Sour Grapes Cryfest With CLove
Thanks for all the helpful feedback and comments on my last Post, "Butter Bawl" for short.
After a few days and much writing and many comments/feedback, and one big discussion with Husband, Ive gotten to a new perspective. I HAD been thinking, as you all pointed out, "yay, Munchkin SD16.5 is back", much like a golden retriever eager for the smallest crumbs of attention, and she threw me a bone. It did seem very strange, that after a few years and months of not really speaking to me, all of a sudden-like, shes taking 2 very solid hours of time, opening up, talking and crying and we are expressing ourselves to each other. I too, was impressed with the maturity and thoughfull insightfullness that I was hearing.
NOW Im just thinking yes, shes familliar with the patterns that her mother and sister have, so shes using past experience as a predictor of future behavior. Simple as that. This is the fourth move with Toxic Troll, so its extra stressful, and she needed an emotional release of the stress.
Im thinking I was just a convenient and easy emotional dumpster for her emotional release needs, and shes envisioning that she will have to somehow deal with what to do and where to land if/when her sister moves in with them and things blow up like they always do. In other words...
I dont think it was anything real. And all the different topics she brought up, her viewpoints, are skewed and not real, just twisted versions of her truth. After going back and forth, I decided to discuss with Husband. Most of everything hes already heard before from her, it was no new topics, just a few added layers that might have been new. And surpise of suprises, he was calm and receptive. That being said...
It sort of became a "she said/he said" thing, so after evaluating it all, that 2 hours was mainly just a Sour Grapes Cryfest With Clove. She wasnt trying to butter me up for anything, not really. I dont think shes thinking that far ahead - shes more in the here and now mentality of most teens. She wasnt at all interested in involving me in her life in any real sense. She was there, I was there, she needed me and she was releasing her sour grapes and Feral Forger moves back stress. The sour grapes being the jealousy of her sister getting the lions share of everything - time, money, resources, love, attioin, spoilage, without having to do any work for it, or even being at all loving and nice.
After discussing with Husband, there were a great many inconsistencies with her SGCFWCL. I get it, blaming me is safe. Using me as scapegoat is safe. When you are desperate to bond with child, stepmother as the enemy is the easiest way. Eff that, I say. Tonight Im calling it out, and shutting it down.
For example I just learned:
When Husband asks SD16.5 PS to wash dishes, to get her to hurry up because she so lags, that he tells her to do it now, before Clove gets home, as "incentive" because making me upset is the "higher power" of enticement and "we are a team, so lagging upsets BOTH of us". Like WTF. I just always use the word "now" and that seems to do the trick. I dont say "do before your father gets home..."
Husband gives Skid money, many times just for her "to have fun", but with caveat "dont tell Clove"...without having her do anything to work for it. Again WTF. "I do it because shes my DAUGHTER". Ok, whatever, but do NOT involved me in ANY WAY. Hes again throwing me under the bus. Will need to go scorched earth on this.
ok, so now to the She said-cried/ He said:
SHE SAID DURING SGCFWCL: She was crying that she does all these different things to please her father and bond with her father. So when she wanted a flute, and told him, he said "you should get the bass, flutes are lame" So she got the bass. And now isnt allowed to play it at our house.
HE SAID: He said she asked for money for a $20 flute and he agreed to give it to her, and then she came back to him and said she didnt actually want the flute she wanted the bass and her mother agreed to pay half and could he pay half and he said no Ill give you the $20 I was going to give you for the flute and you can apply that towards the bass.
CLOVE: I knew of the $20 gifting and when I heard of the bass I said "no thank you she can play that somewhere else". She could have played at her mothers, but she didnt. She's got 2 violins shes not playing, 2 ukeleles, an acustic guitar, now a bass. NADA love given to any musical instruments already accumulated.
Another example:
SHE SAID DURING SGCFWCL: She stays in her room because barnacle friend is always there, with dad who is ALWAYS in the garage and she doesnt want to go fishing because BF is always there too. Anytime she comes out of her room, its always "do the dishes, clean your room" rather than conversation or spending time together.
HE SAID: Im always asking her to go places with me and shes always wanting to be in her room. Shes happy in there. And yes, I ask her to do dishes so she has to get off her a$$ and get out of her room. So because of that yes, anytime shes out of her room shes asked to do dishes...its actually BECAUSE shes been asked to do dishes. (SIDENOTE HE SAID: He had told me a while ago that when he asked her why she doesnt come out of her room, its because of ME, Clove, always making her "uncomfortable", and asking her to do dishes. I told him - yes, Im safe to blame - you can check it off your parenting list and shes not blaming you for anything, check check check)
CLOVE: Well this isnt for me to fix, however I have been thinking back. When I wanted to have family time, she PowerSulks her way through each and every one, there is no joy there. Family dinners together devolved specifically because her Power Sulking made them so awkward. She does the same thing when we all go out together. So maybe she needs to sit in the garage and play her bass and then she can have daddy time and bass time and they can bond???? LOL. JK. I told him she wants a closer relationship, but now I actually see that shes not willing to do the work. She wants it all to be EASY.
Her mother is EASY, shes female, they share a room. Shes THERE. I guess there is more common ground, neither has to try.
So, Im out of it. SD16.5 Power Sulk will be 17 in a few months. I wish her the best, but will not be supporting her when her father loses his job and has to figure things out. If she has to be with us Full Time at anytime before 18, I will lay it all out with expectations, and the first expecation will be honest and open communication. Im done with being blamed for things I am not at all involved with. Im done being the scapegoat. I am done being the emotional stepdump.
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Comments
I Just Want To Go Hug You
I wanted to cry when I read this post. So much of my own story. I have permanent tire marks on my back from being thrown under the bus by my DH. Who the hell tells the kid to "not tell SM" without expecting crazy dysfunction to happen??
I'm so sorry, CLove. Seems we both have DHs that just can't take responsibility. Has to always be someone else's fault, mainly the good ole Stepmom. My DH could never say....I SAID. It was always, CajunMom SAID. No wonder his kids would tell me, "He's only saying that because you made him." While much has changed in our lives and for the better with my disengagement, I really don't know how DH handles his kids now. I'd hope he's still standing strong as he did when this debacle started but regardless, kind of hard to blame me anymore as I've been out of the picture for 5 years.
I hope your DH learns from this. Either way, his kid is now his responsibility completely. Comforting hugs to you.
((hugs)) Cajun
I really really want to get those two in a room together and get the stories straight and then give my "goodbye" to the bass, and all involvement. It would not matter, Im not that important and I need to get over myself.
Yeah, I now begin to understand how Husband, with all his avoidance has created a wall between her and I, enabling THEM to bond over the common enemy. Its the small things as well as the big things. Theres a lot more, where that came from.
Thats why I am a bit bitter about the SOUR GRAPES. What a waste of time and brain real estate Ive given over the years.
One of the unmentioned topics was her "breakdown" at her aunties. Somehow (long story) during stormy weather, Toxic Troll and PowerSulk were forced to stay at Crazy Trolls knarly apartment. PS didnt like it, wasnt comfortable, started crying and was considering calling dadee to swoop in to come pick her up (60 mile round trip at night in the dark during a storm with downed trees, powerlines and car wrecks) Her recalling herself crying made her cry more, in the retelling. Shes done that many many times.
She really is great at the Cryfest. Is there such a thing as Tear Fatigue?
That is probably the most
That is probably the most narcissistic thing I've heard you say about her. That recounting how upset she was on a particular night that hearing HERSELF retell the story made her cry again. LMFAO!!
She really pours it on thick. She might have a mood disorder.
Narcissistic
Funny you should say that. Husband has called her that before. She might have a mood disorder, its not inconceivable given her genetics and parenting.
She DID mention that she has 2 different "personalities" between the 2 "houses". I wonder if in that 2 hours they were converging on each other? Like "Hi Munchkin! Hows mom? Hey Powersulk! How the heck are you and dad doing? Ohhhhh. Yeah Crazy Troll is super stinky. Yeap SM is so annoying..."
BRAVO Clove - Now stick to it
BRAVO Clove - Now stick to it.
Her grades = not your problem.
Her attitude = not your problem.
Her future = not your problem.
Her messes = not your problem.
Where she's going to live after graduation and 18 = not your problem and not in your house.
All of these problems belong to her and her parents.
Now, let's come up with a plan to get you busy with your life and friends and hobbies!!
UGH.
I WAS busy! all freaking weekend, and then all this stuff de railed me. I spent all day Saturday at my friends resale shop helping fill in, and dinners, and house organizing. And then "plop" go the tears.
AND now its snowing and raining all week into the weekend so Im working on dragging my resisting self to the gym, to work on all my disengagement muscles.
Thanks for the mantra. And Im rehoming the Golden Retriever, to a better more healthy environment.
Listen CLove, you must
Listen CLove, you must absolutely STOP helping and STOP trying to "figure out" how to solve this entire dysfunctional sitaution and people. You CAN'T. You must just let them deal with it as they want to. That's it. My DH is a lot like yours, abdicates himself from most responisibility "but she's in her rooooooom. I can't get her to dooooooo anything." And blaming me, the SM, for being too harsh, both in front of the SDs and to me, and I've no doubt to them when I'm not there. Thus, I am not responsible for a damm thing.
It's all on them. You need to grow a tougher skin because you need to let it roll off and out the door.
Just when
Im fine disappearing from SD16.5's life it seems she tries to suck me in. Glad Im not doing anything additional.
How did dad explain about
How did dad explain about telling SD all these things about you? Yes it's normal to give kids money and no there is no rule that they must do something for it. But it's not something to keep a secret from SM. Who cares he gave a kid some money? $20? Must keep a secret? Like he gave her 20k. Crazy. And dishes? He needs to invest in dishwasher to stop the nonsense. "Do it before SM comes home?" Too much drama over dang dishes. It's like a non issue. Why involve you?
I'd want to know how he explains all this. I'd be very upset as a SM
it feels to me that because he has no closeness with kids and doesn't know how to bond with them, he's bonding on hating on "common enemy": SM. And if he said those two things about money and dishes, he likely said more than that over the years and all fiascos with both SDs might be happening because he has been slowly turning them against you. How very wrong
Emotional Reasoning
Hugs Clove!
Boy, you have your hands full!
Scapegoating the StepMothers must be in D-Husbands’ genetics! Hard to deal with!
Many people have a hard time emotionally regulating themselves due to their parents not teaching them how- it’s a generational curse. My skids and my DH for that matter, can’t regulate their emotions to save their lives. OSD, like her BM, uses weed, alcohol, food, sex, etc. to self-medicate. YSD uses cutting and food and Tik-Tok. DH has his rose-colored welding goggles.
Since marrying and dealing with my own personal StepHell, I had to get better at regulating my own emotions. StepTalk.org keeps me sane!
BM, OSD and YSD are emotional thinkers. Their motto is – If I feel it – therefore it must be! Emotional reasoning is the condition of being so strongly influenced by their emotions that that person assumes that these feelings indicate objective truth. Whatever an emotional thinker feels he or she believes it -without any conditions and without any need of supporting facts or evidence. Emotional reasoning is often tied to negative emotions and mental states.
Case in point, our crazy-ass BM sunk to new levels of insanity when DH married me – why? He didn’t marry me because he moved on and found someone he loved – Oh No! IT WAS Because she felt he did a reverse discard, he married me to hurt her, to get his revenge. [INSERT EVIL LAUGH HERE] So, she had to destroy OSD’s and DH’s relationship – payback!
YSD gets into one of her moods. One day, she’s in despair. I picked her up from school in the evening and, unfortunately, I’m in a good mood. When I’m in a good mood – my skids hate when I show joy or happiness. Anyway, as YSD gets into the car, I cheerfully greet her. Big mistake! BAMB! She bursts into tears. It was the longest drive home. She gets out of the car while the car is still rolling up the driveway and proceeds to bawl while running up to her room and slams the door.
DH handled it. From our bedroom, I heard YSD screaming to DH, ‘…she dogs me!’
I figured this out later. In YSD’s emotional playbook, she was feeling despair about something (not caused by me) but because I was happy – it amplified her depression – so, she emotionally reasoned that I must have been the cause of her pain. Skids raised by unstable people only know how to do emotional reasoning – and I get blamed for a lot - it’s nothing personal.
Back to you – if your skid isn’t putting in the heavy lifting to change her situation with ANYTHING – but, using you as an emotional dumpster to regulate her emotions – then the issues might be PS’s inability to control her emotions and, using emotional reasoning to try to solve her problems in life. A lot of what you said PS said, could be just her using emotional reasoning and not really know what her true problems she needs to work on. To do so, she will need a therapist.
That's something a lot of
That's something a lot of posters here deal with - generational emotional dysfunction. As a stepmother, there's no way you're gonna fix it.
"she dogs you"
What was she accusing you of? Im in my 50's and sometimes the teen lingo escapes me.
YSD's Drama
YSD is not known for her communication skills or, her emotional stability.
She told her Dadddeeeee that mean old step monster was ‘dogging’ her!
I asked DH if he knew what YSD meant. DH believes, rolling his eyes, that YSD believed I was harassing her.
My exact words were, “Hello YSD, I’m glad to see you…we are having steak for dinner tonight.”
Yeah, I can see where those words could be offensive.
Remember, YSD has been enrolled (since birth) in the HCBM-Golden Uterus’ International Academy of the Advancement of Toxic and Irrational Emotional Reasoning and Scapegoating.
DH doesn’t believe that I “harassed” his daughter. He believed that YSD was ‘upset’ about ‘something’ and used me as a scapegoat.
What could that ‘something’ be?
Here’s my guess.
Aspiring to catch up with her older sister’s body count, in YSD’s spare time, under the PROFESSIONAL, NONEXISTANCE GUIDANCE of her egg donor, YSD participates (half-time) as an ‘entertainer’ at the HCBM-Golden Uterus’ Skank-Haus, hosting sleepovers with her boyfriend, I call ‘Clueless’. A few months ago, Clueless hurt himself trying to get his ‘little weeny’ over to YSD’s for a booty call. Now, he’s in physical therapy – not for his little weeny – his arm. That just made YSD MORE obsessed with Clueless. So much so that she wanted to ‘cut’ herself because ‘she hurt her boyfriend’. Now, instead of focusing on the class they have TOGETHER – YSD and Clueless “felt” it was more ‘romantic’ to fail together – like a suicide pack. Their relationship is a cross between Bullwinkle and Rocky meet – Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. If I had to pick, its more of a Sid and Nancy relationship – except – Nancy is trying to kill brain-dead Sid! Not the other way around!
It gets better…
The day I picked YSD up, her mean old teachers had been 'dogging' her all day! YSD is failing most of her classes. The teachers at the school where YSD (sometimes) attends are INCOMPETANT, they don’t see YSD’s uniqueness in her talent for not focusing on their classes; the idiot teachers have failed to appreciate the fact YSD has turned (NOT SUBMITTING homework in when its due) – into an art form. Being able to guess one correct answer out of 50 SHOULD earn the teachers’ respect.
In all of the drama, my DH keeps his Rose-Colored Welding Goggles fastened tightly on his head - for someone who can’t tell his ass from a hole in the ground – he’s a person who should never have had kids – but he keeps reassuring me that - EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY- he will TALK to her. No discipline, no consequences for YSD, no, all he wants to do is ‘talk’ to her about ‘her bad behavior’. That is, if he can get her to put the phone down long enough to get her attention.
I looked up 'dogging' on Urban Dictionary and couldn't find anything relavent. I believe it was just a lame term she picked up from her egg donor.
I suspect that
the word she meant might have been "bird-dogging" as in to keep a close beady eye on someone; to go after or on the track of (Merriam-Webster) someone.
Emotional Reasoning/Emotional Regulation
She has a lot of "meltdowns" (my term) and cries a lot. Her father cannot handle her crying, and I have always encouraged it (not understanding where it was coming from or if it was healthy as an emotional outlet or not)
Im still trying to figure out the "end game", but might have to consider that there was no actual "end game" and it was what you indicated - Emotional Reasoning/Regulation/Dumpstering
While they certainly have a game. These types of toxic people do
not have an end game.
If the game ends, they are left foundering.
Let them founder. Make your game bringing the pain and consequences to bear. Make your end game... ending their crap.
Hmmm? "emotional thinkers". "emotionally reasoned"
IMHO those those terms are mutually exclusive. Or at least.. an oxi-moron.
The kid definately needs a therapist. And a swift kick in the ass. Figuratively of course.
smh
CLove, you have a huge caring heart.
Time to turn that beautiful heart in your own direction.
Take care of you.
Thanks!
I will. I promise.
1. You cannot fix
1. You cannot fix relationships for them. no setups of activities.. no going between.. they will have what they have.
2. You have slipped into the role of head drill seargant in your home.. your DH views you like this.. and you also are putting yourself in the role when you feel like you should make her do dishes.. to "get her out of her room".. and your DH supports that with his "before Clove gets home" stuff.. and you truly feel that it is "for her own good".. but it's just not your place to make her a better person.. it's her dad's.. the more you have overfunctioned for him.. the more he has pulled back and the more she resents it.. so just stop that.. let it be.. your DH can do the dishes.
I think it's complicated still.. she is a kid trying to get through things hte easiest way she can.. and neither of her parents is invested or involved.
Shut down
Im definitely going to shut that DOWN.
Me as the enemy is NOT going to be their bonding glue.