Divorce And Other Estrangers

The primary trauma to our children was revolved around a brutal divorce, where people actually SPAT at each other. This was compounded by their insecure and psychologically unbalanced biological mother, a loving father and a stepmother who loved them like they were her own - so much so that she never had any children of her own. My husband's ex - spurred on by the womens liberation ideals of the 70's, decided that she would rather be single and so while obtaining her nursing credentials, tossed her husband out - with nary a thought to the three young children who cared about him. Everything was fine - he would come and take them out weekends until he met and moved in with me - then, all of a sudden, we were living more as a family and he became a villain...someone to be held at arms length and treated like a neighbor rather than a dad. At ages 16, 15 and 13, they sneaked off with their mother to move down to Texas (in violation of a court order) without even saying goodbye to their dad (we came there and found the house empty btw), even though we offered to have them live with us - we had even started looking for a bigger house in an excellent school district for them. Then, when it didn't pan out, they all had to come back home - tails between their legs - I believe that the children tried to always keep their father and me at an emotional distance. I think this made them feel very much conflicted. I think the mother had a lot to do with it. The oldest daughter - who became mother ad litum, raised the other 2 kids as MOMMY worked and dated as a "single gal". I think she may have felt obligated to take over as an emotional watchdog that monitored amount of love and attention they demonstrated towards us to make sure MOMMY didn’t get too pissed off. And so we did the weekend thing - where they would come and stay with us under the ever-present unspoken disapproval of MOMMY. Holidays were even worse because MOMMY did not want to share them with us - We did not qualify as parents did so she wanted Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to spend with the children. We got to see them for an hour or two - if we were lucky. Christmas Eve was a horror show - we would come home from work, drive out to pick up the kids (about 30 miles) bring them to my husband'mom in Manhattan (40 miles) then back to our place for presents (about 20 miles) and then back to their house (30 miles). An added handicap was that we had to do it all before midnight. MOMMY would call about 11:30 - as we were opening presents - drunkenly asking, "Where are you?” When we would being them home, the house would be dark. How Fucked up is THAT? And folks wonder why we hate the holidays! As they grew up - the mother's dominance and influence morphed into their protectiveness of her - It was all about Poor MOMMY - Poor MOMMY didn't have the money dad & Stepmom made, she didn't have a life's mate like dad did - no one wanted to marry MOMMY - Besides a string of boyfriends who came and went (in fact, the Texas disaster culminated in her finding out the man she had followed there had a wife and family), all MOMMY had was them. So a hive was formed to protect their queen until our ED usurped her and became a queen bee herself. So yes - I think the divorce - coupled with the weak natured, sneaky character of my husband's children which was so apparently inherited from their mother, added to the problems. - It was bound to be a recipe for disaster. My husband's children were secretive in nature, emotionally undemonstrative and all in all, constipated in their behavior. They were an extremely tight-knit and dysfunctional group. I think they were surprised and unbelieving when we would tell them they loved them. Their self-esteem was zero. We knew a family of divorce who could relate to the father - but the mother turned out to be a cheat and so it was a poor Daddy situation rather than a Poor Mommy one. What else can be said - It sucked - but it was what it was -.