Recognising (the dynamics of) high conflict divorce

I recently found a fascinating article by Dr Kathy J. Marshack about high-conflict divorce. Although she primarily talks about high conflict divorce with a narcissist, I think her ideas are broadly applicable to other high-conflict personality types.

For me, what was interesting wasn’t so much the pointers on recognising a high-conflict divorce as such (I think most of us know when it’s happening to us!) but the insight it offers into the contribution the lower-conflict spouse makes to the conflict dynamic by playing “nice” and aspiring desperately to co-parent “properly” – even when their ex-spouse is simply not equipped to do so.

In effect, these lower-conflict Care Bear types fuel the fire in their own way by insisting on playing by an inappropriately win-win philosophy, and that’s something we seldom recognise.

Drawing attention to this dynamic is not about blaming the victim; instead, it’s about reminding us of the futility of continuing to remain attached to ineffective strategies even when they’re clearly not working.

If madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, maybe spouses who avoid getting or enforcing court orders and try again and again to reach consensus decisions with high-conflict exes are perpetrating their own version of crazy without even knowing it.

(That being said, I’m not for a moment suggesting that egalitarian ex-spouses attempt to emulate high-conflict tactics… Face it, as well as it being a negative and damaging approach, you’re simply not as good at anger, manipulation and confrontation as a naturally high conflict person!)

It seems to me that one of the major problems is when the egalitarian ex-spouse feels responsible for the rugged shape of the high-conflict co-parenting landscape. They feel like the level of conflict and lack of cooperation reflects badly on them, making them one of those parents who seem unable to “put the kids first”.

Lacking innate understanding of how high-conflict people work, they are sure that by continuing to set good examples of compromise and negotiation and applying the Golden Rule, their ex-spouse will eventually “see the light”, recognise the benefit to the kids and reform their ways. They try valiantly to be the perfect co-parent, perhaps trying to finally “earn” the approval and acknowledgement of their efforts that were never forthcoming during their marriage.

Or they are held hostage by fear of the kids being recruited and alienated by the other parent and become so ginger about not exacerbating the craziness or putting the kids in the middle that they end up a puppet to the whims and agendas of the high conflict parent.

There’s no easy answer, but the way forward is likely to require egalitarian types to have a radical rethink of how they deal with their high conflict ex-spouses, and insist strongly and firmly on appropriate boundaries and structure regarding communication, decision-making and interaction with the ex.

Instituting low-contact communication and adopting a parallel parenting instead of co-parenting model based on detailed parenting orders may offer other ways to mitigate the impact of your very own high-conflict ex-spouse.

Good luck.

From Recognising High Conflict Divorce:

“While controlling people are narcissistic and do not understand you, the other ingredient for a high conflict divorce is the narcissist’s counterpart, a person who works for equality in relationships. This type of person is often very nurturing and self-effacing, and has a strong sense of justice. Thus while the controlling person works toward a win-lose solution to problems, the nurturing or egalitarian person works for a win-win solution. According to Patricia Evans, this places the win-win person at a disadvantage. While the egalitarian person keeps empathizing with the controlling person in an effort to create a win-win solution, the controlling person views this behavior as weak and an opportunity to conquer.

Essentially the controlling person creates a power struggle with the unwitting egalitarian. This keeps the egalitarian “on the hook,” so to speak because they can’t seem to realize that they will never create a win-win solution with a controlling person. Sadly it appears to be true that narcissists marry egalitarians and create high conflict divorces all too often.”

Visit Recognising High Conflict Divorce for the rest of the article.

Is there really an epidemic of BPD among separated parents? (from In The Blender)

A couple of days ago, I reposted an article from Suite 101 called How Narcissists Abuse Children During Divorce in response to the huge weight of discussion in the online step-parenting community about personality disorders like Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the conflict explosions they reportedly generate in separation, divorce and co-parenting situations.

(Some of the comments on that post have been really interesting, and relate equally to this topic. Just so you know…)

To round out the topic, I’m reposting a great article by BioStep at In The Blender that explores Borderline Personality Disorder, the personality disorder most commonly mentioned in relation to co-parenting and divorce.

Only a small portion of BioStep’s article is included here, but it’s well worth clicking through (the link is at the end) to read the rest.

If what you read there rings true for you, there are some good resources available online about Borderline Personality Disorder generally, as well as a Yahoo usergroup specifically for people in “the sad and scary position of having to “co-parent” with a BPD against their choice”, and an online shop where you can buy William Eddy’s classic book Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing A Borderline or Narcissist.

(I don’t like the term “bio-mother/mum/mom” and don’t normally use it myself, hence it is not included in the title of this post. Sorry, BioStep!)

Is there really an epidemic of BPD among BioMoms?

It wasn’t until I became involved with the stepmom community that I heard about Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  The first book I encountered was “Stop Walking on Eggshells:  Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder” (by Paul T. Mason and Randi Kreger).  The book asks: Do you feel manipulated, controlled, or lied to? Are you the focus of intense, violent, and irrational rages? Do you feel you are ‘walking on eggshells’ to avoid the next confrontation?

I can hear the pastor of The Church of Stepmom saying, “Can I get an amen???”

If you’re reading the posts on stepmom support sites, BPD symptoms describe the behavior of a lot of biomoms perfectly and many stepmoms freely throw around an armchair diagnosis. But is there really an epidemic of undiagnosed BPD running rampant among biomoms?

Maybe.  Maybe not.

. . . . . . . . . .

Visit In The Blender to read the rest of the article.

Resources: How Narcissists Abuse Children During Divorce

Many, many separated family members describe the difficulty of co-parenting with high-conflict ex-spouses who they believe suffer from personality disorders, most often Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder.

Of course, few of these “diagnoses” will ever be confirmed by medical opinion, and most are probably applied mistakenly.

In many cases, these disorders become shorthand mis/labels for the challenges of high-conflict co-parenting; in others, people begin to doubt their own sanity in the face of behaviour patterns that seem completely incomprehensible.

Certainly, blogs like The Psycho Ex Wife describe conflicts so hideous that we can only begin to imagine the human cost of dealing with such depleting levels of crazy.

Hopefully, most of us (and the small ones we care about) will never have to cope with pathological narcissism, but if you do, it’s surely better to be informed and gather some strategies; resources are listed at the end of the article.

* * * * * * * *

How Narcissists Abuse Children During Divorce

By Paula Lovgren

Narcissistic Parents Emotionally Abuse Children. -Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Narcissists often use children as pawns during and after divorce. Learn to identify this emotional abuse of children caught in the middle.

The emotional abuse by a narcissist is pervasive and insidious. It impacts not only the narcissist’s spouse but his or her children as well. Once divorce proceedings begin, the narcissist’s abuse will likely escalate. Narcissists will use any means possible to gain control of the situation or to make themselves look better. Children become perfect pawns for narcissistic parents to use against their spouses. Identifying how narcissistic parents abuse their children is the first step to devising strategies to minimize abuse and help children cope.

Using Children as Pawns in Divorce

Narcissistic parents will often seek custody of children during a divorce even if previously they were not involved parents. It’s important to them to appear to be the better parent. Also, if they have custody of the children, it gives them another way to continue to control and abuse their spouse.

If narcissists don’t get custody of the children, after divorce, they may use visitation as a means of control and harassment. They may ask for many changes to visitation schedules to accommodate optional work, social and vacation events. Most often these requests will be to not to have the children when they are scheduled to. Narcissists may refuse to accommodate the spouse’s requests even when the requests are made for the benefit of the children.

………….

Read the rest of the article at Suite101: How Narcissists Abuse Children During Divorce

Cupcakery

On Thursday night I made four dozen cupcakes.

Boy C wanted to take treats to school to share with his whole class; while I didn’t have the energy to churn out enough cupcakes from our somewhat makeshift kitchen in the Boys’ City to feed all the kids in Boy A’s and Boy B’s classes as well, I sent them each off with enough cakey goodness for themselves and their teacher and four friends, and promised to bake for their classes next visit. They were fine with that.

Some of my most enduring memories of childhood are of my mother’s wonderful baking; there was very little money to spare in our house but always an abundance of biscuits, lamingtons and patty cakes. She even baked cakes to sell to local cafes using the tiny gas stove in the bus we lived in while my dad was building our house.

While I bake well myself, my focus has long been on producing fancypants grownup desserts rather than bulk kid-friendly treats. I made Nigella Lawson’s vanilla cupcakes (modded by pushing a square of milk chocolate into each one) for the Boys, and while they certainly elicited no complaints, they just didn’t have the moist, dense-but-light deliciousness of my own mum’s recipe.

I would love to think that my cooking could become part of the tapestry of the Boys’ childhood memories, similar to my remembrances of my grandmother’s Neenish tarts and my mother’s amazing cakes. Not in a “motherly” way, obviously, but Boy C greatly enjoys cooking with me and often thanks me for cooking “such yummy things” for them. I really hope we can hold on to cooking as a shared pleasure as he gets older.

Interestingly, I often notice that when I’ve had successes with dishes for the Boys, next visit it will transpire that their Mum has *coincidentally* cooked pancakes or chocolate self-saucing pudding or whatever it is a few times since then herself, and – of course – that hers is HEAPS better than mine, her recipe is the only “right” recipe and my (previously appreciated) way of cooking the dish is now suddenly “wrong”. And suddenly it can feel like I’ve got three little food police watching, critiquing and sometimes rejecting my meals….

I’m never competetive about the cooking thing, but I do work hard to find a niche where I can contribute to the Boys’ lives in ways they can accept, so it stings a bit when their Mum seems to be trying to undermine me on this level. Still, if that is what’s happening (and it may not be!), it can only be because she feels threatened in her role. Strange, because there’s no question in the Boys’ minds or in my mind as to whether I’m a rival mummy figure – it just isn’t that way at all, even with Boy C who has a close and affectionate relationship with me.

For instance, if we’re out and anyone mistakes us for a mum with her kids, the Boys are so quick to discount the idea that it can leave the hapless commenter looking a bit stunned. Recently we were all boarding a plane and the flight attendant on welcome duty made a comment about how much “my boys” look like me. My instant response was “No, they’re not mine, they’re my partner’s boys.” She was a little taken aback, so I added “Sorry, but if I hadn’t told you straightaway then they would have, and that could get noisy!”

So, since there’s no question that the Boys would ever see me as a mother, think of me as a mother or get mixed up about who is their mother, and I’m not in any danger of doing that either, plus I’ve tried to communicate these things to the Boys’ Mum by mentioning how proud they are of her and how loyally they speak about her to us, I wish I could just be left in peace to cook pancakes or meatballs or chocolate pudding for them without being undermined!

How do food and cooking work in your stepfamily?

Storm’s coming

You know how maestro piano players are sometimes described as playing a piece of music “stormily”?

The Lovely Man is in the study at the moment, and I can tell he is writing his email response to the Boys’ Mum’s most recent sound-and-light-show communication because his typing is noticeably stormy in volume, tone and rhythm.

It’s a bit sad that the amount of conflict she orchestrates means that I have learned to distinguish between an email being typed to her and an email being typed to any other random person FROM ANOTHER ROOM!

What are the storm warnings that stepfamily drama is brewing in your home?

Stepfamily Roles

Role ambiguity is described in stepfamily research and literature as one of the biggest hurdles for stepfamily members, and especially for stepmothers.

Basically, many of us aren’t sure who or what we are “meant” to be in our new families – to our stepkids, to our partners in relation to their children, to the kids’ other parent/s.

And of course, when you give people an enormous, high-pressure task that that they are really, really motivated to ‘get right’ because their marriage, their family and much of their self-worth apparently depends on their success, BUT you don’t provide them with clear guidance about what to do or how to do it, AND you throw a lot of interpersonal and societal judgement into the mix… well, surely that’s a never-fail recipe for Nightmare Cake.

So anyway, when Anne O’Connor’s thorough, well-written and very helpful article from DivorceMag on Stepfamily Roles recently washed up on my electronic beach, for the above reasons and more I felt it was well worth reposting….

With separate snapshots of information for stepmothers, stepfathers, mothers and fathers on helpful ways to negotiate their roles in the extended stepfamily system, useful, practical dos and don’ts for each role and a special section on the often problematic mother-stepmother divide, this article would be a great one to keep up your sleeve for reference or to send to someone new to stepfamily life.

Deesha Philyaw, crazy schedules and humble pie

I have an assignment due.

(Because my MacBook is actually magic, I can hear what you’re thinking right now – yes, I am procrastinating.)

So rather than do the responsible student thing and not post at all, here are a few links that I’ve enjoyed mightily of late.

I’ve followed Deesha Philyaw‘s writing ever since I found her on Twitter; she’s funny, insightful, and writes brilliantly and honestly about co-parenting/stepparenting from an insider’s perspective.

What I didn’t realise until recently, though, was that her stepfamily life is even more complicated than mine and the Lovely Man’s. In fact, by comparison with Deesha we are pathetic little grizzlers who really need to pull our big girl panties up.

In other news, over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had conversations with two recently separated friends who each declared (slightly defensively, knowing that I am a stepmum myself) that they are NOT going to be “That Kind of Ex-Wife”. Fingers crossed they will both be able to tame their fieryness enough to negotiate the forthcoming challenges in that department…

I’m not going to email either of them The Elmira Gulch Chronicles, Or: How Not To Be THAT Ex-Wife. But I’m tempted. After all, it turns The Wizard Of Oz movie, that foundation stone of all childhood entertainment, into a teachable moment – what’s not to love?

A safer bet might be What To Get The Divorced Parent Who Has Half Of Everything. They’ll be much more likely to giggle than slap me, hopefully.

Finally, I’ve been contemplating writing a follow-up post to a recent article of Peggy Nolan’s about making mistakes as a stepmother.

I’ve made a few stepmum mistakes of my own recently, one of which memorably and terrifyingly – hell, it was a true “worst nightmare” moment – involved sending the wrong person the wrong email…

In general, though, learning where and when to take responsibility (and where not to!) is something I’m working on. I may still write the post sometime soon. Meanwhile, though, if you haven’t read Peggy’s article Eating Humble Pie at The Stepmom’s Tool Box I really, really recommend it.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Under the surface

On our overseas trip earlier this year, the Lovely Man and I met up with some friends, a couple who’ve been together about the same length of time as us, F & G.

Like us, they are a few years apart in age.

The guy, F, works in the same industry as the Lovely Man, so they have a lot in common there.

We all share some interests, but although we’ve been on holiday with them before, I’ve never felt that I knew them very well – they were really nice acquaintances rather than close friends.

When we met up with them this time, I went to give G a hug hello and immediately noticed a stonking great rock on her engagement finger. This thing was MASSIVE – when it glittered in the light I felt like I had been beamed, in a kind of “roo in the headlights” way. But it was very beautiful and tasteful. Exquisite, in fact.

I immediately thought:

Aha! Got an announcement to make then, guys?

And, sure enough, a few minutes of my valiantly trying to avert my gaze into the conversation, they kind of wriggled a bit bashfully and went pink and said:

Oh, and we’ve got some news, by the way. We got engaged!

No shit, Sherlock.

G was obviously a bit self-conscious about her new bling but very happy to relate the story of how F had smuggled the ring into his holiday backpack by completely wrapping it in gaffer tape and telling her it was a piece of work equipment he needed to claim a duty refund on while they were out of the country.

They are lovely people, and I really enjoyed spending time with them. But I couldn’t help thinking, looking at G’s husband-to-be and her happiness, that I wished things could have been so straightforward for me and the Lovely Man.

I never imagined, for instance, that well over two years into our relationship, he would still legally be married to somebody else.

As pleased as I was for my friends, it was all too easy to feel a bit wistful by comparison.

One day, though, the Great Blokey Men went off to do Death-Defying Man Stuff together and so G and I headed out to get lost on the mountain have some adventures ourselves.

We were talking about her relationship with F, as you do, and how happy she was, and how great he was, and how they were thinking of having kids soon, and where they were going to go for their honeymoon… when she totally dropped a bomb.

Haltingly, she told me a story that made me quadruple-take and completely cash in my assumptions about their so-called easy road.

While F may not have kids from a previous relationship, perhaps even more bogglingly, he “co-parents” three dogs with his ex-partner of ten years.

Whoa!

As it all came out – the crazy ex, the way she wanders into their house uninvited, the unscheduled late-night handovers, how she uses the dogs to stay connected to his life, F’s inability to set firm boundaries, the huge amounts of money she guilts out of F for “the dogs”, the way she phones constantly and manufactures dog drama to get attention, the threats to take the dogs away and never let F see them again that paralyse him with fear – all I could think was:

That sounds about right.

G went on to say how the situation had driven her to the edge of her mind, the constant encroachments and feeling second in her relationship to a trio of spoilt dogs and a vindictive, crazy-making ex eventually landing her in counselling.

She said that her friends and family couldn’t really understand, that they tended to minimise the difficulties of the situation and say totally unhelpful things like:

Can’t you just ignore it?

G even said that she felt terribly guilty at not being able to love these dogs that were so important to F.

Yep, sounds about right.

I guess co-parenting drama is co-parenting drama whether the young ‘uns involved have feathers, fur, fins or feet.

And as much as I love dogs, I can understand G feeling ripped off that despite F not even having kids she is still experiencing the joys of stepfamily life, navigating unbreakable ties formed before she was around and dealing with a trouble-making, boundary-free ex with a penchant for encroachment and manipulation.

At least the Lovely Man’s Boys are worth the dramas. I’d have a VERY hard time if we were going through all that for a trio of naughty, floor-weeing canines.

G was clearly relieved to share her situation with someone who all-too-easily understood the emotional toll it was taking, while I got a timely lesson in the grass not always being quite as green as it looks.

And, incidentally, for the first time I felt like we made an emotional connection that went beyond just doing stuff together.

We’ll be going to their wedding sometime next year. I’ll be looking out for something like this:

They’re gone

This morning, at the end of my tether two-and-a-half weeks, I put the Stepboys and the Lovely Man on the plane back to the Boys’ city.

I’m now back in the house, which is filled with the flies that result from doors being left open for two weeks. But otherwise, it’s quiet. At last.

And filthy.

I’m physically and emotionally exhausted by the intensity of life with three kids, but even more by the stress of the last 48 hours, which Boy A spent being as utterly toxic as he could manage, in as many different ways as he could invent.

To me, and (what hurts me more) to his loving, generous, wonderful Dad.

The first and the last two days of this visit were hell. In-between-times, we all actually had some really good fun.

I often notice that the boys act out badly for the beginning and closing one to two days of their time with us, in what we’ve come to refer to as “Handover Syndrome”.

Refusing to answer when spoken to, being especially rough with each other and us, hostile comments, being withdrawn and easily upset, disrespectful behaviour, even downright nastiness.

As well as undermining, stirring or recruiting the other kids to similar behaviours, if they’re not already engaged in them.

And me? I personally experience Handover Syndrome as inducing symptoms of tiredness, teariness and an intense desire for pampering.

I’m sure these reactions, both the kids’ and mine, are completely normal.

Do other stepfamilies out there experience these handover “symptoms”? Do you have a name for them?