is the one the kids are with the most (We are long distance). This gives her a lot of power to get away with her toxicity. If you engage it ,it makes it worse, so we just manage it with the least amount of interaction possible.
Has that worked? Mostly, but kids relationship with dad has def. suffrered along with his ability to parent and be seen as an equal parent. I'm not sure what we could have done differently. I think this was the least amount of harm but still sucks.
Every case has it's differences. In our case, my DW was the CP... and it was the NCP side of the equation that was toxic, manipulative and had long distance visitation with the Skid. We would put a happy, clean, engaging kid on the plane and pick up a sullen, nasty kid at the airport after his visitation.
We had plenty of time to filter out their crap as we re-integrated him back into reality and his "normal" life after a week or 5 of splashing around in the SpermClan genetic and behavioral cesspool. His SpermClan visitation schedule was 5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring. There were several periods of a year or more over the 16+ years we lived under the CO that they refused visitation. 3 of them if I recall correctly.
I feel for you and the Skid having to counter a full time manipulative and toxic CP.
I was raised by two malignant narcissists. They literally programmed me to believe, and I mean really BELIEVE, that my parents' treatment of me was always due to some inherent flaw I had or that I just couldn't quite get it right as a daughter. By the time I reached early adult years, I had zero self esteem and was in agony and desperate for love. Of course when you enter the world like that you end up getting all the toxic pieces of shit because you don't know any differently. You repeat what you know. My first love was a narc and it was the same thing. I believed that his coldness and cruelty towards me was because I wasn't ever pretty enough, slim enough, this enough, that enough or whatever enough. Whenever people would ask me why I stay I felt judged. They just don't get what it's like to go through life with literally a different mindset from everyone else.
Currently, my mindset is way different. I no longer believe that how others treat me is my fault. I have started to pull no punches and I don't give a fuck. My boss has been bullying me (and others, but mostly me) and I currently have him quaking in his boots in my presence. He's damn afraid of me and he fucking well better stay that way. This mindset is the polar opposite but sometimes these people who were raised the way I was have all they can take and they snap. I snapped (in a good way).
So, in a nutshell while you can't understand why people tolerate toxicity, those of us with shitty programming cannot relate at all to people who stand up for themselves. Standing up for oneself equals loss of loved ones. While someone like you might think it's no loss, to those programmed to believe they suck, it is a major loss and it attacks their very human worth because they've just been proven all over again that they're so value-less that they get left all the time and they will never get love again. It's a horrible cycle to be stuck in.
How do you really know that the person or situation is toxic? Often it takes time to conclude that it isn't you, especially if your self esteem is eroded through gaslighting or other bully mechanisms.
I might add there are situations you can't or feel you can't just cut the toxic person out. So sometimes you try to either ignore it or think no reaction will counter act it and not provoke the toxic person. Sometimes you have to deal with the person for example the BM in our life is very toxic. When the kids were little we had to deal with her somewhat.
The other thing is the toxic person isn't always toxic all of the time and isn't always toxic to everyone in their life. So everyone is not seeing the behaviors.
- Self esteem or confidence issues (someone doesn't feel great about their appearance, attractiveness, looks, financial staus, career, etc.)
-Past trauma
-Their own narcissism, laziness or selfishness as strange as it sounds it is becoming more common (users often find other users to use and use one another)
Yep, black and white is my default. I more often than I should lose track of the fact that many live in a gray world. For much of my life I have advised frequently and regularly that people address toxicity by confronting it, containing it, and boxing it in.
One of my BFFs from my childhood struggled with her father's remarriage to her brother's MIL when their mother passed. The new SM was very controlling and my friend struggled with the SM's manipulations in her life. Her mom and dad carried the mortgage on her home. Her new SM considered my friend's home as hers and my friend's fathers. The new wife also took to wearing my friend's mother's jewelry.
She would call me flipping between infuriated anger and tears. I finally landed on and recommended a sequence of steps she could take to get her SM under control. First I advised her to refinance her home through a mortgage company in order to get it separated from her father's assets. Which she did. That shoved her new SM in a box where she could not have any influence or say over my friends home. I then advised her to speak with her brother regarding their mother's jewelry. She and her brother then approached their father on the topic and he collected all of their mother's jewelry and the the jewelry of their grand mothers and gave it to them to divide. Most of it went to the sister and a few pieces went to the brother's wife.
When they married the SM demanded that my friend's father's estate be split equally between all of the children (8 hers, 2 his). Her dad agreed.... verbally. It was an odd situation. Under that model her brother and her SIL would inherit 20% of their father's estate while she would get 10% and her SILs 7sibs would each get 10%. Their mom and dad were married for about 40 years, had a great marriage, and were very successful. Their mom passed very quickly from a cancer Dx when my friend was in her late 20s and her brother (also a very close friend), was about 30.
Long story short... she made the decision to stop being passive and start addressing the issues. Over the next decade or so her dad was married to her brother's MIL she was successful in containing the toxicity of her SM and re-engaged in a close relationship with her father, her brother, and her nephews. She also grew very close with her 7 other StepSibs and they all were able to blend their relationships, their kids, etc... into what amounted to a large active enjoyable extended blended family. Her SM was not happy to have been muzzled but even her own children realized her negative influence and participated in keeping her in her place.
Their dad died two years ago. His entire estate went into trust for the support of her SM though upon SM's demise half of it will be split between my two friends (brother and sister) and the other half will be divided equally between all 10 StepSibs (she and her brother and her SM's 8 kids). Their dad did heavily support his SKids equally to the support he provided his two BKs during the duration of his second marriage but .... also protected the interests of his two BKs by leaving their mother's half of his estate to them and splitting his half equally between his BKs and his SKids. She took action and drove a reasonable outcome. Delivering at least in part on his agreement with his second wife that her kids would inherit equally to his.
IMHO action always trumps inaction when it comes to confrontation of toxic. Just my black and white perspective I suppose.
The ones who most need to be contained are often the ones preaching and the ones banging the "be nice" and "be the bigger person" drums.
IMHO being the bigger person and being nice to the other side of an issue is earned by reasonable behavior from the opposition side. If they are reasonable I can be nice and be the bigger person. If not... nope. All bets are off.
For me, I tend to be an optimist and toxic has to smack me in the face in order for me to recognize it. That can lead me to being surprised by toxic when it raises it's head in my life.
I recognize it in the situations of others far more readily than I seem to do in my own life. Or maybe it is just not a frequent event in my life. Particularly now that the SpermClan is far behind us and the evolution of the events that tend to unfold in my IL clan have matured enough that the toxic stays pummelled into submission these days. Before I have to confront it.
I hope that your evolved clarity on the presence of toxic around you has helped you manage it and avoid the drama.
I commented above but want to add that when I started to seek help and support from people around me, they often didn't know what to do. They would say the most ridiculous things like, "just love her to death," or "that's just her sense of humour," or the like. I was also met with, "well, you're the only one saying anything, so it must be just your faulty interpretation," or "oh, he didn't mean it like that!" An example is that I witnessed a severe chronic bullying case in a previous job including almost every abuse possible, up to and including death threats from a bully to the target. When I went to report it, I got told to document it. Um, OK sure, then to whom do I submit my statement? "Oh, just document it," Every damn time I went forward with something horrific I witnessed, including a female manager grabbing a male administrative assistant's package, I got told to document it. I finally had to go above everyone's heads where each time I was told to document it. I had to go to the entire regional management team and tell them it's time to go beyond documentation. No one knew what the hell to do, so they would fling out the same line over and over again and be stuck there: "document it." Or they would turn a blind eye. My own DH has told me more than once in the past that when he doesn't know what to do, he goes blank and acts blind. So, while bystanders do in fact see the shit going on around them, sometimes coming from the people they love the most, they get stuck at knowing what to do.
I remember being stuck at not knowing which actions to take. I went to therapy and got my self esteem to a good place and knew I deserved better. I knew I didn't want to be a door mat, but what do I do to replace the door mat response? It's a whole step beyond healing and building your self esteem and that next step often gets left out of therapy. Even many therapists don't know how to teach the proper actions to take.
I honestly feel that I had to take my self esteem from way below zero and get to a point of being willing to stand alone. I knew when people around me didn't know what to do or how to help, I was on my own. So, the realization that it's just you and you have no support whatsoever, can make it very hard to oust the toxic turds from one's life.
Our toxic BM
is the one the kids are with the most (We are long distance). This gives her a lot of power to get away with her toxicity. If you engage it ,it makes it worse, so we just manage it with the least amount of interaction possible.
Has that worked? Mostly, but kids relationship with dad has def. suffrered along with his ability to parent and be seen as an equal parent. I'm not sure what we could have done differently. I think this was the least amount of harm but still sucks.
Exactly this. Engaging just
Exactly this. Engaging just makes it worse.
Every case has it's
Every case has it's differences. In our case, my DW was the CP... and it was the NCP side of the equation that was toxic, manipulative and had long distance visitation with the Skid. We would put a happy, clean, engaging kid on the plane and pick up a sullen, nasty kid at the airport after his visitation.
We had plenty of time to filter out their crap as we re-integrated him back into reality and his "normal" life after a week or 5 of splashing around in the SpermClan genetic and behavioral cesspool. His SpermClan visitation schedule was 5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring. There were several periods of a year or more over the 16+ years we lived under the CO that they refused visitation. 3 of them if I recall correctly.
I feel for you and the Skid having to counter a full time manipulative and toxic CP.
Good post
To some toxic is their unhealthy comfort zone. Thats all they have known.
It took me many years to be able to label Toxic as Toxic. From my early years to my ex marriage.
Thank gawd I am in a toxic free relationship now. I am with myself .
I was raised by two malignant
I was raised by two malignant narcissists. They literally programmed me to believe, and I mean really BELIEVE, that my parents' treatment of me was always due to some inherent flaw I had or that I just couldn't quite get it right as a daughter. By the time I reached early adult years, I had zero self esteem and was in agony and desperate for love. Of course when you enter the world like that you end up getting all the toxic pieces of shit because you don't know any differently. You repeat what you know. My first love was a narc and it was the same thing. I believed that his coldness and cruelty towards me was because I wasn't ever pretty enough, slim enough, this enough, that enough or whatever enough. Whenever people would ask me why I stay I felt judged. They just don't get what it's like to go through life with literally a different mindset from everyone else.
Currently, my mindset is way different. I no longer believe that how others treat me is my fault. I have started to pull no punches and I don't give a fuck. My boss has been bullying me (and others, but mostly me) and I currently have him quaking in his boots in my presence. He's damn afraid of me and he fucking well better stay that way. This mindset is the polar opposite but sometimes these people who were raised the way I was have all they can take and they snap. I snapped (in a good way).
So, in a nutshell while you can't understand why people tolerate toxicity, those of us with shitty programming cannot relate at all to people who stand up for themselves. Standing up for oneself equals loss of loved ones. While someone like you might think it's no loss, to those programmed to believe they suck, it is a major loss and it attacks their very human worth because they've just been proven all over again that they're so value-less that they get left all the time and they will never get love again. It's a horrible cycle to be stuck in.
Wow. I am so sorry have had
Wow. I am so sorry you have had to live this though I am thrilled that you have found confidence and some peace.
People are taught to "be nice
People are taught to "be nice" and "be the bigger person"
Sometimes it is hard to see the toxicity
How do you really know that the person or situation is toxic? Often it takes time to conclude that it isn't you, especially if your self esteem is eroded through gaslighting or other bully mechanisms.
Very Good answers and descriptions!!
I might add there are situations you can't or feel you can't just cut the toxic person out. So sometimes you try to either ignore it or think no reaction will counter act it and not provoke the toxic person. Sometimes you have to deal with the person for example the BM in our life is very toxic. When the kids were little we had to deal with her somewhat.
The other thing is the toxic person isn't always toxic all of the time and isn't always toxic to everyone in their life. So everyone is not seeing the behaviors.
Toxic
I hate the word toxic.
Why is that?
Why is that?
Delete Duplicate
Delete duplicate
- Self esteem or confidence
- Self esteem or confidence issues (someone doesn't feel great about their appearance, attractiveness, looks, financial staus, career, etc.)
-Past trauma
-Their own narcissism, laziness or selfishness as strange as it sounds it is becoming more common (users often find other users to use and use one another)
-Their own baggage
Thanks for the perspective.
Yep, black and white is my default. I more often than I should lose track of the fact that many live in a gray world. For much of my life I have advised frequently and regularly that people address toxicity by confronting it, containing it, and boxing it in.
One of my BFFs from my childhood struggled with her father's remarriage to her brother's MIL when their mother passed. The new SM was very controlling and my friend struggled with the SM's manipulations in her life. Her mom and dad carried the mortgage on her home. Her new SM considered my friend's home as hers and my friend's fathers. The new wife also took to wearing my friend's mother's jewelry.
She would call me flipping between infuriated anger and tears. I finally landed on and recommended a sequence of steps she could take to get her SM under control. First I advised her to refinance her home through a mortgage company in order to get it separated from her father's assets. Which she did. That shoved her new SM in a box where she could not have any influence or say over my friends home. I then advised her to speak with her brother regarding their mother's jewelry. She and her brother then approached their father on the topic and he collected all of their mother's jewelry and the the jewelry of their grand mothers and gave it to them to divide. Most of it went to the sister and a few pieces went to the brother's wife.
When they married the SM demanded that my friend's father's estate be split equally between all of the children (8 hers, 2 his). Her dad agreed.... verbally. It was an odd situation. Under that model her brother and her SIL would inherit 20% of their father's estate while she would get 10% and her SILs 7sibs would each get 10%. Their mom and dad were married for about 40 years, had a great marriage, and were very successful. Their mom passed very quickly from a cancer Dx when my friend was in her late 20s and her brother (also a very close friend), was about 30.
Long story short... she made the decision to stop being passive and start addressing the issues. Over the next decade or so her dad was married to her brother's MIL she was successful in containing the toxicity of her SM and re-engaged in a close relationship with her father, her brother, and her nephews. She also grew very close with her 7 other StepSibs and they all were able to blend their relationships, their kids, etc... into what amounted to a large active enjoyable extended blended family. Her SM was not happy to have been muzzled but even her own children realized her negative influence and participated in keeping her in her place.
Their dad died two years ago. His entire estate went into trust for the support of her SM though upon SM's demise half of it will be split between my two friends (brother and sister) and the other half will be divided equally between all 10 StepSibs (she and her brother and her SM's 8 kids). Their dad did heavily support his SKids equally to the support he provided his two BKs during the duration of his second marriage but .... also protected the interests of his two BKs by leaving their mother's half of his estate to them and splitting his half equally between his BKs and his SKids. She took action and drove a reasonable outcome. Delivering at least in part on his agreement with his second wife that her kids would inherit equally to his.
IMHO action always trumps inaction when it comes to confrontation of toxic. Just my black and white perspective I suppose.
People are taught to "be nice
People are taught to "be nice" and "be the bigger person"
This ^^^^^^^ 100percent.
I have found the same people who teach and preach BE nice and BE the bigger person are the ones who are causing the a lot of manipulation.
Just my observations through life.
Yes. And the same for the
Yes. And the same for the peoples who preach politics and love. Those are usually the worst offenders. Lol.
It is amazing how aligned a
It is amazing how aligned a person's politics tend to be with their behaviors.
I agree. My experience is the
I agree. My experience is the more they preach about certain things it's almost like they are trying to convince themselves of it?
Yep. They lie to themselves
Yep. They lie to themselves over and over again until they believe their own bullshit.
Often true. Sadly.
Often true. Sadly.
The ones who most need to be contained are often the ones preaching and the ones banging the "be nice" and "be the bigger person" drums.
IMHO being the bigger person and being nice to the other side of an issue is earned by reasonable behavior from the opposition side. If they are reasonable I can be nice and be the bigger person. If not... nope. All bets are off.
Perhaps we dont expect it
I know that I expected the best and well, lets just say things have fallen REALLY short of that.
Now that I know what I am looking at, I am seeing it all around me, in so many people. And my tolerance is really really low.
For me, I tend to be an
For me, I tend to be an optimist and toxic has to smack me in the face in order for me to recognize it. That can lead me to being surprised by toxic when it raises it's head in my life.
I recognize it in the situations of others far more readily than I seem to do in my own life. Or maybe it is just not a frequent event in my life. Particularly now that the SpermClan is far behind us and the evolution of the events that tend to unfold in my IL clan have matured enough that the toxic stays pummelled into submission these days. Before I have to confront it.
I hope that your evolved clarity on the presence of toxic around you has helped you manage it and avoid the drama.
I commented above but want to
I commented above but want to add that when I started to seek help and support from people around me, they often didn't know what to do. They would say the most ridiculous things like, "just love her to death," or "that's just her sense of humour," or the like. I was also met with, "well, you're the only one saying anything, so it must be just your faulty interpretation," or "oh, he didn't mean it like that!" An example is that I witnessed a severe chronic bullying case in a previous job including almost every abuse possible, up to and including death threats from a bully to the target. When I went to report it, I got told to document it. Um, OK sure, then to whom do I submit my statement? "Oh, just document it," Every damn time I went forward with something horrific I witnessed, including a female manager grabbing a male administrative assistant's package, I got told to document it. I finally had to go above everyone's heads where each time I was told to document it. I had to go to the entire regional management team and tell them it's time to go beyond documentation. No one knew what the hell to do, so they would fling out the same line over and over again and be stuck there: "document it." Or they would turn a blind eye. My own DH has told me more than once in the past that when he doesn't know what to do, he goes blank and acts blind. So, while bystanders do in fact see the shit going on around them, sometimes coming from the people they love the most, they get stuck at knowing what to do.
I remember being stuck at not knowing which actions to take. I went to therapy and got my self esteem to a good place and knew I deserved better. I knew I didn't want to be a door mat, but what do I do to replace the door mat response? It's a whole step beyond healing and building your self esteem and that next step often gets left out of therapy. Even many therapists don't know how to teach the proper actions to take.
I honestly feel that I had to take my self esteem from way below zero and get to a point of being willing to stand alone. I knew when people around me didn't know what to do or how to help, I was on my own. So, the realization that it's just you and you have no support whatsoever, can make it very hard to oust the toxic turds from one's life.
I am reading and re-reading this!
And all the other posts about boundaries and disengagement.