SO says I am causing him stress regarding SD??
Over the long weekend I went on a trip with my bio-kids and my mom to a family reunion where we stayed with my grandma. The dynamics of 4 generations of women, plus extreme heat with no air conditioning, caused all kind of tension. I am the person in the family who "fixes" the conflicts, smoothes hurt feelings, and just kind of keeps the peace between everyone. When I got back home, I vented at length to SO about how much stress I had been under trying to keep everyone happy. He replied in a sympathetic tone, "I know, that's what I go through every Saturday."
What????????????????????
His clueless ass thinks that he keeps the peace between me and his daughter and my kids? I was floored. Frankly it really hurt me and insulted me that he thinks his daughter needs any kind of protecting from me and my kids. It also hurt me and made me angry that he thinks he does anything to improve my family's relationship with his daughter, when all he really does is enable her behavior. I make so much of the effort and my kids and I put up with so much from her. It hurt and angered me further that he doesn't recognize this effort.
Out of all the difficult conversations we've had about SD, that one statement hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't know what, if anything, I should say or do. He thinks I'm beating a dead horse when I try to talk to him about her, but this hurt me too much to just let it go. Or maybe I have a problem with not letting things go...
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As a bio-parent in a step
As a bio-parent in a step situation, I can understand him making that statement. I made a similar one this weekend.
For me, it would help the situation if DH would just butt out and let me parent my own kids.
Maybe your BF feels the same?
I LOVE the analogy with the
I LOVE the analogy with the dog whisperer. Stepaside has hit the nail on the head. Brought both my own kids up along his lines (yes, honest), and they have turned out to be well adjusted adults.
edited to say I typed all of
edited to say I typed all of this before most of the above posts, so it won't make as much sense now as it refers to the first reply:
Thanks for the thought, but I don't think that's the case in our situation. I truly don't parent her or correct her unless something dangerous (like hurting a pet) or really unacceptable is going on. Trouble is, he doesn't parent her either. Here is a copy and paste from my last blog entry regarding how he fails to address her lying, whining, complaining, and other bad behavior and how he responded when we finally talked about it:
quote
“I know, but she’s just like her mother, I can’t help that”
“I can’t do anything about it when I only see her 2 days a week”
“Any progress I do make will be undone as soon as she goes back home”
“Who knows what goes on down the road [BM’s house], I want to make up for it when she’s with me”
“I did put her in time out” (yes, one time out of about 50 times that she deserved it)
“Well, I know you hate her”
“Fine, I’ll just quit getting her” (designed to make me say “oh no, you can’t do that”)
These are such textbook responses that I’m sure it sounds like I’m making it up. I swear he said all of these things in one single conversation. I’ve heard various forms of these statements from him over the last year and a half, but seriously he pulled them all out in a span of maybe 10 minutes, probably less.
end quote
I posted this after my blog entry was several pages back and I actually considered giving it it's own blog entry because I don't think anyone saw it and I thought it was pretty profound that one Guilty Dad pulled out every stop in the course of a couple minutes.
Anyway, I had disengaged at one point, but that hurt his feelings, so for the last several months I have re-engaged as far as activities with SD. I'm not trying to buy her affection, but I pick up little treats or gifts for her here and there (like I do my own kids). I offer her meals and snacks. I sit down and play games with her. I listen to her talk and try to sincerely answer her (as opposed to the patented Mom's half-assed paying attention method of inserting "oh's" and "really's" at appropriate intervals). I also bite my tongue when she says something crappy or misbehaves. Occasionally I will privately ask SO to do something about some misbehavior or other.
So he's doing all these "typical" dysfunctional things and I'm really trying...and that's why I was bothered so much that he said that.
Now edited to say:
Holy Crap, StepAside...you have totally given me a light bulb moment. You are so perfectly, spot-on correct! I see it now. I'm so glad I brought the issue here first so that I can talk sensibly about with him and not just sound like I'm bitching.