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Disengaged forever - the turning point in my now happy life

Still Have Hope's picture

Submitted by Still Have Hope on Sat, 10/13/2012 - 7:58am

My turning point came when skid called me to pick her up in an ice storm after she totaled DH's car. I drove an hour on icy roads only to have her get out of the car on the highway when I refused to drive her to her boyfriends. I told her she could stay the night at my house and I would take her anywhere she wanted the next day when the roads were clear.
I had been partially disengaged for years but this did it. I no longer took skids calls. If DH was out of town as he was during the ice storm incident, I let all their calls go to voicemail. I am polite when they visit but do nothing special. DH handles birthdays and Christmas like a typical male with giftcards. The last 2 years have been the happiest of my life.

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NJStepmom's picture

Submitted by NJStepmom on Sat, 10/13/2012 - 8:08am

I suppose there are millions of reasons to disengage, but from where I sit there are two which stand out - the first is that the skid is inappropriate in most instances, selfish etc and nothing you do will change that and the second is that the BM makes things so hard, and the skid is so sweet, but the drama attached to the skid is impossible to handle and have a peaceful life at the same time. I think it would be much easier to have situation one on your hands and frankly, I am a bit jealous of you. My skid is just 6. I have been with DH for 2+ years now and the skid is just a doll, but the BM is extremely abusive toward the skid and my DH. (I have nothing to do with her but her comments to DH make clear her feelings about me) Have you seen the movie Pacific Heights? Well, I feel like I am living it, only instead of a house, it is a child. BM is not very intelligent, but extremely cunning. She is very careful to do things that cannot be proven and it goes on and on. I have never been so miserable and have wanted to disengage, but the beautiful little boy is begging for help... I cannot disengage now and let him down. He adores me and DH and we want full custody but right now we have visitation and shared legal custody. We go back to court in four weeks.... fingers crossed we can get more visitation.

godess-clueless's picture

Submitted by godess-clueless on Sat, 10/13/2012 - 9:49am

stepaside---moving away does make a difference. It sure did with us. When we lived 20 minutes away the steps had stopped coming around for what ever reasons. Now that we moved 3 hours away to Mi. have not seen the girls at all. It's been 5 years. My DH still makes a trip at least one time a year to pass out christmas money. Personally if he did not show up with gift cards in hand he would never see them. He had been invited to a christmas celebration 5 years ago with the entire ex family at a daughter's home. After that I noticed it was not so much a matter of them calling to invite him for their gatherings, but DH calling to see what their plans were and inviting himself to their gatherings .

DH did not look at it as inviting himself. My perception of what was going on was different then his. To me, if you call up the family members that all live in the same building as their mom and ask "what are you doing for Christmas, I was going to stop by" of course you will be invited over. And of course they are not going to leave poor old single mom alone on that day. Their christmas was already planned with mom.

Unfortunately, DH is quickly getting to the point that 3 hr. trips in a car are excruciating. There is less and less for them to converse about because they really do not know each other anymore. He barely knows the grandkids. Repeated small talk about "the old days" runs out quickly. He often finds himself in a crowded apartment with a room full of children, their extended families, and people he will never see again. i have to laugh at all the pictures he came back with of people he does not know yet says were so happy to see him.