Divorcing a disordered person

Oh My Gosh!

What a timely post!

My daughter is doing a mental health unit in school, and in it they are talking about dealing with trauma.

The teacher said, "We are each responsible to deal with our own trauma, no one else's."

At which point DD said, "Nuh-uh! A parent should be dealing with their trauma and their kid's."

Teacher re-iterated.

DD spoke up again and said, "No, frick that! You don't tell a teen to navigate their own trauma. The parent has a responsibility to us. Why is my mom only responsible for herself when she's caused this crap in our family? Why doesn't she have to navigate the stuff she caused with Dad? No. You're wrong. I don't accept that."

RDM

Your daughter is 100%+ correct. I think therapy is so into making a person feel good about themselves in spite of the harm they do to others because of their mental illness that it makes the concept of accountability fly out the window.

I know I hurt my daughter during my years of depression & fighting with her dad. When I was healing, one of our first conversations was me apologizing for the hurt I caused her without blaming her dad....something she sorted through on her own as we talked about things over the years. Doubt her dad ever recognized his part in it even after talking to him after 11 years away because his only thing was how he felt divorce made him look like a failure....all about "me, me, me"

Your daughter is too young yet to understand the complexities of what is taking place. Your daughter has a right to be angry and to desire accountability from her mother.

All three of your children are angry. They have a right to be angry. What their focus needs to be on right now is to develop and grow as individuals despite the failures of their mother.

You are hurt too and your children can see that. You all have to learn how to go forward in your lives despite how your wife has failed all of you. You all need to find healthier people to connect with and your daughter should be looking for healthy mentor figures.

You rarely mention your middle child. How is he doing in all this?

Yes, we all have to learn & develop from the wrongs that have been done around us & go forward with our lives. We can even forgive those who wronged us. However in the process, forgiveness doesn't mean that we don't hold them accountable & the choices we make as to whether we allow them into our life again doesn't determine whether we have forgiven or not it is all about holding them accountable especially if they have never looked to make amends to us.

Holding onto anger & not forgiving the harms people have done to us....even family, only hurt us, not them because most of the times they are clueless to or don't care about our feelings in the first place

From what you have shared, and what your daughter said, you and your children are experiencing “betrayal trauma”.

It is something you should look up and read about.

It was wrong for that teacher to respond the way she did. Not something the age group your daughter and her piers are mature enough to hear.

Your daughter genuinely feels abandoned and betrayed. You have felt this yourself.

It’s interesting the schools are doing a unit on mental health and talking about trauma. I’m glad for that.

I agree with what your daughter said, and wonder what authority writes the content of the course. It’s great these issues are being discussed, but wonder what kinds of things they are telling the kids.

If the school had offered this information to me back when I was a teen, it might have made a huge difference in my healthier life choices, in my relationship with my mother, too. My father had died, and my mother wallowed in her trauma, treating me as invisible. My emotions were not addressed, somewhat not allowed. I did not even recognize it as trauma, or know there was such a thing. Had the school addressed it, I might have gotten a therapist to talk to who would have shined the light on a lot of things.

Good for your daughter for being bold enough to speak her mind in class! You are raising a strong, young woman.

Yeah the kids feel abandoned and betrayed.

Everything I've said about the kids has been true, but I've been a little cryptic as to genders and how many kids I have at different times on here. To be honest, I lived in fear my wife would stumble upon my posts on here, so I was a little cryptic about ages, genders, our location, etc.

I do have a daughter. She's our youngest. She experienced neglect. In her own words, she was ignored until her mom wanted someone to hang out with or until she wanted a girlfriend, or wanted to be super-mom. The boys experienced neglect and emotional abuse. They were degraded for not being "man enough" for some things, and really had it hammered into them that the man's role is to provide, protect, pursue a woman and make her feel appreciated and special. That created some dynamics with GFs that I had to break.

It’s understandable that you hold back on certain details so you can stay anonymous. I have done that myself and I’m sure others do as well.

@RDMercer, watched a YouTube video that I think will really help you in your personal healing as you break away from your toxic wife.

The video is called Outsmart a Narcissist : A Proven 4- Step Plan to Take Your Power Back. This is put out by Mel Robbins.

This explains a lot about narcissistic behavior and how a person develops it and what it means so you can identify it and take steps to avoid falling victim. It will help you understand how you unknowingly got addicted to how your wife tested you and when you would experience a reward from her. This creates an actual addiction in the brain that victims are not consciously aware of.

You have talked about having empathy and I can see that however that can work against you and leave you vulnerable and that can hurt you when you need to be strong instead. If you set aside some time to watch this informational video you will see what I mean. Once you watch it you may feel it can be very helpful for your children to watch as well.

Add in your wife’s need to abuse and self medicate with alcohol and it’s no wonder your children fear her. One thing you don’t want is your children to begin to use drugs to escape. That NEVER fixes or solves anything. Instead it prevents emotional maturity to gradually take place.

Along the similar lines of what @Open Eyes is saying about kids in environments like that, even if they stay away from drugs & alcohol, they over time learn dysfunctional ways of responding to people like that.

I know personally growing up in a dysfunctional home over the years I started responding with anger & then when I saw similar behaviors in my own marriage, my anger responses grew because that was how I had learned to cope with it growing up & I grew into dysfunctional behaviors even though I grew to know exactly what I didn't want to be like I still learned my own dysfunctional ways of dealing with it. I see similar in my own daughter.

It is good y'all got out when you did & can break that dysfunction that was going on & learn healthy ways like you are doing now

Thank you BOTH!

And I will watch and listen carefully to the suggested video!

This is very timely. This weekend my wife called looking for our daughter, citing that I am supposed to, by the court order, foster relationships between her and the kids.

My response was; I have been, then don't feel safe, and it unsettles them to be pushed in that way.

This of course spun off into it all being my fault; I caused ALL the issues between her and the kids. I said, The oldest wants to charge you with abuse and neglect. He's a young man and already a Master Corporal, and he hired his own lawyer.

"NO. You did this. You created it. Everything he is saying is baseless and you put it in his mind. NO."

When I'm confronted with someone who is so utterly absolutely certain about something, I question myself. So, I've spent the last 48 hours examining all my memories and trying to decide if I'm crazy.

I can't imagine a scenario where someone could convince the kids that I'm a neglectful parent, or abusive in my words and actions. So.... I'm not sure how she thinks I could have created that in them towards her.

Thank you.

RDMercer

Wth. If she wants to see the kid, she CALLS AHEAD and makes plans, not day of!

Im sorry you suffered due to her projecting her inadequacies. Actually probably just her bad mood.

What exactly qualifies as "fostering relationships" between her and the kids? I would think it would start and end with facilitating visitation and not badmouthing her in front of them. Otherwise, it can NEVER be your job to change the way they feel about her or try to manipulate them to see her or feel differently about her. It's HER job to foster her relationship with her kids. For you, fostering a relationship should really just mean facilitating communication and visitation.

I'm also curious as to what fostering the relationship means from a legal standpoint.

There's a point when a kid is old enough to decide on their own space and boundaries, who they want to deal with, and what degree to include someone in their life at that point in time.

It seems like doctors and court systems and other authorities are often unable to recognize what may actually be happening, so in erring on the side of caution, the disordered person gets tremendous benefit of the doubt. While it's important that a child not be kept from a parent that they desire a relationship with, it's also important to protect a child's best interest since they don't always have a full concept of what's going on, or the maturity to handle peculiar situations that might come up- especially if they are alone with the disordered parent.

What strange waters to navigate.... I'm so sorry you are dealing with that.

Do watch the video I listed for you. What your wife said to you is very typical toxic behavior where the abuser blames the victim and refuses to take any responsibility. It’s not your job to make the children spend time with her. Do NOT let your wife lead you to accept any blame.

Also, try not to engage your wife at all. Each conversation will just be toxic and her own effort to get control and power. Also it’s best not to give her any information. She will only look for ways to twist and gain leverage just the way she did with you that you described in your last post. It’s important you learn not to give your wife any power. You have been slowly gaining in that skill, it takes time.

@Open Eyes

Play your cards very close. They know the weaknesses, and exploiting those is second nature.

There's no visitation order.

I have 100% guardianship.

GOOD POINT to not give her any info or ammo.

She really hasn't made any attempts with the kids. When she called, she only asked for DD.

Why?

I have a friend who is retired. His daughter was visiting from another state. She was going clothes shopping and asked my daughter if she wanted to go.

They bumped into one of my wife's flying monkeys.

Who pretended not to see them.

So... My daughter was seen in public with a (young) adult woman. Presto. The next day my wife called asking to talk to our daughter.

No concern. No request for updates. No request for info about the others. Just wanted to talk to our daughter.

RDM

Well that 'splains it!

Well... I thought so.

This friend of mine is through work. I've kept in touch since he retired 5 years ago, but my wife never met him.

Me and DD went to his place, and his daughter was visiting. Said, I'm going thrifting if you want to come, and they bump into one of my wife's single BFFs. My friend's daughter has no clue who this woman is, so just kept talking to DD about getting her back to me.

So.... That was the first phone call to ask about any of the kids since we separated a year ago.

When I told my wife DD wasn't home, she wanted to know where she was and what friends she's hanging out with now.