Why do so many who bring failed family baggage get it so wrong?
Forums:
Unless a person is so failed as an adult and so failed as a parent kids are not your equity life partner and you are not theirs.
Yes, being a parent, I believe anyway, is the only permanent decision anyone can make. Once we choose to have a kid, that kid is ours, and we are their mom/dad for all eternity. Not just while we and they are still breathing.
However, that does not make them our life partner, or us theirs. Except for instances of abject failure in life as an adult and as a parent.
100% correct. Kids (when
100% correct. Kids (when young) are our responsibiltiy not THE priority (...I think I may have read this from CLove's recent post.) And it's true. And then these coddled kids that are treated like equity life partners grow up and guess what? They don't get better. I have crazy stories of one adult SKID making decisions on things they had NO business making a decision on - house stuff. He wasn't even living there any longer! Then as things moved along he felt he had "ownership" in the house and expressed that in an indirect way. Kid never did anything - not choirs, cleaning etc. Needless to say since DH & I paid the mortgage when it came time to sell I was pretty quick to indicate he had NO SAY in the sale nor would we be taking the funds and delivering it to him. Although not verbally expressed there was a definite sense that he was entitled and felt he could have that. ummmmm NO.
Minor children are a parent's
Minor children are a parent's primary responsibility.. to morally.. legally.. financially raise them. A minor child is technically dependent on their parents to provide means for their survival. Coupled with that is the obligation of a parent to not only throw money at their kids but actually raise them to be good and productive members of society to the best of their ability.
A life equity partner is someone that a person chooses to have as a romantic and life partner to share and enrich each other's lives. (it may also have goals such as having kids etc..). The goal of each partner should be to improve and make their parther's life better.. they should enrich the life of the other person.. if both people have that singular goal.. the relationship has a better chance of succeeding.
Priorities.. well.. those are things that tend to fall on sliding scales. .I would say that your spouse needs to be a priority.. and they have to have more power over how your home operates than the children.. kids are in their place.. and they do not run the household.. but their needs are considered in the sliding scale of priorities the family must address. wants.. vs needs.. criticality.. urgency. all things that feed into whether something is a priority or not.
BUT.... in the home.. the joint heads of household should have the ultimate power.. and should be working towards the same outcomes. Children will do better when there is a strong and consistent head or joint head of the household.
Where we see things going off rails in steplife is that often the two partners do NOT have common goals. There are competing needs and wants.. and one partner may want one thing.. the other a very opposite one. There may be two or more kinds of kids (his, hers theirs).. and navigating equitable treatment in the home is tough.
Also.. you have people that are in roles they are not suited to.. or given roles without the power to enforce
a lot of people here are stepmoms because dads seem to have less custody.. so are often not able to effectively parent.. and they don't want to enforce rules and be the bad guy for 3 days every other week. or they don't have a clue what to do with kids.. or have been so traumatized by the divorce system that they are afraid that any backbone is a big risk.
I don't know.. I know we all have only one life to live.. (theoretically).. but a lot of people on here are in relationships that either they shouldn't have gotten into.. or ones that their spouses shouldn't have.. because they were not really ready to be full life equity partners or met people that were not capable of it.
Several years ago when DD24
Several years ago when DD24 was around 15 or 16, DH and I became quite disappointed in how she was turning out. We raised her with chores and expectations, something the SKs didn't have, so we thought she'd turn out differently. I was very unhappy in my marriage too. During one of DH's and my venting sessions about DD, I told him that I was not only unhappy with her, but very disappointed in how the other two turned out, and in our marriage. I wasn't happy.
DH and I couldn't understand why DD was turning out the way she was because we had chores and expectations that she had to meet. She was raised with manners and taught certain ways to behave. We thought we raised her to be nice, responsible and competent at life skills. We both had an epiphany at the same moment that it wasn't the chores, expectations, etc. It was that we were in a childcentric marriage. We decided to change things and start a marriage-centric marriage and relegate the kids back to the position of children, whether adult children or teen. To hell with their rebellion.
When dealing with this we wanted to do a deep dive into how we got into a childcentric marriage. Well, society. How often do we hear how the children come first? All the damn time. Only I think that gets misconstrued. We then end up with parents going ham on proving what good parents they are. It results in the parents sacrificng their own needs as adults and spouses. They give the kids way too much power.
Then there's the parents' own baggage. DH's dad abandonded the family when MIL caught him cheating and divorced him. DH was impacted the most by the abandonment and was never the same according to MIL. DH got divorced from his cheating ex and went insane with the SKs to prove he wasn't his dad. Then, I had my own baggage. I accepted crumbs and a subservient spot to my SKs because of society's constant, "SMs are all evil," "SMs are always jealous of their poor innocent beautiful SDs." and then there was my raising with my very abusive parents where I was used to being devalued and treated differently from other girls around me.
To make a long story short, I say it's both societal beliefs that we hear over and over again, and our own baggage.
It is societal, it is baggage
It is societal, it is baggage. Mostly, I think it is choice. The wrong choice, but choice none the less.
One of our lifesavers in
One of our lifesavers in therapy early in our marriage was when the therapist said, "The marriage comes FIRST" and "Kids need an example of what a healthy marriage is" and "Kids come second." Then he gave us all kinds of great ideas about setting boundaries with the toxic BM, all of which she tantrummed over. lol.
DH and I were told that in
DH and I were told that in marital therapy too. In a session our therapist targeted DH and told him that not only does the marriage come first and that we need to model a healthy marriage for the kids, the kids will hopefully grow up, launch and start their own families and if DH wants me to still be there, he better remember which one of us (SD or me) he's married to. That was the pivotal moment for us.
When someone says "My kid
When someone says "My kid will always come first!" I would be hard pressed not to immediately end the relationship and give the message "do not let the door hit you in the ass on your way out, and make sure it does not hit your spawn in the head."
Of course I am kidding, mostly.
I remember exactly where I first heard someone say this. It was a late middle aged coworker at the job I worked while I was in engineering school. She and some others were bantering while soldering electronic components to circuit boards. "If my husband ever thinks he is more important than my kids I will kick him out."
She was talking about her husband who was also the father of her children. These were not minor kids, these were adult kids, some with kids of their own.
I joined the conversation. Even 30+ years ago this did not sit well with me. Since I had no kids, I was dismissed.
No skin off of my nose.
when I met my DH, I told him
when I met my DH, I told him I knew his kids came first.. and he said.. no...that's not how it works.
I think people conflate responsibility with priority all the time.
So true.
Stealing Conflate. Great word.
I am far from suprised that your DH got it prior to day 1. Smart men .... embrace smart women. And vise versa.
The equity partner thing is
The equity partner thing is one of the most harmful things. In our case, BM apparently has always had issues with identity, which turned into issues with enmeshment as well as fanaticism (religious and otherwise). Even though she cheated on DH and dumped him (then taunted him with the other man, even having the guy call DH), she still seemed to feel enmeshed and clearly believed she would have control of DH throughout life because they had children together (golden uterus syndrome). Worse, the skids: She treated SS like a mini-husband and SD as the young woman BM never was but wanted to be, living through her. What horrible pressure on those skids (she told them they would be "one-percenters," more like one-percenters at the bottom of the septic tank). DH never jumped in to save them--I guess he knew he'd just get s*** on him (sorry). I think he was caught up himself in the golden uterus syndrome at one time, and I know he also feared the fanatical lunatic. Still . . .
I believe BM created eating disorders in both kids; I had witnessed her at meal times and I heard the restrictive eating rules she had for them (the same that she had for herself). Then there was the hidden food, the candy obsession, the daily McDonalds runs, obsessive exercise, the gaining and losing, gaining and losing, and self loathing. It continues today.
She had SS co-sign a mortgage loan with her when he was 19 (of course, DH did not hear about this until the s*** hit the fan). The house (a second home) went into foreclosure within 2 years. SS, by the time he was 22, had filed for bankruptcy. Thanks, Mom! BM and SD are one and the same. It's creepy. They are in the process now of basically creating a compound out in the middle of nowhere where they can live together forever (with SD's poor backwards husband and multiple littles they are popping out). I have warned DH (he is fully aware and it's his view, too) that there is no way in hell we are bailing out SD when their homesteading Walton Family fantasy fails. SD, a full-azz adult, cannot be anywhere without her mommy without obsessively mentioning her, as if it is some cult rule, as if the sky will fall or she will be struck by lightning if she fails to talk about mommy, mommy, mommy.
This might be an extreme version (maybe not), but it is "our" version. These kids were wrecked by the time they were 16.
People fail as people
Because there something wrong with them. ...:they don't see it or understand it...:it's not there fault". 'Never there fault"...."it's a matter of thing just going wrong "...''life us picking on them'... So they don't change, or do thing differently. They make the same mistake time after time . Getting the same result..failing after failing . Then there SO has enough and leaves that life