The Denial is Just Shocking

[BusynMember]

WSM...you'll never figure out the truth and the lies. The boy is a psychopath--even at a young age they fool professionals into thinking they are normal and are good at acting like it's everyone else who did it. I don't see any schizophrenia there--paranoia goes with psychopathy too, but the kid is not out of touch with reality. He changes it for you.

Husband is way over the line in delusion or denial. Regardless of what he wants, what is IS. You say his mother is also a liar? He comes from a family of liars and perhaps psychopaths. There is evidence that it is hereditary. An adopted child is more apt to become a psychopath if his biological parents are.

Instead of trying to sort everything out, why not just get out of the craziness? You can afford it. Why do you stay? I'm really baffled. You have a husband who seems delusional or at the very least somewhat of a gaslighting liar who will protect his kid even when he does go to jail (and he will). He is not a good influence for your kids. I don't care if he's swell to them. He's a liar. You have smart, great kids. They know what he is. I'm sure the older ones do. He is abusive to you by trying to make you think that the truth isn't the truth. Did husband grow up with chaos where truth was a lie and a lie was also the truth? If so, there isn't a whole lot of hope that he'll change.

If difficult child isn't doing it, WHO IS? Sorry, but when one person gets stuck with his hand in the cookie jar THAT MANY TIMES, it's because it's him. Doesn't matter what therapist or psychiatrist or fdoc or Qdoc said. It's common sense. You are living in such a state of craziness that you are actually trying to figure it out...and you never will be able to.

If you were on disability, as I thought, or unable to support yourself, I could see why you would have a high motivation to stick around. As it is, I am clueless. It's none of our business, but maybe you'd like to share why you are even consindering staying with this man and his crazy son. Since the two of them are so psychopathically good at convincing even professionals that "I didn't do it" the day will come when YOU are the target of an abuse allegation and they'll be so "good" you could be jailed.

So I ask once.

Why do you stay? What possible benefits are there for you? You seem bright. You must know you can't help either difficult child for stepdaughter and that husband is a louse, unworthy of you.

Do you want to spend your life trying to figure out what lies the liars tell you that aren't lies?

At any rate, I know if I were you I"d be long gone. I think perhaps you have been sucked in for so long that you think it's partly YOU. Do you have a therapist of your own that does not see anyone else in the family? If not, make an appointment tomorrow morning and don't involve husband or even tell him how your sessions go. Bet you'll end up being advised to get out.

(((Hugs))). I know it's hard.

 

[smallworld]

There's something very wrong with this picture.

Almost no kids -- even difficult children -- live like prisoners in their own homes, with alarms on their windows and doors, food brought to them and only allowed out for school and bathroom. This isn't normal. Wouldn't it be far better for your difficult child to go to an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) so he can get the help he needs so he can learn to function appropriately? Then none of you would have to live like this any longer.

And please don't say that Residential Treatment Center (RTC) won't help. The right Residential Treatment Center (RTC) -- with intensive therapy and medication management -- can make a world of difference.

 

[Marguerite]

Smallworld, it's not WSM saying that Residential Treatment Center (RTC) won't help. It's husband. And possibly psychiatrist, although that is via husband's 'translation'.

It does sound to me that husband is motivated by love and concern for his son, but it is overlaid with "I must protect him" and this includes protecting him from accusations, from labels which could be damaging, from people who dislike him and say bad things about him, and from being separated form family. husband simply doesn't want to send him away, whether it's to Residential Treatment Center (RTC) or family.

He didn't change his mind aboutsending him to his mother, just for you. No, there were other reasons husband is not sharing. Maybe it's because husband just doesn't want to besaeparated from difficult child. Maybe (and I wonder how you would confirm this) sister in law stepped in and said, "Why should WE look after the problem kid, when you (husband) treat your mother so badly? You can't have it both ways! Send him to Residential Treatment Center (RTC) instead."
I suspect psychiatrist probably DIDN'T say "Don't send him to Residential Treatment Center (RTC)." I tihnk it's more likely that he said, in the face of husband's refusal to consider Residential Treatment Center (RTC), "Well maybe Residential Treatment Center (RTC) wouldn't fix him. But you both need a b reak and difficult child needs a change in environment. Is there perhaps any family you could send him to for a while?"
husband would then report that to you as "psychiatrist thinks Residential Treatment Center (RTC) would be a waste of time, he said we should send difficult child to stay with my family."

This reminds me of the 'games' I used to play as a kid. My best friend & I would plot to have a sleepover. We would each go to our mothers and say, "Can friend come for a sleepover?"
If the answer was "yes,", even if a reluctant one, we would then go to the other parent and say, "Friend's mum wants me to come over to stay the night."
We were pushing it, it was a borderline deception and it meant that often the other parent thought it was an invitation from the parent when in fact it was the result of a nagging request from the child.
Now form an adult perspective, the deception seems really obvious. I remember a time when my mother was in hospital and an elderly relative was living in babysitting me. We tried it on her and it failed miserably. My aunt simply said, "Your mother is not here. I don't know this family. You tell me you've stayed there before, but for the next few days I am responsible for you. Therefore you will not leave this house, I need to know you are safe so I can hand you back in one piece."

I think I might have been the one to goof on the disability thing - I posted really late last night (my time) and I'm so tired, I might have got this aspect mixed up with another person.

Your husband may be trying to help, but he seems to be putting the bulk of his energies into making sure he and difficult child are not separated. And you do get it - the lies may begin small and for apparently innocent reasons, but when they pile up higher and deeper, it's very hard to exgtricate yourself with your integirty intact. it's a lot easier to keep telling more lies and manipulate people in order to preserve the whole complex ghastly mess.

The alarms etc - difficult child is playing with you. I tihnk you're right, he's been experimenting. The reason he wants an alarm inside his door is so he can play with it and maybe rig it to show an intrusion where tere wasn't one, so he can 'prove' it's been someone else all along. This is where you and your other kids are now directly in the firing line - if you give him this alarm, in the few days it takes him to work out how to do this, there will be 'proof' that YOU are the nasty psychopath in the house. Or your daughter.

At which point you will be gone, husband will ask you to leave in order to keep difficult child safe from your evil ways. He will go to his mother and be the one to apologise to her, his mother was therefore right to have slapped you (must have seen some character flaw in you that prompted that, he will say - or she will) and you won't have a leg to stand on.

And the Machiavelli in the middle? Every time he successfully cons people (his father at the top of the list - love makes you gullible) he gets stronger with his schemes and his manipulating. He is getting a BIG positive pay-off every time he 'wins' (ie gets away with sneaking past the alarms, or casting doubts & fears). Whenever you're trying to out-think difficult child, you're looking for bigger deeper motives. Is he trying to cast blame? Is he trying to create fear? Is he planning to hurt someone? Sometimes, I think it's just about alleviating boredom and trying to beat the obstacles in his way. YOu lay down a rule, "Don't touch the knives!" and lock them away form him (or lock him away from them) and his sole aim (for the moment) becomes one simply of getting to the knives to touch one. He doesn't need to move it or use it, he just needs to know that even though it was forbidden, HE could do it. Nobody can forbid him and make it stick. In his mind he is the super-hero who has super-powers of stealth and guile, he can go anywhere he wants to and do whatever he wants to. Even if he doesn't especially want to. It's for the thrill.
Then it ramps up. It's good to beat the system, but the system gets boring when it's always the same. When do you make it more interesting? When you suspect (but can't prove) that difficult child is getting up to mischief despite the restrictions. So he moves a knife. He breaks something and hides the pieces to point the finger at himself, then he pleads, "it wasn't me" with his puppy eyes, first to be able to prove to himself that he still has "got it" and second, to continue the element of doubt. Because then it has become a game of wits. And right now, especially with a husband in denial and actively assisting difficult child in the lies, difficult child is winning the game hands down.

But difficult child's lies and deceptions, like husband's, are building in layers. You go too far down tat path and you can't go back, not without the whol horror of the exgent of it unravelling and exposing him for what he is. And he can't have that. So the time approaches faster when the scapegoat has to be sacrificed. This will be the ultimate con, the big one of difficult child's career so far. Of course it will have to get bigger in the future, but this one will be big in its outcomes, even if the act itself may not be so bad. He will keep going untiul he has 'proved' who it is who has been planting stuff on him and making him look bad.

WSM, if you stay, I strongly believe you will be scapegoated. I predict it will happen, at the latest, about a week after those alarms go inside his door. And even if you tell husband that you predict this, it will simply be said later that you were trying to cover your own rear end in advance, since you were speaking in the knowledge that it's been you all this time.

If you leave, you will short-circuit this plan. You don't have to leave as a formal separation. Simply explain to husband that you are giving them both space to remove from difficult child's environment the slightest chance that anyone else in the house is doing any of this stuff. Of course, this means taking StepDD with you too, because she's in the line of fire for accusations.

Of course, it could be argued that if you and the kids leave, then difficult child will have to stop what he's doing because there is no handy scapegoat.

But if my theory is right - he won't be able to sotp, not completely. Remember, tis started partly out of boredom and also partly out of a need to continually feel superior, putting one over on everyone. His father is really easy to con, there frankly isn't enough challenge in it.

So what I suspect will happen fairly soon after you leave (probably within the first few days) - ther will be problems at school with stuff bewing moved/gonig missing/getting broken, and the evidence will point a little to difficult child, but not enough for proof. And he will again plead, "it couldn't have been me."

But whoever the finger gets pointed at this time - it will have to clear the rest of you, because YOU WEREN'T THERE. None of you.

I know others are saying, "Leave this relationship."

I'm not. That always has to be your choice, based on a lot more than just a problem kid. But I AM saying, "Get yourselves out of there, leave the dysfunctionals on their own to remove all other variables from the experiment, for now."

Good luck, I hope this can help you.

Marg

 

[BusynMember]

Marg,
Great post, as always.
I am not telling her to leave the relationship because of the kid nor do I think she has to listen to me . My view is based strictly on husband. Although his lies are based on love, he is lying to himself and to h is wife and she has stated that the family lies--could be something that either of them can't or won't stop (hub and difficult child). Without trust and some sense of reality of what is going on, this woman is in danger--he could accuse her of abuse and get blamed by husband. He sure won't say the kid is lying. Also, I feel he is gaslighting her--either on purpose or not on purpose. Doesn't matter.

This is a crazy situation. I do think difficult child is playing games, but they are sick games with the goal being that he can get away with worse and worse behavior, including hurting his sister (and who knows if he's molested her or if that's on the horizon). This is not a healthy family and a bright, caring woman is being sucked into their disease. And husband is playing games along with his son. He doesn't even appreciate her. She seems to doubt her own sanity, when she is the sane one.

On the basis of all the craziness going on, plus her own kids, in my layman's marriage counseling opinion , I have to advise getting out. husband won't let her that stepdaughter with her for a short seperation. Sounds like he's a control freak who needs someone around to blame when son messes up. He doesn't seem half as concerned about his daughter.

Of course, WSM, you can do what you want...lol. We will still support you the best we can. But in my opinion the situation is crazy and getting crazier and you can't fix it. And you'll NEVER be able to really sort out reality from fantasy in that home. THAT is where I"m coming from.

I wish you all a wonderul Monday (Marg, in your cause Tuesday ). Marg, you always say things in such a good way.

 

[WSM]

MWM, Marg (or anyone), please PM me if you'd like.