End of My Rope
So I posted some thoughts on BM and there was alot of great feedback and opinions that got into moral behaviors, religious protocols, judging..light stuff (lol). I take the time to read carefully because people on the site take the time to write and share and basically what I came away with is the fact that I am really at the end of my rope being in the presence of BM. It has been 13 years and all 3 of DHs kids are now married. I was hoping it would be getting better and there would be less contact. Again, underestimating the situation of SM as I have always done. In many ways things have changed both for better and worse. Placing blame is neither accurate nor helpful as to why DH and I lost alot of closeness to the Skids. But I am clear on one thing--I want little or no contact with BM moving forward. I can see from the prior post and the responses I got that it is not good for my karma or emotional health--too much prior baggage and incidents that have made me very skiddish. I will stick to my promise to DH that I will go with him to big events for the Skids but I am done with casual BBqs, etc. That being the case, it continues to be difficult.
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Comments
Why do you feel the need to
Why do you feel the need to be in contact with her at all?? The skids have two parents, neither of which is you.
Step out and set your boundary.
It gets really easy once you do that
I agreed to participate in
I agreed to participate in big events where she is present. For example, DH's son's wedding, rehearsal, the grandson's pre-k graduation, etc. I agreed in honor of my DH who would do anything for me. Other than those events, I have set the boundaries. Of course, I look like the bad guy but so be it. Problem is these things are even too difficult for me but if I totally bail on the big events I am worried it would really end my marriage.
I had a post-it note on my
I had a post-it note on my computer monitor that I work at during the day. It said "Take Back Control".
I realized I was giving too much brain space over to worrying about things I could not control, and letting her occupy too much of my thought space, leading to a lot of negative thoughts and a lot of stress.
Bad at managing her money - I can't control that.
Gives in to each demand of child no matter what in order to placate him - I can't control that.
Doesn't have her life organized/job/reasonably affordable living space - I can't control that.
What I CAN control is how things run in my household. My DH and I are a team on that front. We decided together to remove her presence from our digital lives, which also helped. And our contact with her now is just when it has to do with SS.
It has made a big difference. For us, also we are newly married (just under 2 years) so I suspect there was some bit of adjustment period (now, while we are certainly not BFFs, we do have a good working co-parenting relationship. She supports me and vice-versa, as a strong parent figure in SS's life).
I also looked into myself to see why I felt so badly towards her, and realized that since DH and I are struggling to have children, a lot of it was jealousy. Again - I can't control when we will have children, so I had to work personally to overcome the jealousy. By working on myself to let go and leave negative thoughts it has made for a much stronger relationship with my SS, and also a more peaceful one with BM.
I 100% agree with everyone who said that boundaries are important. Everyone says in your life it is important to have boundaries, so I'm not sure why general consensus seems to be that SMs don't deserve them too...but I think what you're doing is very fair. Do what is healthy for you - get her out of your head space, and limit the interaction with her to what is comfortable for you and will foster healthy relationships for you. Leave the rest behind.
Good luck to you!
xo