DH asked me the other day when I "gave up" on SD. I think maybe his viewpoint of "gave up" is when I disengaged, not sure. But I find this question an odd thing to say to a stepparent, because it kind of implies that I had the same responsibility toward her that he does in the first place. I started out including her in things with ODS to be inclusive and kind and try to forge a relationship. I was not invested in her as a parent in the first place.

Ok, not really. BM agreed to an every other weekend schedule until school is (as of now) back in session next month. And we offered to send some food with on what would be our weeks to keep the resentment from BM down. It seemed like BM was dying to get SD back to us. Too bad. I'm not homeschooling her while BM sits at home all day, and DH is considered an essential worker so he can't. The last month with no SD has been sooo nice. A real silver lining to all of the other stuff going on. It definitely confirms to me that disengaging for survival and my mental health was the only option.

Anyone else here have BMs or skids (or anyone else in their lives) with narcissistic traits that use animals as one of their "I'm such a wonderful person" covers. Like, they just loooove animals so much, but at the same time they dont want to actually have to take care of the animal or would just kick it to the curb once it inconveniences them.

So if anyone read my blog a couple weeks ago, DH and I have the older 2 kids do simple 10 minute chores after school. For SD that ends up being about 4 days a month. She 2 weeks ago wrote a note in her planner (so her teacher could see) asking me not to make her do chores because it "stresses her out."