ability to unload as usual, she’s using her own daughter as an outlet… Finding a warped sense of fulfillment every time her daughter hurts her father on mom’s behalf.

Sadly, some patterns live on through children long after divorce.  And while this 12-year old may not recognize it now, this time with dad that’s being stolen from her is precious.  My hope is that she recognizes the alienation game mom is playing out of spite and that she has an abundance of opportunities to love and be loved unconditionally by her father.

Life is too short to stubbornly accumulate regrets.

When Your Child’s Behavior Borderlines Abusive

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Yes – I brought up the idea that a child’s behavior could actually be considered abusive in my last post.  Whew!  I said it… and by the tone of things, I can see that while people may think it, no one actually openly admits and says it.

So let’s break this down a bit –

Kids triggering their parents overall?  Definitely!  Particularly teenagers.  Kids trigger us in ways only a parent could love them unconditionally through.  And even then, they’ll push it even further and further to find out exactly what the limits are.  It’s their job to push boundaries, make mistakes, and discover their own way.  Teen-hood has never been pretty, even with the most mild-mannered children.  Bumps and bruises are to be expected.

Children of Divorce?  Make that a double.  I think it’s safe to assume that triggers will be doubled as kids not only push their own regular boundaries, but emulate a parent’s ex-spouse who obviously knew exactly how to triggers us to our breaking point – Hence divorce.

In addition to the regular bumps and bruises, there will likely be broken bones and gloriously spectacular tantrums as they learn how to pit one parent against the other.  Let’s face it, children of divorce become master manipulators.  With no checks and balances between parents, they learn early how to “work the system” to get what they want.

So when does it actually become abusive?

I believe this happens when you have a parent who is abusive (there – I said it).  These are the ex’s that have no personal boundaries and use their child to specifically hurt their ex.  Manipulating and projecting their own issues onto their child which, I consider, abusive in and of itself.  Their basic goal is to alienate their children from their ex and make them hate their ex as much as they do.  Because it stems in abuse, children simply emulate it.  This is just how mom treats dad (or vice versa), so it’s ok in their minds.

I would be willing to bet that these kids aren’t even aware of the idea that they are emulating abusive behaviors because they, themselves, are part of the same abusive loop being used by the manipulating parent.

While I can’t stand this term, I find that it applies. Hurt people hurt others – aka – Abused kids abuse others…

What I dislike the most about that statement is that it removes personal choice.  We are not destined to hurt or abuse others just because we’ve been hurt of abused – It’s a choice we make.  But perhaps we need to be mature enough to recognize when we’ve been hurt or abused – how we tend to project those feelings outward – before we are able to make that choice.

At age 12, she’s not even aware of the anger and hate her mother lays on her shoulders… Least of all capable of making an active choice to act upon it or not.  Right now, loving dad feels like a betrayal to mom, so she spits out her mother’s words of hate and anger, not even realizing that they are not hers.

People tell me that she’ll get it when she’s older… Perhaps my bigger fear is that she won’t and lives a life similar to that of her mother’s, holding onto all that needless hurt and rage.

Which leaves me with this – the ONLY thing we can control is how we choose to live and treat each other.  We need to BE the loving, supportive, and thoughtful people that we want this 12-year old to grow up to be.  SHOW her what a household of respect and kindness feels like and trust that one day she will choose this better feeling place and release her anger.

In the meantime, we are constantly trying to release this “battle” that we’ve never been engaged in.  That’s her mother’s delusion.  And while it feels like mom is winning short-term, we’ve got our eye on the long-term prize – raising an amazing human being who will someday choose to be happy.

When You Know You’ve Lost the Battle

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Would a 12-year old lie about a friend’s suicide?

That is the hard reality we were faced with this past week.  Our heart’s ached as the 12-year old was “inconsolable…”   Which resulted in staying at mom’s house and not going to school.  It also resulted in our “do everything to make her feel better” weekend when we picked her up.  Friday night started with taking her to a concert with her friend (who stayed the entire weekend), a trapeze class Saturday, a “polar plunge” pool afternoon, and outdoor movie night.  Every effort was made to take her mind off this tragedy.

Then came Sunday night…

Rage is the best way to describe it and… unfortunately… it isn’t even hers so she’s unable to fully articulate why she’s so angry – she just IS.  It started out with her complaint that dad doesn’t buy her anything… that she didn’t want to go to trapeze class (even though she had been asking for it for months)… that dad forced her to stay at trapeze camp even though she was tired… etc. etc. etc. 

She hysterically packed three bags and walked out the door – To which we found her mother already parked in the parking lot of the park near our house (of course her mother lied when my partner called and said she was at home so it wouldn’t look like they were in cahoots).

All a mountain of lies…

The stalemate ended with the 12-year old sitting in her mother’s car listing off all the reasons why she hated living with him and wanted to live with mom.  My partner was reduced to tears and simply stated “I love you…”  To which the 12-year old swiftly responded “well I don’t like you” and turned away.

This literally broke my partner’s heart and I tear up just imagining how badly I would feel if I had ever reduced my own father to tears.  We rely on this 12-year old’s empathy to remind us that she is not her narcissistic mother.  Without empathy, we fear she’s lost.

Come dawn, my partner had an epiphany – At dad’s house, the 12-year old has to go to school or all electronics are taken from her… But at mom’s, she can do whatever she likes without any repercussions.  So when we got the call from the school notifying us that she wasn’t there, followed by his ex’s slew of texts complaining that her daughter was refusing to go to school and she couldn’t handle it anymore, we weren’t surprised in the slightest.

Which, I hate to say, then had us questioning the validity of this online friend’s death… The extent she might go to just to skip school…

There’s an ongoing battle, even though my partner and I avoid conflict at all costs and refuse to participate.  The mother thought she won the moment her daughter proclaimed that she hated dad and reduced him to tears – Well done narcissist mom, you got exactly what you wanted.

But in actuality, the warped winner here is the 12-year old who missed yet another week of school with no consequences whatsoever.

If Sunday night’s tantrum is indicative of what this 12-year old is willing to do to get what she wants, I worry for both my partner’s heart and this young girl’s soul.  Closely tied to my Win at All Costs post – How do you create a loving and uplifting household with a child who is literally unable (or unwilling) to care about anyone else?

My partner will never give up on his daughter – The amazing father that he is and always will be.

Only now, I feel the need to help protect my partner from these abusive outbursts.  And I know I might strike a chord using the “abusive” word, but this is the same narcissistic abuse inflicted by her mother which led to the demise of a marriage.

Which leaves me with this – How do we break this cycle?

Resiliance

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When my partner’s 12-year old asked us what “useful information” learned in Jr High and High School has helped us over the course of our lives, our initial response was “nothing…”  Aside from occasionally helping her with her math homework, I can’t think of a single point in my adult life wherein calculus has proven useful.

She’s making an argument (yes, this is pretty much the daily routine) for switching to an online school program.  Argument being that she’ll be able to go at an accelerated pace and graduate early.  All good right?!  Of course, I’m pretty sure it has more to do with simply not wanting to go to school or do homework – an acceptable excuse to stay home and game all day.  Damn COVID has made these kids believe that going to school and doing homework is optional – that they can’t fail or be held back.

Which made me reevaluate her question.  The classes may have come and gone without impacting my life.  But the social skills – core life skills – I learned during those uncomfortable, socially awkward formative years were absolutely instrumental in becoming the person I am today.

Most import of these life skills – Resilience.

I learned how to pick myself back up after falling flat on my face.  I learned how to handle the mean girls (who later become mean co-workers) and how to let things roll off my back by not taking everything personally.  I learned how to push myself past my limitations – to push through my anxiety and fear of public speaking to get a project done or stand in front of a classroom for a presentation.  Basically, I learned how to push myself to become more than I was at age 12.

What’s going to happen to these kids who have never failed and have “anxiety passes” to leave class anytime they feel stressed or uncomfortable?  What happens if this 12-year old checks out of her life physically and emotionally to live virtually?

So I’d like to rephrase my answer.  What did I learn?  Everything essential to growing up to become an independent, successful, and happy adult.

Giving in to this 12-year old’s desire to excuse herself from the growing pains of teen-hood feels like the biggest mistake we could make.  She’s just beginning her self-discovery journey.  Sure, it’s a bumpy ride, but I would rather she learn that she’s stronger than she thinks and can handle this marvelous game called LIFE.

If I could give her just three pieces of advice right now (and if she could actually hear it):

1.  Failure(s – many) is the precursor to success – We will never succeed if we’re too afraid to try… Or too weak to pick ourselves up when we fall flat on our face.  Fail gloriously and often and you will enjoy sweet success.

2.  Pushing past our comfort zones is how we expand and grow – We cannot create and become if we’re restricted by self-imposed limitations.  Drop all the labels and reinvent yourself any way you like… any time you like.

3.  Live your life – Watching other people’s air-brushed, glossy “faux” lives online isn’t living.  Our “now” is precious – step away from the electronics and enjoy a fully present, sensational life.

Of course, I’m looking back on these teenage-angst years from a safe distance… You couldn’t pay me enough to repeat them.

Lost in Translation

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This post is dedicated to translating some of my step-teen’s go-to verbiage…. Of course, it includes my somewhat sarcastic interpretations.

“You aren’t listening to me” – You’re not giving me what I want right now.

“You NEVER listen to me” – Var. You’re still not caving in and giving me what I want.

“You’re always working and have no time for me” – See Ex-Wife’s complaints

“I need (fill in the blank)…” – Let’s face it, there is nothing this kid needs.  She already has 19 pairs of this particular “need” and they’re probably either at her mother’s house or dirty on her floor.

“No thank you” – I don’t care for this particular option you’re offering so I’ll take a pass and eat candy later rather than dinner now.  (Wow – I’ll dedicate an entire post to this one)

“I just want a snack” – I want candy right now, not something healthy.

“I’ll do it later” – I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of doing it.

“You made me late (or insert excuse)” – I need to place blame on someone other than take responsibility – and you seem to fall for it.

“But you said I could” – This is a crap-shoot people.  They’re hoping we’re so old that we forgot that we said no to something.  Even if it was a maybe – take a hard line on this one because it’s slippery slope.

“Why?” – If this is following a hard “no” – DON’T ENGAGE.  They’re looking for excuses – something they can argue.  Stand solid behind that no… And no, we don’t need an excuse.

“But you do it (insert snippy remark)” – That’s right, because we’re adults and have earned that right – You have not.’’

“But all my friends… (insert what everyone has that she thinks she’s lacking)” – See “Budget” and “If your friend jumped off a cliff…”

“You’re so mean (insert any variation thereof)” – CONGRATULATIONS – You’re an awesome parent!

Feel free to add your own definitions – Would love to see them. Cheers!