Dear DSO: "I'm In An Abusive Relationship"

Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching, courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at helpformen.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. Hello everyone, we have another Dear DSO entry on the website, and you can submit your own story or your question to dadstartingover.com/dear —DSO, and if it's a good one, I will answer it here for the whole world to see. And today's— oof, this is a doozy. This one comes from Confused Husband, and the subject line is, "Wife hates my kid." That's not good. But he says, uh, "I met my wife 5 years ago. She was a single mom of 3, all different dads." Dude, I was a single dad of one. Over the years, wife has come to despise my daughter, who is now 13, making threats against her and me, going as far as hoping, quote, she gets brutally murdered. Wife has constantly accused her of lying and stealing, although it's not proven, and being a, quote, whore, which is why she says she hates her. I believe it's mostly because she isn't hers. I get accused of treating her like a princess all over all the other children. She and I now have another daughter and twin boys together. Ah, fuck. So there's 7 children altogether. I am also constantly accused of lying and cheating when I've never done such a thing. I went as far as giving up family and friends and opportunities for more money at work to prove it to her. I've even blocked my child's mother to close that window, so to speak. But nothing I do works, or it's never enough. But I feel like I've gone above and beyond to prove myself. I just don't think she loves me. She may just be using me, and my daughter isn't here enough to experience the hatred from her stepmother. I married her to, quote, prove my love, as she used to tell me that I must not love her if I don't marry her. Now we've got all these kids, a house, and all the way she treats me and my daughter is becoming quite a problem for me mentally, especially as I try to jump through loopholes to keep my kid, um, to— so my kid doesn't have to see her stepmother's wrath. Not to mention my child's mother would probably step in and cause some drama if she knew what was being said and probably wouldn't allow her here. For good reason. I've put my foot down with how she treats my kid, and now it's become an issue and she wants to leave. Good. But of course, I'm the moneymaker and she is a stay-at-home mom, so I'll be the one to get screwed financially if I do go. I've also recently found out that my wife has been texting her ex. Of course she has. But deleting them so I can't see what is said. It could be completely innocent conversation, but I would never know because she's become sneaky and she makes sure that I can't see it. She claims she does it because I don't have to reassure— because she doesn't have to reassure me of anything, telling me that I never reassure her of anything when that's all I've done for 5 years. I think she may be diagnosed bipolar or narcissistic personality disorder. Meaning I would be leaving someone who probably just needs help but refuses because she doesn't think it's a problem. I want to leave this toxic situation but will probably sink me financially— divorce, child support, etc. Would I be crazy to stay and fight for some love from her, or should I run for the hills? Is this something normal and I'm just overthinking and overreacting? She refuses counseling and refuses to build a relationship with her stepdaughter. Dude, what are you doing, dude? Um, no, you're not crazy. You're a troubled person. You need help, a lot of it, beyond what me and a little dumb video on YouTube can do for you. Um, you are in a very abusive relationship with a very abusive, broken individual, and it is not your job to fix said broken individual. Just stop there. You never ever in a million years going to be able to fix her. Will anyone? Probably not, be honest with you. Is it possible? Sure, technically it's possible. What percentage chance do I give it? 0.0001% chance. Um, your work now— and this isn't something you want to hear right now, but this is the truth— um, your work now is to separate yourself from this person as quickly and cleanly and safely as possible. This may involve getting legal help, help from the law, police, uh, friends, family. You need reinforcements here because I'm afraid of what this person may do to retaliate against you. Um, so try— I'm oversimplifying it, but you know, it's best I can do given the information I have. Is cut ties with her. Done. Now, how to protect children from this abusive person, that's a whole other ball of wax. Again, this is where the law comes into effect, friends, family, etc. Um, once the smoke clears and the separation is done, and this is going to take a while, you're going to go through hell. Like, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. What you're going through now times 1 million. Sorry. But once you get over that hump and you are away from this abuser and you're away from this very broken individual and the smoke clears, then you're left with an even tougher task. All right, you're not out of the woods yet. I'm going down the timeline here. The task you will need to follow is, what is it about me that allowed me to attach to such a person and stay attached to such a person when I was presented with the most obvious holy crap runaway information. Dude, this is bad. This is like really, really bad. Um, this person is bad news. Any secure individual who has any semblance of normalcy as far as relationships are concerned would have seen 1/1000th of what you saw and run for the hills. But you stayed, you stuck around, and then you kept trying. And you, you buried in like a tick, dude. And you're like, what can I do to prove my love to this woman again and again? And you see where it leads. Let this be a lesson to everyone who's listening to this. One of the worst mistakes you can make in life is to connect with and, um, enmesh your life with toxic individuals— this goes for men or women alike— it has a cascading series of repercussions down the line for your life. They can absolutely ruin your life, and it takes a momentous mountain of effort to break from that enmeshment to that individual. Just to get to a baseline level of normal and healthy. And even then, as this gentleman is going to find out, there are lots of repercussions for making that big life mistake of connecting with and procreating with— sorry, I'm not gonna beat up on you, dude, but Jesus— procreating with not once, but it's, you know, twice, and then the twins, of course. And, um, I mean, I'm sorry if it comes across that I'm being cynical, I'm being an asshole about this, but Jesus, I hear this all all day, every day. Just people just, ah, just, it's making these huge, huge life mistakes with the wrong people. And, um, and then bringing kids into it. That's where I get pissy. That's where I'm like, what are you doing, dude? These kids didn't ask for this. Now they're gonna have all these issues down the line, and, uh, now you're gonna have to be there for them to make sure that they don't make the same mistakes, because that's, that's their wiring. That's in their wiring now. It's in their programming. Um, if you got a son, they're gonna find a woman just like this. If you got a daughter, she's gonna find a husband just like this. It's the way it is. If not, become mother themselves. So you have to be aware of that. So you have a very long road ahead of you, but that long road does not include this woman by your side at all. Gotta break free from her, and then you gotta work on what it is about you, what happened to you as a kid that allows you to stay connected to such a person, to endure all this abuse over and over and over again and still question, like, maybe I should work on this, maybe I should When it's so obvious to 99.99% of the world out there that, dude, you made a big oopsie and you need to run for your life, and yet you're like, I'm not sure. You got to figure out what, what's going on up here, dude, because you're going to do this again and again and again. Yes, with different people. You got a type. You got to figure out what's going on there. All right, buddy, do it for you. Do it do it for those kiddos and do it for the subsequent generations after your kiddos. This, what's probably a generational dysfunction in your life, you know, your mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, and so on and so forth, you look back, you're probably seeing a lot of nonsense, right? And in her, in her family tree as well. Um, now's the time to just go, nope, we're going to stop this right here. And sorry, all that weight gets put on your shoulders, but You made your bed, dude, with this person. You gotta lie in it. It's called being a man. Take responsibility for the mistakes that you made and do the hard work of fixing it so that your kids down the line don't have to bear all the weight of that hard work as well. All right, brother, check out our website help4men.com. Check out our private group for men only, the HFM Brotherhood. It's a private group. We have private discussion forums, we have live meetings, all kinds of cool benefits including like 800+ hours of audio content. Books, all kinds of cool stuff. Let's check it out at help4men.com, the HFM Brotherhood. I think that would be a big, big help to you. You need to surround yourself, so to speak, with other men that have been in your shoes and have gotten over the hump. All right, brother, best luck to you. Thanks for reaching out.