How is your mom?
Looking for advice or if anyone can share about their experience on how to speak to the kids about their mom.
Let me start by saying SO and his ex do not co-parent well. There are some positive moments but they are typically laced with ulterior motives on BM’s part. She can be very high conflict when she doesn’t get her way. She constantly lies and plays the victim as well as basically ignoring my partner’s role in his children’s lives.
She and I for the most part ignore that each other exist. Out of all the times we’ve been in the same physical location she has only once spoken to me, which I initiated, and even then her response was in a way that was still dismissive, strained politeness. I’ve written before that I’ve been in the same location as her for half an hour once without her so much as saying hi to me which was pretty extreme when you add the fact that I was there to pick up the kids by myself. She went as far as texting my ex to tell him to message me something before she got to the pickup location.
Anyways we’ve had the kids for some extended time and she called the other day to talk to them. In the past she has lied about me interrupting the phone call and telling them to hang up so when she calls I try to excuse myself from the room if it’s not inconvenient. Thankfully it’s very rare.
So she talks to the kids for a while then when dinner was ready they said good bye and hang up. We are at the table and I don’t exactly know why but I asked the oldest “how is your mom doing?” The question was simply being polite and was not to interrogate. The girl decided to start talking about how their dog is doing which was great because we talked about the dog for a while and both kids were happy.
Anyways the bigger thing I noticed was that the oldest seemed to relax. Any time there is an overlap between mom’s home and ours the girl gets really tense. I’ve seen her paralyzed at the few exchanges where SO came into contact with BM and seeing how those go down I understand. They aren’t violent but BM is really snippy to say the least and my partner pretty much has to ignore and walk away but it’s not nice to see. Phone calls seem to leave a heavy air in the house that can take hours to lift and instead this did it almost momentarily.
Again my intent was not at all to pry but be polite. The girl could have ignored me or shared whatever she liked. I feel like this can be a good thing. I don’t want her to think her mom is the bad guy in our home, even if she may be to us adults, she’s still they’re mom. I don’t feel I’m wrong to ask how she is doing if that is all.
Anyone had any experience on this?
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We always inquire politely
We always inquire politely about BM.
My skids are adults SD(28) & SS(25). They love their mother, as they should, and they know we don’t get along.
When we ask, again politely and not digging for dirt, I think they feel it gives them permission to let go of the animosity surrounding the whole divorced parents, SM thing.
I know for some SMs this would open floodgates to hearing every little thing about how BM does things differently and how wonderful BM is. That’s not our case.
BM has always talked crap about both Me and DH. In the beginning she tried hard to PAS the skids but I think they were too old. Plus, DH is a genuinely good guy and the Only person who ever said anything bad about him was BM.
By not saying anything bad about her and offering only good wishes, we come out as the good guys while she’s always putting us down. It has had an impact over the years and I have a very good relationship with both my skids, despite BMs efforts.
That's kind of my hope
That's kind of my hope honestly.
I don’t know what it’s like at BM’s home concerning us but I do know that the 5 year old is already learning he needs to keep ‘secrets’ to keep his mom happy. This was not at all at our encouragement at all as we constantly tell the kids that they should never have to keep secrets from their parents and we won’t ask them to.
Apparently BM is not too friendly about my partner’s mom and her relationship to the children. The 5 year old calls his grandmother by name and has said that “mommy says X isn’t our grandmother.” The 5 year old basically understands that he needs to keep his relationship with grandma a secret. How the heck are we supposed to react to that?
Anyways I don’t want the children to feel like it’s that way with us. That they aren’t allowed to talk about their mom or more extreme I don’t want them to feel like they have to pick sides. I hope that taking the higher road pays out in the end.
The girl used my question as an opening to talk about something else at her house which I feel was pretty natural and good. I love that she’s happy about things and I want her to feel like she can share about her life with her mom. It’s not a competition.
Anytime I noticed SS getting
Anytime I noticed SS getting tense about BM whether it’s getting ready for practice knowing she might show up, her weekly phone calls when she doesn’t forget or for her weekend pickups, I usually say something like, “yeah, I like it when my mom calls me too”. It’s a good neutral statement that lets them put down their guard and they can take it from there. We don’t want to know everything they talk about, but we want to make sure SS doesn’t think there’s something wrong with talking to her or seeing her when he’s with us.
Exactly. I just don' want her
Exactly. I just don't want her to feel like she's upsettng us or like she has to pick sides. I don't want her to think she has to forget about her mom when she's with us or that loving her is betraying us in some way.
I really don't want her to feel like she has to lead two split lives. I want to know if she has fun with mom. If she got some special or went someplace fun. Not in a controlling, judgemental way but more I want her to be able to share the same way I want to know how her day at school went. It's just odd finding a way to ask without feeling like your prying or digging for information.
BM tried to make the skids
BM tried to make the skids feel guilty about liking me. She’s very much, if you’re not with me then you’re against me type of person. It worked at first and they were wary of getting closer to me.
I just kept at it. I was always nice and polite, I never said anything bad about BM (others were saying enough) and when there was an issue I addressed it. Again my skids were adult so it was much easier for me.
Now, the skids do keep things from BM. They don’t let on how close we are or any of the things we do together. None of us publish much on social media. It’s just easier for them.
For example, SD and I regularly get pedicures together. She would never share that with BM.
As I said, they love their mom and so instead of looking at it like living a split life, they look at it as protecting their mother from something that would hurt her.
I wonder if any conversation
I wonder if any conversation topic would have the same effect.
I've tried other things
I've tried other things before. Rarely BM will be at the school on pick up day and SO will take the kids to say hello and get a hug real quick. When they get back to the car you can feel how tense the child is. I'll ask my normal "how was school" which she typically answers happily but after seeing mom it gets met with this weird tense smile and silence.
I can tell she’s uncomfortable and this has been the first thing that’s seemed to work. It’s like it gave her permission to talk about her “other life”. She by choice keeps our home separate sometimes going above and beyond what I think a child her age should do.
For example for the most part if we buy something it stays at our home. In the start this was because the kids didn’t have anything at their dad’s and BM was screaming that everything we bought them had to be sent to her place with them. I bought them two outfits on sale since they didn’t even have a pair of socks at his place and she goes running to everyone she can about how SO refused to give her the children’s clothing.
Well now sometimes we’ll get the kids things like candy and they are allowed to take it to mom’s with them. The boy will do so. The girl does not. She leaves EVERYTHING with us. We’ve gotten her balloons for her birthday and she didn’t want to take them. Sometimes there’s a magazine or puzzle books we’ve gotten her that she’ll work on all weekend but decide not to take with her.
I’m sure it’s done out of worry that she will upset her mother. I just don’t want it that way at our home. It really feels like she isn't comfortable thinking about the other parent. If SO does call she's very short but it seems the same way when BM calls. The youngest has said a few things that lead me to believe that they aren't allowed to talk about their dad at mom's or atleast it's discouraged. I don't want her to feel that way about her mom when she's with us.
I think you have a good
I think you have a good handle on it. SD is probably under tremendous pressure. How it was created or where it came from doesn’t really matter. By letting her know it’s ok to talk about life at BMs it releases some of that pressure.
I fully believe there is too
I fully believe there is too much pressure on the child weather it’s self-created or from an outside source. I honestly don’t have any evidence to say that BM is actively doing anything in relation to my partner and me.
I do know for a fact she is saying negative things about the kids grandmother. She herself has directly told SO that he is not allowed to take the kids to see her or else and like I’ve said before the youngest is now telling us he is keeping it a secret from her that he likes his grandmother. This woman is their biological grandmother and there is no reason for her not to have a relationship with the children. It is solely a BM issue.
I also know that kids are incredible at picking things up. Even if BM is not directly saying anything I do not believe she is making any effort to keep her negative feelings to herself. I do believe she is at least unknowingly demanding their “loyalty” and making them take sides when they are with her.
I just want to proactivity prevent that from being the case in our home. We’ve flat out told the kids that they are allowed to tell us to stop if we ever say anything negative about their mother . I constantly tell them that their mother, father, and I love them. That their mother will always be their mother no matter what and I will never try to replace her.
I just home in the long run they see what we are doing. That us taking the higher road and making these efforts will pay off in the end. I just want my partner to be able to maintain his bond with his children. I don’t want them to have any reason to fault him.
How old are they?
How old are they?
BM talked trash about DH all the time. The thing is, DH is not an ass, he’s a genuinely good guy. BM was the Only one saying anything bad about him. Lots of people were saying bad things about BM and the skids heard it. They lived in a small town.
Because the skids were mid teens when they split, they were able to see that DH wasn’t any of the things BM said he was but they also wanted to protect BM. They didn’t want to believe she was any of the things they were hearing.
I think that’s what got them all upset and strained around me. They thought that I must believe the things people said about BM. At one point SS said “My Mom isn’t a bitch, you know.”
I said that I never thought she was. I’ve told both of them that I think she’s raised two polite, respectful, lovely kids so no matter what, she can’t be all bad.
Now, the reality is I think she’s an idiot, manipulating and very insecure but hopefully the skids never know I feel that way.
5 and 8. The little one is
5 and 8. The little one is the one who tells you anything and everything as if he's just waiting to do so. Any time there's a moment of silence he finds a way to fill it and by his sisters reactions she's glad he said something but at the same time scared for a moment.
When he first told me what his mom said about grandma she was hesitant but then "clarified". It was just me and them in the car and I didn't ask for any details and just said that (her name) is your father's mother and that makes her your grandmother. I asked if they felt safe around her and did they like visiting her. They said yes but "mom says she shouldn't be in our lives." How the hell do you respond to that without flat out saying "you'r mom is a selfish b*tch you would rather your father die then respect him as a coparent....... I think I said something to the effect of "I'm sorry your mother said those things". I honestly didn't know what to say.
The oldest is way older than she should be. At 6 she was fully caring for her bother to the point of trying to bathe him. Not helping care for him like "can you get your bother some socks" but completey dressing the boy. We put a stop to it at our home and allow her to just be a kid.
But she's also the one trying to figure out what's going on. She'll talk to me one on one sometimes and has asked about why they have to spend X days with us. The tone wasn't "I don't want to," but more why it had to be this way. It was right after BM threw a fit over summer visitation going as far as lying to the lawyers and basicly telling my partner he was horrible for demanding his time with the kids and clearly didn't actually care for them. I told the girl that both her parents love her so much and sometimes it's hard for them to decide things so they are getting help from a judge. That judge helps them decide certain things including when they should be with mom or dad. I said that the judge knows that they get to spend so much time with mom during school that together they decided that dad should get some extra time in the summer to spend time with them and do fun things.
Now that may not be true because like I said BM would love if SO died except then she wouldn't get CS but it was the best thing I could think up on the spot that didn't blame either parent. I'm sure as they get older I'll get asked about child support, why daddy left mommy (he didn't), and all sorts of other things.
Thankfully it also feels like we really have the schools support. I'v had the girl tell me that a teacher said I was like a mom to her and stuff like that. She was happy about it and it's come up more than once. I always tell her that I'm just one more adult who loves and supports her. That I will never take her mothers place and that's ok because having more people love you is a good thing.