Here comes the ...... BUT
Why is is that so many of the stories in our community and other Step related communities start something along the lines of...."I really love my (Fill in the blank), he/she is my soul mate, amazing, etc......... BUT.... their children are toxic/illbehaved/whiney/etc... and I can't stand the little dears/damned kids."
Why can't people who claim to be adults see that the issue is not the toxic spawn but the spawning morons who create, raise, facilitate, enable, instigate, and tollerate this crap from their irritating crotch nuggets?
How can so many who are engaging in some level of blended family relationship not see that it is their "soul mate" that is at least equitably responsible for the crap that churns in the blended family adventure?
Yes, the toxic spawn are a huge PITA but the kids are not the root cause of the issues we struggle with as Sparents. Our own partners are often at the least equally the root cause of the increadible crap.
Why is it that Sparents not only tolerate it but often we justify it and make excuses for our own partners who are THE problem? Not only do we often seem to not recognize that our own partners are THE problem we often even help our partners perpetuate the crap rather than jerking a knot in our own tails and the tails of our partners to confront and destroy the crap. All because we "love" our partners. Often we are our own worst enemy.
Just a question. Nothing new in Rags world just some thoughts from reading recent posts.
Regards,
Rags
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Comments
Because it's easier to
Because it's easier to triangulate and make it about some third party than face the issues you have with your spouse. I think this also goes for at least some of my BM issues too...
They don't want to see/admit
They don't want to see/admit the truth; that the "amazing" person they are in love with (or think they are in love with), is not really so amazing.
Yes it's at play in all sorts
Yes it's at play in all sorts of relationships. I incorrectly used the term triangulation above, but I think the correct term is displacement.
I'm not sure if it's self preservation or an inability to deal with the issues you really have with other person. Maybe they are one and the same, if there's extreme fear of losing the relationship.
I agree. I blame my DH as
I agree. I blame my DH as well...but that doesn't change the fact that I dislike his kids at times or feel resentment at times. I don't think it's a dichotomy / either-or situation. I think I can blame DH for the situation AND not care for the kids. Also, I don't blame him 50% because he doesn't have them 50%, especially the oldest who was kept from him and his influence in many ways. He would like to have them 100%...but, sadly, he gets EOWE and long weeks at Christmas, Spring Break, and summertime. He does a great job parenting them, for the most part. But they have too much BM in them for my tastes.
Honestly, the concept that
Honestly, the concept that it's the parents' fault that the kids are screwed up and make us miserable is one that I've been trying to come to terms with for awhile now. It was like a revelation for me when I put it together.
DH tries to parent his kids. He tries SO hard. He corrects their attitudes and punishes them for the lying and sneaking. But when they're getting the opposite messaging from their mother, when she's actively encouraging them to behave badly, there's not much he can do. She's got them 65% of the time. How is he supposed to counteract all that ugly with 8 days a month?
DH and I deal with this as
DH and I deal with this as well. It IS much harder to shape kids in a stepfamily than an intact family.
With us, BM teaches the kids to be really irresponsible about money. We try to teach them to be responsible, but who are kids going to listen to - the parent who tells them no, or the parent who tells them they can have everything they want? I think natural consequences as well as age teaches them which parent to listen to. In our case, the kids are getting older and wising up to the fact that BM is unreliable and makes bad decisions. SD17 has already decided to avoid her older brother's bad choices with choosing a too expensive college and is actively looking for one she can afford. So there's hope!
In your situation, it will probably take the skids experiencing bad consequences in the real world for the things DH is telling them not to and BM encourages.
It's easy to counteract the
It's easy to counteract the ugly by making it crystal clear that he won't tolerate the crap in his home. :?
ExDF did just that with his youngest two. They we awful with their mom. BM and hated each other. She told the gilrs they didn't have to listen to and gave the green light to act the fool at our house. DF (AND I) didn't give a damn what went in BM's home or what she told them to do. They knew that neither one of us would put up any crap from them.
He had them every other weekend and a full month in the summer. The amount of time a NCP has with his/her children is not an excuse for bad behavior. Kids are not stupid, they know when adults are just talking and when they mean business
I think there are a lot of
I think there are a lot of things at play in this whole 'blame the skids instead of the Bios issue.'
In my case, my XH led me to believe that he shared my ideals on parenting. Since BM initially refused to allow any contact between myself and the skids, it was easy to pull the wool over my eyes. When I did finally meet them, they were on their very best behavior so, XH didn't have to really parent in front of me... I just didn't know. The masks fell off just a couple months in to the marriage. At that point, XH was bending over backwards trying to shore up his poorly parented kids and his relationship with me. It was so easy really, (I say looking back, lol.) The BM made so much trouble that putting the blame on her was the core reasoning (she did practice PAS constantly.) In that respect, I now know that I made excuses for XH's crappy parenting. My XH did a fantastic job of playing 'tell her this but, do that secretly.' I didn't involve myself to such an extent that I really even knew what he was doing. It wasn't until much later that I figured it out. By the time I began contemplating leaving, I blamed all of them.... BOTH Bios and the skids. The Bios, because well, they both sucked at parenting BIG TIME! If there were 2 people who should never have bred, it was those 2! The skids, because as adults, (they were adults when I left) I felt that they knew that their actions were causing massive issues in my marriage, and they seemed to openly enjoy that fact. I mean come on, at some point we are all cognizant of how our behaviors affects others right? :? (Well maybe only with proper parenting, LMAO!)
I do find it interesting that there seem to be more issues with SM's than SF's. Or is it just that men internalize it more???? LOL.
Maybe it's that women are just more detail oriented. :O
In my case, it was blatant
In my case, it was blatant that exh completely sucked. He, his kids and their dumb ass mother caused every bit of drama and BS that I had to deal with. In fact, I rarely referred to exh as "DH" because I realized he was the biggest issue I had, his kids next and their mother. But he allowed every stinking bit of what went down. I think I referred to him as "H" or "nimrod". When it all broke down, there were kid issues and also issues between us as a couple. Both were bad and both were 99% him and his spawn. I didn't always react right but he is really a malevolent person. Just evil. So his kids are just like him and their mother.
Gotta put the blame where it belongs!
Because it's all bullsh*it
Because it's all bullsh*it before the "But".
In my case, my SS truly IS
In my case, my SS truly IS the issue. My SO does everything to parent this little disaster. And I mean EVERYTHING. The parents aren't always to blame. Some children do grow up to defy any type of control and discipline. Most parents produce these spawns and have a clear image of the kind of child they want to raise, but it doesn't always end up like that. You literally cannot force a child to be what you want. Every child is different, no matter what kind of discipline they grow up with and in what kind of environment. You could give a child all the love in the world, a nice routine, set rules, follow through on discipline, and they can still end up being the most horrid thing to cross your path.
I'm old enough to have
I'm old enough to have watched many, many children grow into the people that they are going to be.
Good parenting is a wonderful asset in raising children - but it is not a cure all that guarantees productive, decent members of society. I've seen the children of hideous parents become lovely human beings. I've seen the children of wonderful people become worthless POSs.