Rotten, Fermenting Apples. How much do BMs impact adult SDs?
Are apples that don't fall from the tree always going to rot? Are SDs destined to become just like their BMs? I'd like to think that someday there will be a light at the end of the step tunnel, but having read several threads on here it seems that problems with SDs tend to escalate and even carry on several decades.
It seems that every time DH and I discuss the issues with SD24, the subject of BM comes up. DH often says, "I'm sure BM said...yada yada. It's sounds exactly like her thoughts." I have never met BM. According to DH she is an alcoholic, has tendencies towards narcissism and is highly manipulative. FYI, I don't just automatically believe everything DH says and over the years I have witnessed these statements are true. BM seems to be an infectious, genetically imbedded worm in SD's head. She is most definitely a bitter ex so we have cut her off from any communication and the lawyers are done. DH's previous marriage was childcentric and completely void of intimacy with BM. Result? "Super princess" SD (only female and youngest child). Now that BM cannot personally or legally harrass DH, it seems her dysfunctional tentacles are reaching through SD.
I am just curious as to what other SMs have experienced with manipulative BMs and how much of a hold do they have on their biological daughters. SD is a very bright young lady, but emotionally immature. DH and I often think that if BM wasn't stirring ideas SD might actually become a mentally healthy adult and there might be a positive outcome to family blending. However, we feel that SD is responsible for her own actions and any related consequences despite the influence of BM. I see overwhelming emotional emeshment with BM and SD's behavior is becoming more and more destructive. Let's just say the rotten apple is fermenting and trying to attract flies - SD is now passive-aggressively making manipulative inferences to family members to triangulate the dysfunction.
According to DH, SD behaves and uses the same tactics that BM used over the years they were married (lots of passive-aggressiveness, gaslighting, denial and covert manipulation). Are SDs completely unchangable? Do BMs continue to be the driving force in their dysfunctional behavior and thinking? Is there no end to the manipulation and bs? Has anyone's SD gone to therapy and did it help? What do you say to other family members that they are trying to rope in (SD is playing victim)?
I appreciate others sharing their experiences as it often gives me insight and lets me know that I am not alone in these experiences. Thanks all for your input.
I have wondered this quite a
I have wondered this quite a bit.
BM had weekend visitation starting at 1 year old, and that went down to summer/holiday visitation at 2.5 years old. SD is now 6, almost 7, so she hasn't had much BM involvement over the years. But she still seems to be taking negative traits from BM - who refuses to work and lives off the system and generally has no work ethic or responsibility. She doesn't even pay child support because "sunshinex can pay for her!"
So SD has always had a quitter attitude. She refuses to even TRY to do things most of the time. If you ask her to tidy her room, she says "I CAN'T DO IT IT'S TOO HARD" and literally has never cleaned her own room. Every little thing becomes a battle of "I CAN'T DO IT" and she generally does seem to fail a lot because of it. Even her grades, in the first grade, she got all Cs and Ds. I don't even know how she passed.
We have tried pushing her, but quite honestly, I've given up and I was the main person pushing her to do better/be more responsible. I don't have high hopes she won't end up just like BM. I think she sees her enough that her attitude rubs off on SD and SD sees us as being unreasonable in our simple expectations.
I'm interested to see other traits pop up in the future, as I'm sure they will. BM is a huge manipulator and gaslighter in addition to being plain lazy and lacking any sort of self responsibility.
Edited to add: I wouldn't have given up if I didn't feel I needed to. I didn't want to give up on a little girl clearly in need of guidance, but she acts like a wounded, abused kid when I ask her to do something as simple as put her toys away. I got tired of always looking like i'm a monster because she genuinely acts like she gets beaten when she's asked to contribute to the household....
Both nurture and nature
Both nurture and nature influence children as they grow up. I find that the only consistent way to overcome nature is to nurture and to hold kids to very clear behavioral and performance standards.
Tying the standards and potential consequences to a clear discussion of what the long term expectations are for that kid progressing to adulthood is a critical success factor in raising a kid in my experience. In our case our evolving behavioral and performance standards for SS were often driven by the results of the influences of the SpermClan that he struggled with. In some instances we incorporated preventative standards based on crap that the SpermIdiot was doing that the kid had not even tried yet.
Using this evolving strategy gave us very positive results in raising SS-26 to be an indepdent viable adult of character and standing in his profession and community. At least it is looking pretty good so far.
Genetically predisposed?
I have my own bio daughter who is the same age as SD and I do know that she has similar behavioral traits as me (as well as her bio father). Through the years, I've tried to instill what I thought was important to my BD with the goal of raising an emotionally well-adjusted and responsible adult. (Albeit, there were times when I thought she was going to go down the same path of her birth father and I just had to watch her fall and get back up - builds a strong backbone for life.) Divorce doesn't screw up kids....selfish, dysfunctional parents do.
SD's BM seems to have carried the crux of her own blended family angst into SD's make up (BM was 11 when her mom remarried her father's best friend who had 2 daughers of his own and she was very jealous and insecure). So when SD was born, BM made SD into the mini me she wanted to be as a child and still lives vicariously through her. DH knows that BM stayed through the marriage because he was a good father (filed for divorce when SD was 18). In this intimacy-vacant marriage, everything revolved around SD and her wants.
My point is that BM's own emotional issues started long before her pregnancy with SD and may have been potent thought forms and emotional drivers when in utero and while raising SD. SD is the child/person that BM always wanted to be...and it seems that SD is more BM's "twin." BM and SD act like BFF's rather than mother and daughter. My BD and I are very close and we have similar physical and behavioral traits, but at no time in her life did I ever want to be her BFF and vice versa.
It's actually pretty freaky...sometimes when SD was present, DH would accidentally call her by BM's name. Spooky. He would be flustered and his behavior would change to that of a man who has been "cowed" by a shrew (the typical eggshell-walk response of having lived with an emotionally abusive narcissist). It even freaked him out! It's as if BM's presence is there when SD is around. Is this biological? Environmental? Energetic? I am curious to know other's experiences of similar situations. Thanks for your input : )
Same here
Unsure if SS18 will make a change or continue as-is, but now that DH kicked him out, it's 100% on SS. I pray he gets it together but either way, alll the stuff you wrote sounds very familiar. In our case, we know SS has narc borderline BM's training, but also has my DH's kind heart (BM is not kind, just evil & ruthless, and as Dr. Scott Peck wrote in People of the Lie, it's a good thing she's so lazy because otherwise her nefarious, diabolical ways would have impacted a lot more victims. Hitler is the perfect example of an organized, motivated, NOT lazy evil person; most evil people are too lazy to bring that much mayhem). So we have hope for SS to choose a better path than BM has chosen.
mine is the same
I have one sd17 who was a nightmare and went to live with bm recently. She is exactly like bm and spews hate just like bm always did. My other sd16 is luckily following in her dads footsteps.
I firmly believe that the
I firmly believe that the "apple doesn't fall far from the tree" and my H's daughter is exactly like her mother in every sense of the word. Yes she has some qualities like her father but for the most part her mother has influenced and brain washed her to think and act just like her.
In one of our big blow outs my H's daughter was saying all these lies accusing H of never helping her and assisting her financially in any capacity. She stated that our son together is the favorite among other things. I just stood there in amazement because if I didn't know any better I would have thought it was her mother standing right there running her mouth the entire time.
Every word was like her mother was right there in the room which only confirmed even more the manipulation and brain washing that her toxic mother has on this girl. I don't know if her mind frame will ever change. I do think she needs therapy and needs to address the enmeshment that she has with her mother but that will never happen because she doesn't see that there is a problem.
That was the case for me
"--- having read several threads on here it seems that problems with SDs tend to escalate and even carry on several decades." Yes, the nasty behavior DID seem to escalate as SD got older. Every visit, it was as if she was trying to top the last for being obnoxious. And I know this was at least partly due to actually IMPROVING her relationship with her Mother.
When SD was a teenager she had issues with her Mother. Before I married her Father, she came to me and started bad-mouthing her Mother. I refused to take part in any of the discussions. I met BM just after we got married. She was gracious, smiled and said "Hi." I did not see the woman for almost 20 years.
Shortly after the marriage I became the scapegoat for all of the frustrations SD had with her parents and I never heard a bad word about BM again. BM and DH seemed to take on the role of Saints in SD's mind while her obnoxious behavior escalated toward me as the years went by.
Fast forward 20 years. DH and I went to a work reunion where BM was present. When BM and I saw each other, I smiled and was about to say. "Hello." Instead BM's face became red, she pursed her lips, her nostrils flared out to her earlobes and she angrily stormed by me. For some strange reason the cause for DH and BM's divorce had been mysteriously changed and transferred to me even though, as I tried to explain to the pointed accusations, I didn't know DH, and I didn't live in the area when they divorced. And get this --- SD had not yet had her meltdown. I hadn't even disengaged from SD yet! It was obvious SD had been filling BM's ears with all sorts of lies. This is when I realized the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
My SD33 is very like her late
My SD33 is very like her late BM. She learned her irresponsibility with money and credit from her. I work in commercial banking and I am the polar opposite. The BM worked but her drug addiction led to their divorce and we thought she had been clean for many years. She was steadily employed. Then shortly before she died SD's soon to be ex-husband posted a news article to FB about BM's recent drug possession arrest. Then she got sick and was gone within a couple of weeks. Of course she had quit her job so no health or life insurance.
SD always worked but spends every dime and has terrible credit, paying anything back or honoring commitments doesn't live in her world.
At BM's memorial service everyone was joking and telling stories about how much BM got into their wallets in the weeks before she died. She got $500 from us.
BM b.s. from Beyond the Grave
Classic.
You can't fix bad genes.
You can't fix bad genes.
When it's BM who spends the most time with tender aged skids - the same BM who hates her ex more than she loves her children - those children are going to be filled with the same venom. In a sense, they're both weaponized and free agents who quickly learn how to adapt whichever stance benefits them the most depending on which parent they're around.
Parenting post-divorce is often a diluted version of what it should be, and I think a lot of SDs get worse because their poor behavior and wrong-headed ideas are never challenged. Marginalized daddys are often afraid to mar what little time they have their kids with correcting them, so these princesses become worse and more set in their bad ways as they age. My OSD was like this, totally her mother's creature; difficult, socially awkward and angry at 13, brattier and determined to marry ASAP by 16, and flying into rages and convinced that she was right about everything at 18. No one corrected her, or spoke truth to her, so she got worse and worse.
A poisoned apple without an antidote?
I seems the concensus believes that SD's long-established behavior is set for life. DH keeps saying things like, "I know there's also a part of me in there." I believe that rather than simply being “who we are,” our personalities and behaviors are also patterns of interaction. That is, personality, whether disordered or not, has as much to do with how (and with whom) we interact as it does with our genes and wired-in temperament. I doubt SD is capable of overcoming her emotionally-enmeshed issues when BM is consistently feeding poison. There's no opportunity to wean.
For now, disengagement for me. SD still sees no wrongdoing and repeats the coined comeback, "I don't see why we can't have a relationship" to DH. DH penned a letter this week which called out her behaviors, spelled out the actions he wishes to see from SD (an apology to both of us and for the manipulations to cease) and the actions he will take if she does not follow through. I can see how much this is hurting him, but I don't think there's an antidote to the poison.
OSD is just like a BM.
OSD is just like a BM. Vicious. Violent. DH always was and is afraid of BM. He is equally afraid of OSD who is just as vicious as BM. I witnessed and heard on the phone OSD screaming her lungs out using profanity and terrible language over absolutely something irrational and she is known for assaulting people, actually so is BM.
YSD isn’t like BM but she is also estranged from both BM and OSD, never sees them or talks to them and as afraid of them as DH. She is sane.
I came back to add that I
I came back to add that I think it's very important to deal with skids as they are, and not accept any excuses or indulge in the false hope that they will magically become good humans at some point in the future. I drank the koolaid and adopted the inlaw party line that some day, OSD would straighten out. the ole weeel yes, shes being a B, but
Don't entertain excuses from the enabling peanut gallery. Poor behavior is poor behavior, period.
THIS is such an important point!^^^
I think many of us live on slivers of hope that things will get better. They typically won't. My SD is at the "newlywed" phase and is probably soon bound to be a new mom. Nonetheless, I have no illusions that anything about her personality or behavior will change. My SO still holds out hope that she will magically transform herself back to the "sweet little girl" he once knew, as most parents will. He forgets that BM is the one who twisted SD into the knot of dysfunction she is today, and that sh!t runs deep.
People wrapped up in themselves rarely unfold.
Hope
Yes, we DO hold out to hope. I am one of those people who will hang on to something for years and years, hoping that it will change for the better. I suppose this could be considered a 'control issue' but I think it was an overwhelming fear of failure that blinded me to reality. For 20 years I hung onto the hope that SD and I could one day form a good relationship - not parental, just a friendship. But every year that went by her anger, resentment and obnoxious behavior escalated - one more year in the stephell hole. Until, as with similar situations, I was between a rock and a hard place, and had to make the ultimate choice or emotionally die. But this type of stubbornness that I practiced for so long has been a God-send too. Once reality finally got through to me, I was done - plain done - and I used that same determination to not allow myself to be used as a doormat again.
If we look upon our tragic or frustrating times as learning experiences, we can go forth and make all aspects of our lives better and can apply our lessons to other situations. This has completely changed the way I communicate with my narcissistic Mother and the way I take it in.
Yesterday I faced a situation where I was having to deal with a pushy woman who had recently come into my life through an organization. Little by little she started to order rather than request. So during our last conversation I said, "I will try. Bye." She will not get as much assistance as she would have otherwise. - her loss. It occurred to me that this is very similar to SD; her loss.
As I said somewhere else on
As I said somewhere else on this site, my life improved immeasurably when I gave up hope.:)
It's only when we accept things as they actually are and not as we wish them to be that we can start to practice self care and heal.
This happens continually with
This happens continually with my skids and BM. They have been divorced 10 years and she still tries to ruin his life through the kids. It hasn't changed in 3 years and I just try to ignore it.