Rebuilding?
OK I get the disengagement. I have even had moderate to good levels of success and am improving all the time. I have built some healthy boundaries and even have DH on board except where his guilty dad inner autopilot kicks in. Still all of this has had a massive impact on me over the last 3 years. I lost parts of myself and my life. Every second week for a while there I had to deal with the reality of myself as a person that did not deal with it very well and was triangulated into 3rd place in my own home.
I let my relationship with child, my work and my health suffer. I let my career slide badly because mainly my positive energy was always drained by having to engage in our household dynamic. I put so much effort into maintaining my loving and healthy relationship with DH in the face of manipulation and games. Counsellors and discussions, books, more discussions and arguments. More requests for money, more games, more fights. More counselling (just for me now, like I am the problem, but hey its helped a lot).
ENOUGH
I am fighting back. I am feeling like I have cleared the decks in lots of ways. I want to be the same person I was before. Good job, lovely child, healthy relationships, proud, decent and happy with my life.
OK some questions.
Did you fall fully back in love with your DH once you recovered? (part of me feels withdrawn from him, not deliberately but like a sort of self protection)
Did you know when you made it out or does the "blended" plague stay forever?
In my case SD18 is unlikely to move out for many years and stays in a fair bit. Is it only better once they go? Did yours slowly build at least some more interests?
SD's mum refuses to meet me or acknowledge me and has clearly been disrespectful. SD18 has had 4 years of disrespectful attitude as a result. DH has given her messages to improve but to be honest is clearer that she must be nice to my son. She now plays mini-wife and mini-mummy which I ignore 70% of the time. How do I get to 100%?
Deep down I think DH still sees me as a bad guy when SD18 plays him or when I reasonably say anything e.g. "Holidays are coming up, can we jointly plan for assisting SD to get out of the house more, get a job etc." Deep down it feels like he dislikes me for making life tougher. I think he preferred just giving her money and taking her everywhere and doing everything. It was the path of least resistance. Will he ever stop resenting me? Do you bring your DHs to order on this behaviour or let it slide?
Be honest.
You can fall back in love,
You can fall back in love, but you have to recommit when/if you are ready. Its a leap of faith. You can't hold back AND fall.
The blended plague stays forever, even when they are grown up. Graduations, visits, funeras, weddings, stepgrandchildren are all ripe for tension and stepfamily politics.
It is easier when they move out, but infrequent contact is proportionally more stressful.
It will always be much easier for him to resent you than blame and deal with his children. He will always prefer the path of least resistance.
You have to learn what you can accept and continue to fight for the issues that matter to you.
.,,in my experience.
Bojangles, I think your
Bojangles, I think your response is very well stated.
I have been in the step-parenting trenches for more than 30 years, and I concur with all your points.
My marriage even ended, then a new one with the same DH. We stayed divorced for more than 5 years before remarrying and have been together this time for more than 20 years.
The relationship with the SKs could have been a great one, but for the interference of the BM. So, I finally said "enough is enough" and I stopped trying. Literally, I just stopped. Now, if they want to reach out, I will certainly be receptive. But I no longer go out of my way, especially since they are grown adults and parents themselves now.
It has been the single best decision I've made as a SM. Now, I don't worry about what the BM says and I don't care what she says. It is their choice whether or not they succumb to her manipulations.
The husband still prefers the path of least resistance, but he gets a lot of resistance from me now when he tries to push for me to re-establish a relationship with them. It is not up to him, nor up to me. It is up to them.
Is this surrender on my part? Not at all. I actually have regained some self-respect.
2 1/2 years ago SD and her
2 1/2 years ago SD and her husband started screaming at me because I asked them to speak up instead of having mumbles, sideline conversations while we were in the car or in a room together. While this was happening DH ran out the door, he said he didn't want to be in the middle.
As a result, I stopped pretending to like SD, and informed DH she was no longer allowed in my home until he could tell her in front of me that she was to respect me as his wife - especially in my own home. This never happened so, even though our relationship has improved, there is still a shadow over the marriage. Unfinished business, but at this point I wonder if it is too late. I am not totally convinced he places the marraige as first in his life or that he stayed in the marriage for love.
One thing I learned is you NEVER let bad behavior slide. You have to start believing you have the right to be respected in your home, and convey that attitude to your DH. If he resents this he has to learn that it is your right. I assume your SD is living in your home because she is still going to school. It is really hard to disengage when skids are still in the home but you need to pull yourself away from the drama. SD needs to get a job and 'weened off'. You have expectations for a happy, healthy marriage, just the two of you, and DH needs to understand this.
Mine don't live in the home.
Mine don't live in the home. But it does continue. I think you may have lost some respect for your husband just as I have. I still love him very much, I will admit for a time there I was ready to pack it up, I couldn't understand why my husband if he loved me why he didn't stand up to his kids because of me being his wife. It least he should have told them look this is my wife show her some respect. Hasn't happened and never will. He has the guilty father syndrome. I know for a fact my husband like to think this mess is because of me. There his kids so he will always protect them weather they are right or wrong. I've seen it. I started standing up for myself when it comes to his adult kids to him not them. He doesn't like that. To bad the only thing I'm guilty of is letting it go on for so long. Why should I be punished because his adult kids haven't grown up to learn how to stand on there own 2 feet. I didn't raise them.
2 years since I banned sd
2 years since I banned sd from my home and life. For 8 years that woman ignored, isolated and humiliated me at every opportunity. For those 8 years DH defended and supported her. Worse still he blamed me or it all. I didn't like her, I was looking for trouble, I didn't want him to have a relationship with her, he didn't see her do that, I was too sensitive, he didn't hear her say that, I take everything the wrong way. Then Princess of evil gives birth to her first child and refuses to accept a gift from my hand, and tells daddy if he wants to see her child, he has to leave me.
I banquish her forever from my life and tell DH go with her. You see, I believed then and still believe that dh was responsible for allowing, supporting and defending her cruelty towards me. DH was the love of my life, my soul mate. I put his happiness above all others, including my own. He during those 8 years showed me who he really was, and how little he thought of me. To be honest, who in their right mind accepts abuse for 8 years anyway. So, my lack of courage contributed to this also.
My confidence, self esteem and sense of self have improved immensely since getting rid of he symptom of my anguish, SD, The root of the problem, DH is on antidepressants, which are helping him, and he is seeing a psychologist, but that's not doing much, DH is manipulating him.
Seeing that DH really is incapable of getting it, of ever accepting responsibility, or of making real change, no, I have not fallen back in love with him. I will always love him, but that in love feeling that spark, that wanting to be near him and putting his happiness above mine, that will never happen again, to fall in love with him all over again the way I did, would be to set myself up once again to be a victim of his abuse. He has the kind of personality that takes advantage of people's love and kindness, he took my love, my understanding,my empathy and compassion as a sign of my weakness, he can never change. That being the case I can never surrender myself to him ever again. I have to always be aware, on my guard.
I see what my husband did as a huge betrayal of my love, my trust and our marriage. When someone betrays you in this way, and can never really admit what they did, can never apologise and promise to never do this again. Well, you would be very foolish to fall back in love with them again. He has unfortunately done irrevocable damage to our marriage and has a personality disorder that prohibits him from knowing what he did was wrong. He believes everyone is selfish, everyone looks out only for themselves, and if you don't you get what you deserve.
When this all blew up, he chose what on the surface looks like me and our marriage. In actual fact, he chose himself. He stayed where he was looked after instead of going to the daughter he would have to look after. He dumped her and her child cold turkey, he left her to deal with feeling betrayed and while he caress because he misses her, he doesn't even stop and think of how she feels. To this day he sees all of this as a problem between her and I. It's not. It was a problem between him and I, he allowed her to make me feel like dog poo on the soles of her feet, and to feel hated and unwelcome in my own home. He still thinks if I had just put up with that,none of this would be happening. No, I would be vey silly to put on the blinders and fall "in love" all over again.
I am not there yet either
I am not there yet either even though it has been 3 1/2 years. I think I had to moarn my "old self" that was lost first.
The only time I feel really close to my husband like the "good old days" before all the drama is when we are on vacation far far away and know that NONE of them can interfere. I get little glimpses of how I used to feel about him during weddings and sometimes a movie will trigger it.
I hope I do get that feeling back again some day but so far, it hasn't happened.
My DH has apologized and is totally onboard with the disengaging and still I don't have those feelings back.
Sorry! You have it a lot worse than I did because you still have to live with her!
I feel the same too. Lost
I feel the same too. Lost a lot of love and respect for Dh over the Sd problems. cannot let my guard down anymore. Unconditional love is gone. There are too many conditions now. I still feel dh would rather please sd if she is around. this became evident on a recent visit to our new house, 2 hours away from SD. I am giving us a time to recover from the damage but it will never be the same I am sure.
I felt the same way no
I felt the same way no doormat. I was 49 when we married. I was head over heels. The fact we were so in love is why we let this happen. We were besotted by them and blinded by love.
Yep, totally get that. For
Yep, totally get that. For me, she has been out of our lives for 2 years now. But I don't let my guard down. I know she is no more than a phone call away. Whether it be dh phoning her, or her him, it could all come back, because I do not trust he can ever put me , our marriage over the demands of his daughter. He allowed her to get away with so much disrespect towards both of us, he never did and never would have pulled her into line, the only reason she is not in our lives is because I put her out, not him. I told him to go to. He didn't, for 6 months after that, he punished by withdrawing. It was only January this year when his contempt of me went to far and he knew it, he panicked and went to counselling begging me to stay. I attended a few counselling sessions with him, in one of them he admitted to the counsellor that he saw everything his daughter had done. That I had for years bent over backwards to try and make peace in our home, to make her welcome and in return she had caused nothing but trouble. But, he said he didn't want to say anything to her because she would have stopped talking to him.
So, that means for the 8 years he said, he didn't hear her say it, he didn't see her do it, I was too sensitive, I took it the wrong way, I just didn't like her and wanted to cause trouble, he knew he was blaming me and fighting with me, and making me feel miserable, for something that was out of my control. He knew I was bending over backwards to make her happy and she wasn't having a bar of it. She was a rude, disrespectful, hateful, vindictive cow, he knew it, blamed me for it, fought with me over it, all so she would talk to him.
I would be very, very stupid to give someone who did this to me, who was capable of doing this to me, my complete trust ever again. To give my trust to a man who put himself and it was himself he was looking out for, not his daughter, above me in such a cruel callous way for 8 years. Particularly a man I had loved so much, so deeply and so truly. He was my second husband, but he was the only man I had ever loved. He knew how much I loved him, and he used it against me, he knew what his daughter was doing and he loved himself more than me, so he let her, as long as she was talking to him, he was happy for her to abuse, isolate, insult and humiliate me. Yeah, you'd trust this guy again in a heartbeat wouldn't you,
I love him, but I'm not in love with him anymore. I have learned that you should not give anyone your complete, total and absolute love. You need to keep a little for yourself. I was blinded by love for dh, I could miss that man so badly even if we were sitting together in the same room. He was my world, he took that for granted, he abused that, he will never be my whole world ever again, only at best, a part of it. He was a lesson I needed to learn. I learnt that lesson, and I show myself more respect these days because of it.