There have been times as a Stepmom when I have become aware of something I know the kid’s Mother or Father need to know about. I learned to know the difference, when I can hold something to myself and when I can’t. Basically I use my gut as the barometer. If it eats at me and I have to get rid of it then I need to tell what I know. That said I always try to find a way to be above board about it because I want the kids to trust me and if I tell them I’ll keep a confidence I try to do that. If I know they are telling me something I can’t keep to myself, I’ll usually tell them that. In fact, I have come to believe that usually the reason they tell me these things is because they think I can help them through a rough patch and help bring their Dad into a situation when they don’t know how or they are uncomfortable doing so.
At times like this the subject matter has ranged from normal teenaged boy and girl stuff, to things having to do with their Mother, their feelings when it comes to their Mom and their Dad and/or feelings they have about different things; decisions they may be facing. A few days ago though I came about some knowledge that to me was about the most sensitive of nature I’ve come by. I sat on it for a couple of days while I worked with the daughter who let me in on this to come to a place where she felt ok about my divulging to my husband what we both were sure he needed to know.
Subject matter is, putting malicious content online at the expense of family. It seems that our “I need to fix him” daughter for whatever reason has been telling her boyfriend that her Dad abuses her. We don’t think she’s actually coming out and saying it, she’s just implying it. Since they have to communicate on line, she is writing these things to him about her Dad. I’m getting all this from her sister, I’ve never seen it myself. Her sister says she actually saw a part of a conversation. She says her sister’s boyfriend actually showed it to her. What she saw was an excerpt that went something like…what’s wrong? Nothing is wrong. What is it? Nothing, it’s all my fault anyway. What do you mean your fault? I just fell down the stairs he really didn’t mean to push me. Your Dad pushed you down the stairs? It’s ok, it was my fault. I shouldn’t have come home 5 minutes late I know it makes him mad.
This girl has for years liked to read and watch romance/drama stories. I don’t know whether, knowing this boy was an abuse victim, she somehow thinks she is giving him a bond…something they can share and identify with each other on…or whether she just lives in a Harlequin Romance novel and we are the characters…or what. I was absolutely beside myself for many reasons. As my daughter told me this about her sister, I just kept saying, your Dad has to know about this. I mean it’s bad enough to make up this kind of stuff just because you feel like it makes you somehow closer to a boy and that you are willing to sacrifice your Father for it….but to do this out in the public domain? That’s out there about my husband forever. Our daughter told me she had tried confronting her sister on this but was quickly and angrily shutdown. She denied it. Sister girl has tried to hack into her sister’sFacebook, where all these conversations take place. No go. It now makes sense to me why that daughter goes absolutely ape whenever someone asks her if they can use her laptop. So now that our other daughter told me, she is understandably concerned that this will drive a huge wedge between the her and her sister because she told us about this. And I’m sure it would. Equally as upsetting to me is that according to our daughter she had discussed all this with her Mother. She said her Mother’s reaction was oh she just wants attention. Well that may be true, but sometimes doing nothing isn’t the answer. If she had any respect for her kid’s Father,in my opinion, she would have been the one to tell him about this. The more I thought about this the worse I felt. It was the girls’ week with their Mother..just as well because I was upset and facing the heroine in our story would have been at best difficult. I was angry at her for thinking only of herself and so little about the man whose reputation she was trashing. I was angry that, by the way, this man she was trashing has taken care of her needs and has worked hard to see she had everything she wanted and he never had, all her life…and she was ok saying this about her him. I became even angrier when I thought about us bending over backwards to see that she could bring this boy over to our “abusive” household…and all the times she sat right across from us with him knowing she was portraying her Dad as something he’s not.
So I said to our other daughter, you know, let’s flip this around. If we knew this was being done and your Mother was the one who was being talked bad about, wouldn’t the right thing to do be to try to stop it? She agreed it would. I said it seems to me then, we owe it to your Dad to do the same. I asked her how she felt about me telling him all this, but making sure her real concern that he had to figure out how to approach it and keep his source to himself. She finally said you know what, ok. It’s her problem not mine. I said thing is….you have to be sure. She said I’m sure. Right oh.
I thought about how to approach this with my husband. I ended up just being direct. I told him what might be happening. He listened to what I had to say and I had a lot to say…and he just said ok. He said she’s doing the same thing her brother did. I wrote about that in an earlier post. He didn’t show outwardly that he was near as upset about this as I was or that I thought he should have been. I asked him what he was going to do and he honestly responded he wasn’t sure. I know this hurts his feelings much more than he lets on. He’s even allowed her to continue to bring this boy here. I don’t like that, don’t know how he does it. It takes everything I have right now not to go there with this girl. To be honest it’s real hard for me to even be around her right now. I am trying real hard to be the grown up.
Lessons learned
- No one can truly understand the motivations of another I don’t think, nor why they do some of the things they do. I am reminded that sometimes good people do bad things.
- Sometimes my kids have intentionally or unintentionally put something between me and my husband. At times like those I have had to figure out how to get it out of there, and make it into a situation we can all live with. Not easy….but I’ve always managed to do it.
- Things happen with my kids that really put me to the test. This is a doozy. I’m still so mad about it. I’ll get through it somehow. Eventually. When she’s older and I am less angry I am sure I’ll have a chat with her about all this. Not now
- I know there are times when my husband thinks he’s not strong. I disagree.
Christy
Good StepMom
