Ep39~ Taking The High Road (Pt 1)

On this podcast, I typically focus on light subjects and keep things positive and fun around being single and dating.  However, I think it's important to keep in mind we can't be happy and healthy singles if we haven't learned from our past.  In this episode, I share many stories of narcissism and triangulation I encountered during my second marriage.  

As I am still learning and healing from divorce, I know many of you are too.  I tried to record in a way to relate to the challenges of co-parenting with difficult people.  If you've never done life with someone toxic, you'll get a lot of insights on what to look for and avoid as you date.

To begin, I share several real examples of narcissist traits I recognized in my husband's first wife:

• Obsessive Control
• Manipulation/Lying
• Portraying a clean public image
• Private emotionally abusive behavior 
• Public displays of charity and gift giving for adoration & praise of others 
• Golden Child
• Triangulation in Communication

My reactions and responses to these behaviors were not always polite. I broke a few times throughout the years and did not always "take the high road".  I  scoffed, glared, rolled my eyes, and on a couple of occasions, I yelled.  Although I went to therapy throughout my marriage, I never developed the tools to intervene or advocate for my stepdaughters in a way that would bring lasting change. I hope that this podcast helps those of you in a similar situation. 

 If you've never done life with someone toxic, you'll get a lot of insights into traits to watch out for and avoid as you date and enter into relationships.  We can all learn from my mistakes together! 

In Ep 40 (Pt 2), my friend, Emma Wood, a Licensed Clinical Therapist, does a magnificent job of clinically explaining Narcissism, Triangulation, and Gas Lighting. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to man shopping with Stacy, where I share my real transparent dating and life experiences for your amusement and inspiration. I'm trying to spread a little joy over here to singles, just like me. I'm your host sta weer, and you are listening to episode 39 taking the high road. How many of you have used that phrase since you've been through a separation, a breakup or a divorce? It's always up to at least one person in the relationship to try to take the high road. We've all been in this position. And so in this episode, I'm going many, many examples from my second marriage where I have done my best to take the high road. I've talked before about how I felt silenced during that marriage. And I'm gonna tell you why in this episode, this is going to be a two part episode in this first, um, episode 39 of taking the high road. I'm going to share some very specific examples from my life around narcissism and triangulation. And in the second episode of taking the high road part, my friend, Emma Wood, a licensed clinical therapist joins me to talk about these topics, narcissistic traits she explains. And then she talks about why triangulation happens and gives some helpful, um, anecdotes on how to get through that. And you can shift the dynamics. And then we also talk about a third topic, gas lighting. And in that episode, I share some examples of when I have been gaslighted. So diving in on the topic of narcissism, I feel like this word gets tossed around really haphazardly in divorce. I personally think that there's a big difference between being a little self-centered and selfish in relationships and being a full fledged narcissist. So let me share my experiences with you and how I tried to navigate life, attempting to co-parent with someone who I consider to be a narcissist, her passive and very supportive husband and my husband who was struggling with an addiction to alcohol and just couldn't cope with life very well. So this is a obvious like recipe for disaster. So to be specific so you can follow the story. This is from my second marriage, we had four, co-parents trying, trying to parent two girls. This is my ex-husband his first wife and her husband. Let's just start at the beginning. I met my ex-husband a few years after he was divorced from his first wife on match.com. As I was getting to know my new boyfriend, we did what most people do, and we shared some insights into what our marriage had and like, and what that relationship looked like now that they were divorced. And co-parenting, he made it very clear that his ex divorced him. He speculated pure speculation that she was cheating with her boss. She left him unexpectedly in his mind, they were kind of struggling to co-parent together and he blamed her difficult personality for that. So that was my backgrounder that I was given as we started spending more and more time together. And I had met his children. I noticed that she had a very strong desire to control him, even though, you know, she divorced him, did not want to be with him. And in fact, she was engaged to be married at that time. So that was kind of perplexing to me. Why was she blowing up my boyfriend's phone all of the time while she was engaged to another man? It seemed as though she was one, those people who didn't want my boyfriend, but also didn't want him to be with anyone else. So that was my first flag. After several instances of watching my then boyfriend struggle with her, overcommunication with him about me. I offered, eat her for coffee. I'm a fixer. I like a good challenge. I wanted things to go smoothly between all of us. And so I thought if we met for coffee, that she would see that I was a nice person and we would get along just fine. So we met for coffee and it didn't go like that at all. Shocker. Right? When we sat down for coffee, she spent our time together, essentially telling me everything bad. She could think of about my then boyfriend. She gave me example after example of how he had let her down during their marriage and also made a firm point to me. He had told her that he would never get married again. And she wanted me to know that without a doubt. And I remember just kind of laughing at her and saying, we just started dating. Like, why are you telling me this? So I, I knew all of the stories that she was sharing with me from my boyfriend's perspective. So it didn't hold a lot of weight. I felt like she was very combative, very manipulative, and she did all of it with this huge smile and lots of big cack laughs throughout the conversation. Very, very odd. And as soon as we parted ways, she sent me a Facebook friend request and I immediately was like, there is no way in hell. I am going to give this woman ammo by like her having a little vision, you know, into my private life. I could see that that was not a good idea right at the beginning. So I did what any good girlfriend does. And I exposed her to my boyfriend. I told him everything bad that she had said about him. I told him that it did not go well at all. Even though she tried to put it under this friendly guise of like sharing one woman to another, I wasn't buying it. He was, um, that she talked about him in the way that she did. He felt violated. He was very supportive of me. He sent me flowers, he apologized and we stayed together through that conversation, even though I already had my reservations. So after that, um, it didn't end go figure. It just kind of started spiraling and getting worse. As we continued to date, I saw more and more, you know, warning signs and fell act after, um, she got married a few months later and pregnant on her honeymoon. She was still blowing up his phone. And I remember it was always about him and I, and there was, um, an instance where he and I had gone to his parents' lake house. And we, um, this was months down the road. We slept on a giant boat that his parents owned and the kids slept in the same quarters like with us. And after the kids returned home to their mom, she called my boyfriend and told him that the girls had reported back to her that there was like sexual behavior going on in front of them over the weekend, found this highly suspicious as did my boyfriend, as there was no way that anything like that took place or any room, even for interpretation on the girls' part to report that back to their mom. We both knew that, um, this wasn't true and that we just found it very hard to believe that a couple of little kids were talking 5, 6, 7 years old would come up with that on their own. And so that was, you know, another huge flag right now, as we continued to date like that was my first hunch that if I, with my boyfriend, um, I would be at risk of being, you know, these sorts of lies and allegations. And I didn't take any of that lightly. It was a problem and I almost broke up, well, I did, I broke up with him at least one time that I can remember because of his first wife's actions and behaviors. And I, I remember telling him like, you have to deal with her, but I don't like, she's not my problem. I don't, I didn't sign up, you know, for a life of, um, all of this know anger and manipulation. And I just did not want to have anything to do with it. I was at my wits end several different times. And as I got to know his family and his loved ones, I kept like there was this theme. Everyone in his life was warning me about her. She was torture grade as a complete monster, a lot of entitlement issues and attention through arguing and crying and things like that at family gatherings. And one of the examples that I was given time and time again, was this epic first birthday party that was thrown for their daughter. Now, one of the things that I've learned in my research and education since this Mar since my marriage ended, is that most narcissists have a golden child. They have a child that they dot on more than the others. They put this child up on a pedestal and basical live vicariously through them. And it was made very clear to me before I even knew her children. Well, exactly which one was the golden child, glaringly obvious to everyone that encountered, um, this woman and her family. So, so it took me a little while to understand that dynamic of the golden child, but it played out in many ways that you'll hear about as I continue to tell these stories, despite all of the flags and obvious warnings from all of the loved, we sure did get married. Because again, I was absolutely madly in love with this man. And I felt that I could overcome these challenges. I'm a fixer. I loved him. I loved his girls. I desperately wanted a family of wanted him to be a stepdad to my daughter. And I felt, again, like we can get through this. This is gonna be okay. So I was a little behind the ball, but I was trying to do my own little research on blending families. And what does this look like? And one of the most obvious things that I felt, um, we could do to make life better, we would be to have things at our house, for the girls, their own drawers, their own clothes, their own things in the bathroom. Because up until that point, they were basically a guest with their dad on the weekends. Now he only had parental custody every other weekend. I mean, how old school is that? And it was because the girls were very young when the divorce occurred. I, I know his youngest daughter was something like 18 months old. So he was traveling a lot of overnights for work back then. And there was just, he wasn't, and he wasn't actually physically present, um, in Kansas city to have custody. So that didn't change. When I met him, it was just an every other weekend schedule. And they would literally pack their little backpacks to come and stay at our house. And I was like, that just doesn't feel right. Like this is our home. We're blending our faith families. Like they need to have their own things here and they need to feel like this is their second home. Well, again, the controlling nature of their mom pushed back, hated that idea, thought it was, you know, ludicrous. Like she had never heard of such a thing. She didn't at all see that as a sign of, of care and love and inclusion with her girls. She saw it as a threat. She was and she was at me. She knew that that was my idea because my ex, you know, her, her ex too, had never, you know, um, thought of such a thing. So that was, um, another inkling, you know, that, holy, this is gonna be really hard because I felt like that was a really reasonable, um, thing to do for the kids. And a clear, again, a clear, um, show of love for them, but that's not how it was interpreted or made out to be. It was made to be like I was trying to control them. So along with that, we started, you know, having family events come up, some of those family events may have been like on a weeknight or a weekend that wasn't my husband's legal weekend with the girls. And I had such a hard time unders standing why their mom never allowed them to do anything with him or his family outside of, you know, their court mandated, you know, parental schedule didn't make sense to me. I'm like, we all live right here close to one another. And I remember one first instances that happened was my husband's family had planned a big day at a local theme park, worlds of fun. And they invited, you know, his girls, my stepdaughters to, to be a part of it. And their mom said, no, it was during the summertime. What kid doesn't want to go to an amusement park with their cousins and their grandparents. And how bad would you feel for those kids to be left out? The only kids out of a big family that don't get to go. So I made a feeble attempt to advocate for the girls and I called their mom. And I said, Hey, like, I don't understand. They, they're not allowed to go. And she just gave a firm. No, it's not their time with their dad. They can't go. And I said, I mean, could you look at it like this? Like if one of their friends, moms had called and said like, Hey, we're having a big group of kids go to world of fun. We'd love for your two to join us. Wouldn't you say? Yes. Like, think about that for a minute. Can you, can you just try to lead with, looking for ways for them to spend more time with their dad and be included with their dad's family rather than jumping straight to oh, well, eventually I think it had some sort of impact because the kids got involved and knew about the event. So they were allowed to go at the end of the day, but man was at a struggle and it was just very hard for me to comprehend that sort of minds set. I bet there are plenty of you listening, who deal with challenging. Co-parents like this it's hard. It's, it's a situation that I later learned. You can't, co-parent you try to parallel parent get on the same page, but what ends up happening in situations like, and like some of yours is you counter parent. You actually have to undo damage and go rogue to offset what the other parent is doing. And it is hell when the girls were little. Some of the things that I witnessed were just a lot of guilt, tripping and manipulation. Their mom would send little notes with them about how much she was going to miss them. It was all about her and her emotions. The girls were always made to feel like they needed to make her happy, or they were the reason she was sad. She would send little bribes and little treats with them. Oftentimes it was Snickers candy bars. When she would get them back, she would treat them to, um, Sonic slushies were a thing for a few years, that as a way for her to show her love, um, she would give them whatever they asked for, regardless of how bad it may have been for the girls. We would go to sporting events all the time. Our lives were mandated by practices, extra coaching sessions and games. That's all we did. That was our family life. Most of the time, whenever we would go to a game, the other child on our weekends, you know, the other child would start off sitting with us. And within a matter of minutes, their mom would text them or take them by the hand to the concession stand and buy them treats. And they would sit by her the rest of the time, because part of, um, a narcissistic personality, a big part of it is perpetuating a clean public image. She always wanted the kids right there under her thumb, so that all of the other parents and coaches and family members, um, one would feel left out. And two, it would just make a very strong, you know, image that the kids were always with her because, you know, they, they wanted to be right. There was a, there was a, um, soccer tournament out of town. I talked about this on, um, my interview with divorce the first six months. It was one of the most hurtful weekends of my life that I've ever experienced. I would definitely call it trauma. And I'm gonna guess someday when the kids look back on that weekend, um, if they haven't already, that they are traumatized by to, it was our weekend with my stepdaughters. And we had an out of town soccer game. My then husband, um, communicated with his first wife that, um, we would be taking the girls. We had made the hotel arrangements and she insisted on still going. So that's very reasonable for, you know, any parent to want to be present at events on their off weekends. Right. We did the same thing. We went to lots of games and you know, everything on weekends that were not ours legally, but here's the problem. She wouldn't just be, be present and, and be there to support her children. What she did was very aggressively assert her dominance throughout the entire weekend. And it looked like this, one of the daughters would be sitting on her lap, literally big, not, not, this was not, she wasn't that little big girl sitting on her mom's lap throughout the game, not spending her weekend time with us. Right. Because she knew she had to, we had, um, disagreements about wardrobe that weekend. Because again, we were new at buying clothes for the girls. We were told, um, that, you know, the daughter was incredibly unhappy with the clothing that we had provided her for the weekend. Although the daughter never said anything to us. And so there was crying and tears over those conversations. Um, she would, um, insist that the girls ride in her car from the, you know, games to the hotel. So, you know, there's like a pool time, right? All the kids are playing in the hotel pool and she was sitting right there with, you know, the other moms. And if I remember correctly, her daughter also slept in her room for the weekend. One of the girls, um, it was a problem, but the height of the problem happened at a team dinner at a restaurant after one of the games. Cause of course, she went to that too. And she insisted that her daughter sit with her at the restaurant that may sound like a little thing, but you add all of these little tiny events up and how she interfered on our time was not considerate and upset. The girls. I, there were several times the girls were crying. I was arguing with my husband. It was a nightmare. By the time we get to this restaurant and she pulls her younger daughter in to sit with her in a booth and not with us. My daughter is crying now because she is the only kid sitting at an entire adult tape because the players were all together as they should be. But her stepsister was no longer sitting with us. There were no siblings at our table and she was alone. Well, that was basically like the last straw for me. I was so, so irate. I was so tired of the influence of my husband's first wife, upsetting everyone around us. But you guys, I, by that point, this was just a few years, like maybe three years into our marriage. I was already silenced by that point. And this is where this idea of triangulation comes from. I wasn't allowed by this point to call her or text her. And when I say I wasn't allowed, it was basically an agreement between my husband and I, because she made life such hell. If I texted, she would screenshot it. She would text it to her husband. She would text it to my husband. She would call my husband at work. She would blow up our entire work days being offended, saying that I yelled at her making up like fake. And it just wasn't worth it. The drama was not worth it. So she very masterfully created a triangle where I was not allowed to communicate with her, but I had to go through my husband to communicate with her. Now let's be real clear. I didn't want to communicate with her anyway, but this was her way influencing and controlling my marriage, my family, our schedule, our finances and our time, because not only did she box me out of the communication, which to be clear too, my husband worked all the time. So I was for years for a solid five years, I was the one primarily driving these kids to sporting events, sitting in bleachers by myself, sitting on sidelines by myself or with my daughter. I was the primary one responsible for keeping up on the weekends. But I was also clueless as to anything that was going on. She would put her daughters in the middle and she would put my husband in the middle. And this is a very, very common narcissistic tactic. And Emma would my friend at the therapist that you're going to hear from in the next episode does a nice job of explaining it. But if you just Google it you'll learn a lot. And you will know right away if you two have been a victim of this. So the weekend of the soccer game, I did my best to hold it together. But unfortunately I'm so regretful for my behavior during that weekend. It, one of those situations that I had a very hard time keeping my together. I was glaring at her most of the time I was, um, you know, I, because I did not feel empowered to approach her mother to mother and just say, you know, do you see what you're doing here? Our kids are suffering because of your behavior. I didn't have the support or the courage or the understanding really yet of what I was dealing with. I, I just didn't have the tools to, to do that back then. And so it was like, I'm not proud of how I behaved. I will tell you, we received a couple of phone calls from other parents after that weekend, just empathizing, just being sympathetic to us because they witnessed all of it. That was also a common theme that happened throughout the years. The longer I was married and in her presence, the more and more coaches, parents of other athletes, neighbors of hers, people from her community started recognizing the dynamics of our relationship and started confiding in me and sharing their own concerns and their own experiences with made me feel validated, you know, but it also was just like, holy, like what a mess? Like, what am I doing? Like, how did I end up in this situation? Why did I make these choices to let her be such a negative influence on my life and my daughter's life? Because she was, she was horrible to my daughter as well. Other examples just of narcissistic traits to look out for. She would do a lot of charitable things. She gifted teachers elaborate things. Like I remember there was an open house that she had this huge pirate ship filled with all of these supplies. Sounds nice. Right? I'm sure plenty of people were like, wow, that is so cool. And I'm sure that the teachers were very grateful. Unfortunately, people like this woman, they do this for admiration and for attention, not out of like pure sincerity of thanking people it's so that they receive the public admiration that they're looking for because of their own insecurities. Emma talks to, to this too, other ways that she would, you know, manipulate and influence our time with her children. There was a Christmas Eve one year, her first Christmas Eve, without her daughters. Now I, as a mother of divorce, you know, sharing my daughter with her dad and her stepmom, I can absolutely understand that it's hard to be away from your children and the holidays. But our communication was so with her that we didn't know that she had actually packed gifts for the kids and set a date with them to FaceTime on Christmas Eve, to open the gifts together. She didn't tell us the girls didn't they, until it was time. And then they felt under the gun and pressured, we, we can't eat dinner yet. We have to FaceTime mom right now. That was a very, um, easy little flag to see with the girls too, that they were pressured all the time to perform for their mom. If they didn't, she would treat them bad. It's a bad cycle of abuse that started when they were really, really little. So while this Christmas Eve gift situation doesn't seem like a big deal. We tried not to make it one. Well, there's another little girl in the house. Her name is lane. She didn't have Christmas Eve gift to open. Like we didn't know this was happening. My then husband actually went out on Christmas Eve and bought Laney a little necklace so that she had a gift to open. And, you know, the reason we had to buy another gift of course, was because I had kept the gifts. Exactly. Even for the girl I did, I had the same exact number of gifts and the large items that they got were all the same because we were trying to show equality and fairness so that our kids would all feel equally loved and not left out simple example, but it was a big one at the time. And yes, she would to do those stunts pretty much. I mean, throughout the course of eight years, even when the kids were older with these concession stand bribes and like pulling them in and hugging them, you know, and having them sit right next to her on the bleachers all the time, like it just became like the norm, but there was a particular, um, event, a athletic event on a weekend where my husband was not present, but his mom was so was me and grandma watching, watching this tournament over a weekend. And she pulled her daughter in, you know, had her eat with her during a break in between one of the games. This was normal behavior. And then she, I, I don't remember what happened, but she was about something and she pulled my stepdaughter right in front of me, like yanked her over and started very aggressively braiding her hair. She was pulling it hard and my stepdaughter was crying and I intervened in front of my mother-in-law in front of my stepdaughter. And I said, Hey, take it easy. You are hurting her. That was one of the first times I, I saw the abuse like right in front of my face. It wasn't slight, you guys, it was, it was bad. I felt so sorry for my stepdaughter. And I felt completely powerless to do anything, to help. I seriously stood there and watched her continue to braid her hair that way. And I just gave her a look. I ju, after I said what I said, and she ignored me, I just looked at her and discussed. I found myself doing that over and over and over again for years, most of the time, I didn't even say anything. Just gave her a look, my message to all of you. If you find yourself in a situation like this, with your ex or with a different co-parent or a grandma or grandpa or anything is to stand up, don't be bullied. Like I was for eight years, it feels horrible. And all that happens, or at least what happened to me is I went to therapy repeatedly throughout that marriage to try under stand what I was dealing with. Like, I just didn't get it. And my husband was no help because he couldn't cope. Or he, uh, just had a habit of giving her his ex whatever she wanted. I was alone and I needed resources and I needed to understand. And I, I just struggled. You guys, I just struggled for way longer than I should have. And then things like this started happening. There was a weekend that we had the girls that my husband got a phone call from his first wife. And he relayed the message to me as he always did. Well, she says that the girls called you the devil, like, wait, what? He's like. Yeah. Apparently they had a long conversation with you about you. And one of the girls called you the devil. And I was like, oh my God. And my first reaction was just, I felt so hurt. And then my second reaction was, Hey, wait a minute. Like, how wrong is that? How wrong is that of her to be told that information? And then like, what did she say? I mean, that's a cause for concern, right? Shouldn't we all get together and understand why the girls feel this way. And as I processed it and my blood pressure rose, I was like, I know exactly what happened here. She was likely talking bad about me, mom and the girls did what the girls always had to do. They agreed, they got drawn into the conversation. And they said things that they knew would please their mom. And then she used that as ammo, you know, to hurt me. So I did what I always did throughout our marriage. And I had my own direct conversation by myself with the girls. And I told them, they very clearly, I know your mom does not like me. This is not a secret. I'm sure you girls know that too. They noded. I said, here's the deal. When she talks bad about me, I completely understand why the two of you would just quiet and nod and agree with her because you have to, that's the pressure she puts on you. Right? They're teary, they're nodding. Okay. Here's my ask of you. I want you girls to know that I have a big heart and I love you very much. And it really hurts me to hear that you say bad things about me to her, because that's what she does. If you say anything bad about me, it will be relayed through your dad to me. So please do your best to not give her this ammo. Don't say things about me, unless you mean them. Do you mean, I mean, what did I do? Something to hurt you? I wanna know if I did. I had to have those conversations over and over and over. I don't think their mom ever knew that I was addressing everything that happened throughout the years, but I was, and it started when they were really little with A's and you know, us being told they don't wanna be alone with, with Stacy. They, they don't want Stacy to come to this thing. Well, we caught their mom in a million different lies because we did my husband and I both together. And then most of the time me, you know, by myself, would address this stuff with the girls and find out what we believe to be the truth. Um, so it was just, it was just an ongoing, really hard situation. And I felt incredible empathy for the girls because I knew they were absolute ponds in their mom's weird war with me. And then as the girls grew older, my speculation and curiosity as to exactly how deceptive their mother was all came to light a came to light because one of my stepdaughter's friends just absolutely unloaded on me. We had about an hour long conversation where I said very little and she told me story after story, after story about my husband's first wife, she told me specific things gave very clear examples of their mother saying bad things about me, attacking my character, making fun of my clothes, everything under the sun that you can think of. And so my speculation, you know, was validated. I was like, I all this time, see this woman is not stupid. Like to other people. We have mutual friends, her and I, and to the community. Like I think it would be perplexing to a lot of people. I don't think a lot of people, unless they were really close to her would understand what she's capable of because she says all the right things like she know that you shouldn't put children in the middle during a divorce. She knows that it would be wrong to talk ill of their dad and I in their home. She did it all the time. But I think other people in her life, like people, she goes to church with people that, you know, may maybe some of the, the kids, parents, um, kids, you know, friends of the kids, their parents would have a hard time believing she is as evil as she is yet. I had a young teenage girl telling me everything that I had ever wondered about how their household opera rated. And this is why this girl confided in me and told me all this stuff at the end of our conversation, she said, Hey, look, I think my friend would rather be at your house more, but she can't tell her mom that. And, and this friend said coming from a place of love, she's like, you know, I actually think that her grades would improve and she would be happier. And like, she would be better off. Well, I took this for exactly what I believe it to be. And it's a cry for help. She wanted me to know how toxic the other household was. And she wanted me to know that my stepdaughter wanted more time with us. So that is when I started a campaign with my then husband. I pushed really hard, um, for him to take his first wife to mediation, to get more time with the girls. I had had enough, like I, I had seen enough, I, myself, I had witnessed enough. I had been through enough by then that I was just done. And I was like, you have to do something. There was also a little note written in one of my daughter's stepdaughter's rooms that, uh, just added fuel to the fire that they were crying. They were crying for help. It took a long time. You guys, it took a long time for him to go along with this and to, um, go through mediation. And it was not pretty, as you can imagine in media, they ended up in separate rooms because his ex-wife, um, was yelling at him, screaming, crying. And here's the weird thing you guys like, we all lived within a few minutes of one another. She knew his ex-wife knew that the girls liked being with us, despite like what she wanted to think. Like she knew that we had a good household, that they would be well cared for. She should know as an educated adult, that it's important for girls to have a relationship with their dad. And I think most of us, um, would want our children. I know I do. I I'm very open to being flexible with my daughter's schedule with her dad any, and every time he has ever asked for additional time with her, I've given it. Why wouldn't I, I want that for my daughter, but for some reason, I mean like how illogical is that she wanted to keep them from us at all costs as though we were somehow, um, a detriment to the children instead of the truth, which was, you know, we loved them and wanted, you know, more time with them. So they did go through mediation and my husband awarded extra time with his children, but it came at a cost. Interestingly enough, this was the cost. My, my husband at the time was a manager at a car dealership. If you know anything about that, you know, that he worked stupid hours, worked a lot. And he also worked, um, it was one, one or two weekends a month. So I again was, you know, alone with the girls, a fair amount, like I said, over the course of like five or six years. So the consequence to getting more time with the girls, it was written into their to agreement that the girls would no longer be allowed to be alone with me. And my husband agreed to it. So while he got more time, it was also very well known amongst both of our families that the girls could no longer be left alone in my care, if he was out of town, if he was at work, if he had prior engagements and that may sound fairly reasonable, like, yeah, well, they should be with their actual mom and not their stepmom. Right. That, that doesn't sound crazy. But remember, this was years into blending our families and as I, or me and my husband saw it at the time, it was like, it's not just about being with me. Like this is their other home. They have a dog here. They have a step sister here. They have grandparents and cousins and other people that they're and neighbor, friends, and all of that at our house. It's not just about their time with dad anymore. It's about their family time. On the other side, that didn't hold any weight, but here's the other thing she traveled all the time for work. Like not just day trips, like she was overnight and away from her girls routinely very often leaving them in their home with her husband, their stepdad. So the inequality is very, very obvious. And side note. I was crushed. I felt like I might as well have like been labeled a pedophile or something. I was no longer are legally allowed to be alone with my stepdaughters. It was a tough blow. It was a tough blow to receive. And it was something you better believe that I talked about alone with my stepdaughters, because this is what that looked like. They would stay the night with us on a Friday night on occasion. My husband would have to get a up and go to work on a Saturday morning. Well, of course they had practices and games and things that they needed to go to his wife, his first wife, his ex-wife would come pick the girl, one of the kids up for their activity. Then I would get in my car, separate drive. I would watch the activity by myself. Like how stupid is that? Like, she could have saved herself a trip over to my house and just let me drive the kid. Right. But that was no longer the new norm big win for her. Right. And what kind of message does that send to the kids? I mean, it sends a very obvious message that mom does not want the kids around me. And that was clearly no secret anyway. Right. Okay. I'm gonna move along to examples of triangulation and what that feels like and looks like. So in this example, this is, you know, my husband at the time, his ex-wife communicating aside from me, but impacting me. So there was an instance that happened all the time, and that was something else you guys can probably relate to. The kids would leave, especially like sporting equipment and uniforms at each other's houses. Like they were, you know, going back and forth and they would forget things and things would go missing. And this is common, right. And needs to be handled with a lot of grace. So one time at the very last minute on a Workday, it was discovered by my husband's first wife that a uniform was needed. And it was at our house. And this was like short, a short amount of time before the game was to begin. And it was like some sort of scrimmage or something. So my stepdaughter didn't think she would need said uniform. And then she did. So my husband was unable to get this uniform because he was at work per usual. And so he reached out to me and was like, you need to run this uniform to, you know, first wife. And I'm like, uh, how about, no, how about I'm done? Like I was at a breaking point. That sounds, but not after you have, um, you know, been the, um, hero for a lot of years, like making all this happen just to police the first wife. And I was like, she can, she can come get it, her self, like I'm over it. So that's where my head space was that day. And within a few, I became rational again. And I was like, okay, that is not me. I, I love my stepdaughter. She should not suffer because her mom sucks. So I did a reversal and I messaged, I messaged mom myself. And I said, I'll meet you at quick trip at the Gasa. Well, by then she was pushing back and she, and she was like, no, I'm just gonna come get it. And I'm like too late, too late. So I was furious and driving because again, we always catered to her. She got whatever she wanted. I was over it. And this was off the heels of other happening. So I was, I was losing it. And as I drove, I kept getting angrier and I pulled into the quick trip and saw her and marched over to her and was like, look, I am here because I love your daughter. I love her. It is not her fault that, you know, that, that goes me a scene. And, and we drop the balls sometimes with these uniforms. And that is why I'm here. And by the way, shame on you, shame on you for not being able to get over yourself and have enough care and love for your own daughter. And, you know, she sees this, she knows who cares for her. She knows who's there for her and guess what it's me. And at the end of the conversation after I blew up and it is not a proud moment, by the way, yelling at another adult in public is not usually, it's not typical behavior for little old me, but I did it. And it felt good by the way. And at the end of the conversation, this is what she did. She goes, I am on the phone with your husband right now. And she didn't say your husband because she never would've said something like that. She called him by name. So after she declared the Alliance, that was clearly right in front of my face. I responded like this. I don't care. I do not care that he is on the phone with you right now. This is between us. Right? I think that's a pretty clear example of triangulation. I hope it makes sense to you guys. You know, there was another situation that really, um, was damaging to my marriage that happened grandma and grandpa, my ex in-laws, um, gifted everyone in the family, 18 people with a trip to Hilton, head it in the summertime. It was booked from a Saturday to a Saturday. The condos were booked. We had things like zip lining and the works and, and kayaking, and just a lot of good family time on the beach that we were all looking forward to. So you can imagine how hard it is to coordinate schedules with so many families with kids, lots of kids involved with all of their activities in the summertime. We were the only ones challenged though with getting another set of parents on the same page, right? So this was obviously going to be a challenge. And we were told right away, um, that mom had a cousin in Iowa getting married on, on the second weekend of the vacation. And by the way, we were told very explicitly that, you know, legally only one of those weekends was ours. So we would have to return the girls early. So that was a problem. My husband and I talked about it. We were like, there's no way these girls are gonna wanna leave this vacation. We're gonna be having fun. They love being around grandma and grandpa and their cousins. Like, they're not gonna wanna go on a road trip to Iowa to watch two people that they don't know well get married. So we pushed back my, and when I say we, it was my husband and he was like trying to advocate for his kids and say like, why would you make them go on a road trip to a wedding when they would rather be on the beach? Most reasonable parents, I would argue, would want that for their children. Right? Because let's be real. She has her own husband. They have a child together. Now there's other, he has two other kids that were likely going to this wedding. Like, she's a big girl. Like she could have, have gone and been at the wedding without the two girls who didn't even care to be there. But that of course is not what happened during the middle of the vacation. My husband broke and he purchased three very expensive tickets and decided to fly his daughter's home to appease their mother. Now devil's advocate. I get it legally. He kind of had to, but like, what would the consequences have been like? That's what I was like. I was like, what is she gonna do? I take you to court after, after the fact like rescue these kids and don't make them do the, this, you know, it was a big problem. And funny enough, that left Laney and I alone, um, with all of his family after, I mean, I was butt hurt. I was embarrassed that that was the choice that he made. You know, there were a couple of times during my marriage and this was one of them that my husband's stepmom, my ex-mother-in-law said to me, you know, he needs to make a choice. He needs to pick a wife like it, you know, he, he keeps, you know, aligning himself with her and not you, he needs to pick a wife and I'm like, yeah, but I mean, if I gave him that ultimatum, isn't it pretty clear who he would pick, like that would end my marriage if I, if I went that route. So instead I just cried a lot on vacation and then I sucked it up and I took care of my kid. This was the first time I did something like this. Um, I took Laney via Uber to Savannah, Georgia. Um, on the last day of our alone, I went rogue. We had a great day together exploring I got us on the flight and we went home and that was the first foreshadowing of what our life would look like. Just a couple of years later, it was the first time I made an independent decision like that, but that vacation was very damaging to my marriage. It was just another, um, example of the triangulation that we experienced on an ongoing basis. And, you know, to add to the manipulation, like I talked about, you know, little, you know, guilt written, manipulative notes, she would leave and the kids were little and that stuff just escalated and changed and morphed as the girls got older. And, um, in this example, I was later told that when the girls arrived back in Kansas city, there was like a welcome home banner or poster and a bestie waiting for them when they got off the plane. And, um, in my humble opinion, that was mom trying to not off the golden child. That was mom trying to say, oh, it's gonna be so fun being in the fricking suburban, going to Iowa. I've got your bestie here for you. How could you be mad at me? That's what that was. Oh Lord. So one of the things with this golden child, um, phenomenon that I had a really hard time understanding throughout the years was mom was obviously trying to live vicariously through the daughter, was intertwining herself in like young tween relationships, had a knack, um, with all of her children, even her adopted, you know, stepchildren from, um, her husband's first marriage, she would be involved in breakups. She would be in on all the gossip. I was told by friends of the girls, how she would try to infiltrate their sleepovers and act like one of them. Um, there was all of this weird, you know, vicarious living through the golden child, doting on that child, bragging on that child, obvious admiration and pride this child yet. She was still very, very mean to this kid that was, um, in private though. Right? So I didn't even pick up on that for a long time. It wasn't until the girls were like young teenagers that I was told, given examples and was like, you've got to be kidding me. She would, um, throw this child under the bus and say things that this kid never said, she would punish this girl in weird ways. And that is also very common for narcissistic mothers to do, but it took me a very long time to catch on and understand it. I still have a hard time wrapping my brain around it, but I know good and well that it's very well hidden. And this poor girl has been emotionally abused in ways that you wouldn't expect. Um, because she was also put on a pedestal at the same time. It's such a weird, weird dynamic, and it is, um, incredibly, incredibly sad. So I'm gonna give you one last example of, um, some weird manipulation and triangulation we experienced as the kids got older. You know, when the kids were little, there were some really weird, um, parenting, parenting failures that I knew existed, but had a hard time, like, it's almost embarrassing to say, like, these girls were not taught basic hygiene things like, you know, you don't have to tell most kids, like at a certain age to like brush their teeth anymore or flush the toilet or properly dispose of feminine products. But these girls hadn't been taught like basic hygiene. Then there was like basic safety stuff. Like, Hey, sugar's really bad for you. You probably should not eat it constantly. You should probably eat like real food. This wasn't an expectation either. And then there's the seatbelt thing you guys from very, very early ages. Like once these kids were out of booster seats, they did not. Um, as a form of habit, put a seatbelt on when they got in the car, I was incredibly sensitive to this right away when they were very little and my ex-husband didn't push it. Like if girls didn't wanna wear their seat belts, the girls didn't have to wear their seat belts. Now I lost a cousin in a car accident. She was ejected from a car, a vehicle. It was actually a van with her friends when we were 18 years old. It was like the most tragic thing that's ever happened to me. So again, for that reason on time hop of just like, I want these girls to be safe. I, I had to tell them that story multiple times throughout our years together, as a way for them to understand that I was looking out for them, like as in, when I drove them and they did not put their seat belts on, I would say, I'm not pulling out of the driveway until you put your seatbelt on. And they looked at me like I was the biggest nag. Like, why would you even make us do this? Like, this is ridiculous. You know? And I was the parent that was like, I mean, this is reasonable, right. But I mean, I started feeling weird about making them do just real basic things, like wear a seatbelt. And, you know, there were other things like my husband would let them play with phones during church and like at lunch with grandma and grandpa. And I'm like, isn't this like, basic, like these are such basic parenting things like, Hey, no phones at the table and Hey, put your seatbelt on, but we totally disagreed. And I could tell very clearly that this was not an expectation at their mother's house either. And I think a little bit of this is kind of common and divorced families. Like neither of the parents wants to parent or discipline because they don't want the child to, um, you know, uh, get, want to be with the other parent more or whatever, use it against them. This was happening a lot. But I also think this is just, um, a side effect of both their mother and my husband just being totally pre consumed by themselves. And they were both so egotistical. And so, um, distracted, you know, that they didn't even manage to instill very basic lessons in their kids when they were little. I mean, both my ex-husband and his first wife struggle with alcohol. And I know this because of stories that were shared with me, I was told that my husband's first wife needed to pick up one of the kids from a party and she did so, but she drove drunk to the party and it was very obvious that she was inebriated. She even managed to flirt with some tween boys, like tossling their hair and, and flirting, literally flirting with them. And then she was not allowed to drive her daughter home. Huh? That's not a, a good look for anyone. Right. So this happened. And then what do you think the consequences were for my stepdaughter? Well, as you could maybe guess at that age, in life, in junior high, she was made fun of for the rest of the year because kids don't forget that sort of scene. Right? That's another example of, um, the mistreatment that can happen. Obviously alcohol was an influence and I know that alcohol influenced a lot of abuse in the other household as well in my, these are my opinions and stories that have been shared with me. This is what I was up against. So of course I told my then husband about the safety risk, you know, that had just happened with his own daughter, but let's be real. My husband was struggling with his own addiction. And so he, there was no way he was gonna place blame or point of finger her in the other direction. I mean, these kids, I on, they were just screwed on every front and you'll notice I haven't said anything really about my husband's first wife's new husband. Hey, guess what? Psychologically speaking, he and I are cut from the same. He was, the glue is still is the glue that holds that household together. Bless his heart. And thank God for him. One of the final last blows during, um, my marriage happened on the very last new year's Eve that we all spent together. This was a mere few months before I left the marriage. My stepdaughter, um, told us that she had plans at one of her friend's houses for the night. My husband drove her and a couple other girls dropped them off at this house. And then later in the evening, we tracked her phone seemed as though she was at her mom's house. That's what the location was showing. Well, this was, this was not the plan. And we knew that her mom was outta town. Her mom was on vacation with her husband and her other kids. We're like, what the hell? So my a husband checked in with his daughter and he was told that they were like changing clothes or whatever, right. Like something sensible. Okay. You know, we wanted to believe her, even though there had been a lot of line and going off the grid and changing locations and things like that. So we were careful and we kept a close watch. Now, shocking to me, my husband throughout the course of the evening actually called other parents. And his ex-wife trying to understand where his daughter was and what the hell was going on. And we figured out with help at all from his first wife that the kids were at her empty house. And you know, this was not okay. These were freshman kids alone on Chris or on new year's Eve night. Right? So with a lot of prodding for me, my husband ended up driving over to the house. And, um, eventually, and I'm talking hours later, the kids came out of the house, got in his car. And instead of doing what most, I think most responsible parents would do, which is bringing these girls who were allowed to be overnight with my stepdaughter, bringing them back to our house under our watchful eye. He actually dropped them off at a different girl's house to stay the night, which I was not happy about. Like, I'm like, why on earth would you do this? But anyway, it didn't really matter what was done was done. Right. Well, the next day we got my step daughter back and discovered at her mom knew all along that the kids were going to be at her empty house. She'd given permission because that's what she did, right? Like this was a form of manipulation to us off and to please her daughter to win favor in her daughter's eyes. So, uh, we did what we always did. My husband, nothing. There were no consequences. There was no real conversation with his ex-wife. Uh, my D my stepdaughter was not in trouble at all for lying throughout the course of the evening to us. And so I had my own private conversation with her as I typically did. And what I told her was this, it was really wrong for your mom to not tell your dad that she gave you permission. We are, you know, responsible for you on our time. And you know, all these kids that thought that they were, you know, spending the night in a house or the parents, you know, thought that they were spending the night in a house with parental supervision were all, you know, lied to everyone here was manipulated. And oh, by the way, you lied to us, you know, you lied to your dad, don't you feel as though you owe your dad an apology, you were wrong to do that. And that's not okay. By this point, I was real, really worried that she was manipulating and behaving very much so like her mom and she was tearful and cried and we hugged. She knew as a parent, as a stepparent of hers, that I cared about her, I was worried about her. I didn't want her to lie. I did my damnedest to teach her important lessons. And she knew it. She knew that I was the one looking out for her. I told her on numerous occasions as she had been caught in some other lies that I cared about her. And I didn't even, I trusted what she was up to. I wasn't worried that, you know, when her location would go, um, out the window and we didn't know where she was. Um, I told her, you know, I don't care so much where you are. I trust that you're not doing anything horrible. I just wanna know that you're whole safe at night. Like, that's it like, that's my expectation. I mean, we both acknowledged that she was never gonna be in trouble. She knew that like, there were no consequences for her, um, with stuff like this. So it was just tough. I mean, that's the parental situation I was in. And then of course I had convers with my then husband, like, Hey, what the hell is gonna happen? When my daughter gets to high school, she's watched, you know, her step, her stepsister, um, not get in trouble at all. And you know, this was just another example of this perpetuated know parenting disconnect of, I always held my daughter to different standards because his daughters had no rules, like no bed times, no phone, um, rules to abide by never any consequences yet my daughter was definitely held to different standards under our roof. So it was just a very, very hard dynamic that I'm again, guessing a lot of you can relate to in one form or another. So I think that's enough. I think, I think that's a pretty, um, concise summary of narcissistic qualities and triangulation that I have experienced in my life. So thank you very much for listening to episode 39, taking the high road. A lot of the time, most of the time probably should have prefaced that hum. And the, um, and in the next episode, part two of taking the high road again, you'll hear from Emma Wood, my friend, the licensed clinical therapist talking about these topics, but you know, much more from a clinical explanation and um, how she discusses this stuff with her clients. And I think it is going to be incredibly helpful. And then we're gonna move on to some examples of gas lighting. So that's, what's up next. Thanks again for listening. And please do, if you are enjoying the show, um, please consider sending the link to your friends who might be able to learn or find this stuff interesting as well.