Collateral Damage

Nobody puts “high conflict coparenting with a narcissist” on their vision board. And yet. Here we are.

I didn’t fall in love with a situation. I fell in love with a man. The situation came standard, like a car you buy used and then spend the next decade finding out what the previous owner broke.

Stepparenting isn’t for the weak of heart. It is a full contact sport with no protective gear, a referee who shows up late and leaves early, and absolutely nobody in the stands who fully understands the rules.

Nick has a running “Days Without Incident” counter. We laugh about it. The alternative is a full breakdown while folding laundry as the dog shoves his pickle into your hand and you’re already overstimulated. Nobody wants that.

It lays dormant until it doesn’t. And when it surfaces it’s a nuclear mushroom cloud — because everyone asks “how’s it going with the other side?” like it’s small talk. It is not small talk. Please stop asking.

A name can be triggering. Not out of jealousy, but out of your body recognizing the pattern and the path of damage it leaves behind. You come up with nicknames so as not to use it. So as not to give it oxygen. Like Voldemort — you try not to say the name.

So we named the weather system. The level of anger and sheer disregard for being a decent person when it comes to coparenting is mind blowing — that level of cuntery requires another language entirely. Hodenkobold. You try not to give it energy. But it lives there anyway.

Boundaries around your home become something you guard carefully — because you’re one bad decision away from someone treating your property line as a suggestion. The 8pm unannounced driveway appearance while Evelyn is asleep and we’re finally just existing on the couch like two people who earned it — because someone “forgot something” and couldn’t be bothered to send a text first. The “urgent appointment” that gets cancelled the moment you ask for details. Crisis until it isn’t. Control dressed up as concern.

Being an emotional tree stump is its own kind of exhausting. The itch of discomfort caused by someone else gets rubbed, and they walk away satisfied while you’re left standing there a little raw. Safe places are hard to maintain. I think now I understand why safe houses in movies look so run down.

The urge to channel my inner mean girl when I feel attacked is real — and I know that’s exactly what she wants. Because she is the mean girl in high school. Peaked there too, apparently.

But here’s the thing about collateral damage. It’s not just the adults getting hit.

The girls cry from trying to decipher the underhanded. From reaching out and being ignored. From watching one sibling get answered while the other gets silence — and then hearing “at least ONE of my children loves me enough to answer when I call.” A daughter who was just asked to her first prom was told her eyebrows are out of control and her back acne is too much. Not cruelty for cruelty’s sake — cruelty with perfect aim. Being told to go live with their dad and then being mocked for being upset about it.

The safest place for a young girl should be with her mother. That is not always the reality. I carry that every single week.

When they’re hurt and they say “it’s okay” — because they’ve been taught to normalize it — I stop them every time. It’s not okay. But YOU will be okay. Because you will keep setting your boundaries. You can love someone and not accept their behaviors. Write that down.

Some days I am an octopus. Eight arms of irrational perimenopause rage looking for something to hit. I want the interaction to say “what’s that on your face? OH!! It’s just your personality.” School functions have become exposure therapy. Transition days bring a full body reaction because unpredictability is its own kind of violence.

Sometimes I worry that I’m so focused on managing the damage that I forget to check on my own biological children. Are they quiet because they’re okay? Or are they quiet because they can see how much I’m already carrying?

My youngest turned 17 this week. When I told Marisa I was worried she’d choose to be at one house over the other, Marisa reminded me that she’s a confident young woman because I created a safe space for her to be one. So I told my daughter I miss her. That I’d like to see her on her birthday because I made her and this day is important to me too. Not because I was making her birthday about MY feelings — but because parenting has never been about my feelings. It’s been about theirs. Always.

Even this week, she was made to feel bad about choosing to spend her birthday the way she wanted to. And there it is again — the difference. Nick and I miss our kids. We get hung up on that feeling sometimes. But we can tell them we miss them and want more time with them without it being about guilt. We can express our feelings without weaponizing them. That’s the line. That’s the difference between “I miss you and I’d love to see you” and “how dare you not prioritize me.”

Nick and I have both spent years removing our own feelings from parenting. Putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations for their benefit. Meanwhile both of our exes have wielded emotional warfare like it’s a parenting strategy. The difference is stark. Some parents set their feelings aside. Others weaponize them.

This last week’s unnecessary nonsense could have been solved with one text: “Hey, I’d like to take her to the doctor tomorrow during your time. I scheduled an appointment for 1:30. Does that work?” Eight seconds and a shred of basic decency.

For years we’ve been held to an impossibly high standard while others operate with none. We’ve managed the damage. Put the kids first. And only now — with the girls old enough to see it themselves — are we finally setting boundaries that also protect OUR peace. Not instead of theirs. Alongside theirs. Because they’re old enough now to scoop and toss the shit left behind by the unaddressed elephant. We’re giving them the tools. And we’re allowed to stop standing in it.

That kind of anger feeds on your body. It lives on your face — worn in, settled, permanent. Like a tired bulldog who forgot what they were barking at but kept barking anyway. She will tear him down in one breath and carry his name in the next. Ten years later, still hasn’t changed it. When confronted with the impact of her behavior, she responded with “it’s not illegal to be an asshole.” She’s not wrong. It isn’t.

That’s not something I want to become. That’s actually the clearest reminder I have on the hard days of exactly who I don’t want to be.

· · ·

Nick and I have navigated almost ten years of this. Our marriage is in one of the best places it has ever been — not despite all of this, but because of having survived it together. We both show up. For all of them. Because our love for each other and for these kids is larger than the outside storm.

The storms won’t stop coming. There will be graduations, weddings, grandchildren. The difference will be the capacity of involvement we choose. That part belongs to us too.

For every stepparent white-knuckling through this alone. For every blended family doing the quiet, thankless work of loving kids through someone else’s damage.

You’re not alone. Not even a little bit.