Recently I wrote a response on one of my blog posts (called "my grandson" on the Adult Stepchildren forum) about Relational Aggression. On that blog someone suggested that I post my response to the main site because it may be helpful to many of you.

The original post is here:

http://www.steptalk.org/node/59708

If you are someone who has been isolated and "ganged-up on" by your husband's (or wife's) children or family or both, you might like to read it. Also, I am looking for people to interview about their experiences with relational aggression. I hope to write a book on the subject. If you are interested in that, please send me a message.

If you don't want to read the full blog post, here is my response about RA:

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This is a long reply, but …

Thank you for your post. I appreciate your perspective. There are a few things I’d like to share with you (and anyone else interested in this thread). I know this is a very long post, but I hope you will read on.

What I’d like to talk about goes by several names: relational aggression, indirect aggression, bullying, cliques, covert hostility, social ostracism, and shunning, to name a few.

I’ll call it relational aggression (or RA for short). There are lots of books and articles about this topic and I have read many of them. RA is basically when a group of people (the “in-group”) engage in targeting and socially isolating a lone person (the “target”). The in-group isolates the target through gossip; repeating and spreading lies that paint the target in a bad light and are designed to ruin her reputation (such as: “she’s sleeping with the boss.”); sideways comments and whispers while the target is present and can see it; exchanging knowing looks in the same way; speaking in front of the target in a “code” that only the in-group understands; collectively ignoring the target in a group setting/activity; publically shaming, belittling, or making fun of the target; secretly planning to create situations that will hurt, shame, and exclude the target; making sure the target knows she is being excluded by various means; telling the target’s secrets, if known, to others; criticizing the target’s clothes, hair, body, etc.

Really, the only limit to the many ways in which RA can manifest is the in-group’s imagination.

It is primarily females who engage in RA. There are several compelling theories as to why this is so. I won’t repeat them here, but suffice it to say that RA is a form of violence, a particular female form of violence, and all humans, both male and female, commit violence. If anything is crystal clear about RA, it is that women are overwhelmingly the ones who engage in it.

I bet you could ask any woman who posts on Step Talk if RA has happened to her, and she would likely tell you it has. RA happens to girls in grade school, to teenagers in high school, to young women in college, and to adult, professional women in the workplace.

What I want to emphasize about RA is this: If there is any combination of situation and in-group tailor-made for RA, it is a divorced man with adult female children and a living ex-wife, remarrying. If the second wife is better educated than the ex-wife, if she is prettier, thinner, more physically fit, wealthier, has a better job, or all of the above, she will most certainly become a target. Much of the time, it is the ex-wife who initiates the RA. She enlists her daughters first. And her daughters usually join in out of a sense of loyalty to their mother, although sometimes the daughters join in not out of a sense of loyalty to their mother but because they themselves want to participate in the RA, as they too feel threatened by the second wife. Daughters who are spoiled and never taught appropriate boundaries between children and adults, and between children and their parents, are particularly prone to feel threatened by the second wife. Sometimes sons also join in the RA, usually out of a sense of loyalty to their mother. Once the RA is begun and picks up steam with the addition of the daughters to the in-group, the range of in-group members can and often does expand to include sisters-in-law, mothers-in-law, cousins, nieces—even other ex-wives if it is a third, fourth, etc. marriage. No family member is off limits in terms of an open invitation to join in the RA against the new wife.

RA, of any kind, at any age, is devastating to the target. Studies have shown that social isolation is a very damaging thing to do to a human being. Elderly people who are lonely and isolated die earlier than elderly people who have a strong social network in place. Children who have experienced RA develop maladaptive behaviors, mostly in the form of distrust toward others, that can last a lifetime. Targets of severe RA report that they never really got over their isolating experience, no matter how or when it happened, no matter how much therapy, medication, self-help, etc. they get after the fact.

One reason RA is so damaging is because the target is entirely on her own. Girls from the age of 10 know this. They know that if they become a target, virtually nobody will come to their aid. If a girl is not a target, she knows that if she doesn’t conform to the demands of the in-group, she can easily become a target herself. Therefore, she will not provide help to the target. Bystanders who are not a part of the in-group but can recognize what is happening will look the other way, perhaps out of fear or perhaps out of the mistaken notion that “it’s no big deal—just growing pains, or, just women behaving as they do.” And because RA is done in secret, bystanders who don’t recognize what is going on have virtually no way of figuring it out, since there is no outward, obvious evidence of who is instigating and participating in the RA.

This anonymity of the RA perpetrators is such that they are rarely, if ever, held accountable for their aggression and violence. If someone (such as the remarried dad) actually attempts to discern what is going on; if, let’s say, his wife succeeds in getting him to understand what is happening and to talk to his daughters, they can easily, if not effortlessly, deny their behavior. The only evidence is what the target reports, and that is easily dismissed by the RA perpetrators, as in: “Well, gosh Dad, I don’t know what you are talking about. I like Mary. I have never said anything bad about her. I think Mary is a little too sensitive. You did tell me her feelings are easily hurt. I think she just needs to develop a thicker skin and not be so paranoid.”

In this way, the RA situation gets EVEN WORSE for the target. A new layer of unattractive character deficiency is added to the significant character assassination that has already been established. Mary is the one with the problem. She’s got thin skin; she has emotional problems and is paranoid. She’s deficient. The daughters are normal.
Perhaps the most pernicious thing about RA is the aggressor, the violent offender, intends to cause harm. She succeeds. And she, the aggressor, the violent offender, is never identified.

And the badmouthing of Mary that happens in the in-group, among the ex-wife, the daughters, the sisters-in-law, the mothers-in law – whatever the case may be and however large the in-group becomes -- is like a bonding ritual. The RA the in-group conducts together, in a rather sick way, becomes a medium for them to feel closer to one another, to feel more bonded as a “family”-- which Mary is decidedly not a part of. Mary is never given the golden scepter and the title of “family.” In fact, the word “family” becomes the synonym for “in-group” in many instances.

And so, unchecked and unaccounted for, the RA takes on a life of it’s own. In the “family” that Mary is not a part of, every funeral, every wedding, every college graduation, every vacation, every thanksgiving dinner, every exchange of gifts at Christmas, every Easter-egg hunt, every birthday, every dinner out at a favorite restaurant, and yes and most especially, every birth of a grandchild, becomes an occasion to twist the knife and snub and exclude the second wife more and more.

At this point, the in-group is clearly and conspicuously (to Mary at least) enjoying the pain they are inflicting. And it is possible that the in-group expands its RA scope from excluding and isolating Mary to destroying Mary. If that happens, the group can succeed in completely dismantling Mary’s trust in herself, her self-esteem, her sense of having a place in the world.

Yes. The damage can be that serious.

So, in reference to my initial post, I hope you now understand why I find the trip to see “my grandson” something like a slap in the face; a blatant form of temporarily joining the in-group that has me as their target.

God knows why, but I love my husband. Of course I want him to be happy, and if this grandkid makes him happy, so be it. Isn’t it too bad, though, that this “happiness” is used to exclude and shun another human being? Isn’t it too bad that this grandson is just another tool for the application of relational aggression?

Do I choose to stay home? I guess technically you could say yes. But what sane person would choose to go where she is not wanted, where the only thing waiting to greet her is relational aggression, which is, as I mentioned, a form of violence?

No. I won’t go. I won’t go because I’ve learned. Finally. After nearly 20 years of experiencing something so painful and yet so nameless, I started to seek answers. Once I discovered this thing had a name, I jumped at the chance to learn all I could about RA. The people I’m dealing have no clue what RA is, whereas I have learned a lot about it. That doesn’t make them tough and cool and me fragile and sensitive. It makes them ignorant and stupid and me informed and thoughtful. I’d rather be that any day. I may be alone and excluded, and I may occasionally feel hurt when visits like the one I posted about come up. But ignorant and stupid and cruel and violent? That’s a family I no longer want to be a part of. I’m glad I’ve discovered that. Yeah, it’ll suck when hubby goes to see the gandkid, but I’ll get over it. The help of the many wonderful women (and men) on this site is the thing that helps the most with that.

Thanks again for your comments.

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If this hits home for you, and you are interested in talking to me about your RA experience, I'd like to hear from you. Please send me a message. I promise I will read your message and respond.