STEPMOM

Badmouthing = critical, spiteful remarks about you to your stepchildren or your spouse.
If you are on the receiving end of this practice by your husband’s ex, or by your ex, you know the feeling all too well.  Anger, frustration, helplessness – you are not there to defend yourself against comments that aren’t true.  And if you take the “high road” (I acknowledge you if you do!), you don’t want to go there anyway.

But you know that it harms your children.  Divorce hurts, and often has more devastating effects than we’d like to acknowledge.  But truthfully, the greater harm comes after the divorce, if the divorced parents remain in conflict with one another.
Unfortunately, about 60% of divorces can be characterized as high-conflict divorces.

Research shows that children who experience ongoing post-divorce conflict have significantly more negative outcomes following divorce.  When parents divorce, a child’s life is split in two, and he or she have many adjustments to make in living arrangements, schedules, etc.  When the parents continue to spew their anger on the other, constantly bathing the child in their venom, that’s when the worst damage is done to the child.

On the other hand, some parents have the maturity to set aside their differences, and agree to a parenting plan that is designed in the best interests of the children.  Then children are found to be resilient and have far better outcomes of divorce. Parents, though they have differences, can put them aside and become partners in the raising of the child(ren).  The relationship is changed from marriage, if you will, to a temporary business partnership, where the business is helping the child to become all that he or she can.

Those who bad-mouth think they’re hurting the ex-spouse, but they’re hurting their child!
The child NEEDS to love and honor both parents to feel complete as an adult.

When I became divorced, my ex and I managed to remain on pretty good terms throughout the divorce and afterwards.  This resulted in a good co-parenting arrangement, and a very strong bond between my son and his dad.  We didn’t agree on everything by any means on how my son should be raised, but I had a natural sense that 1. his dad loved him; 2.  he wasn’t being seriously harmed by the differences, and 3. the harmony was more important than having my way about everything…

But when I re-married 9 years later, things were very different between my husband and his ex-wife!  We went through pretty extreme difficulties and lack of cooperation for a long time.

I knew enough not to say outright ugly things, but I know my resentment/anger came through.  So it can be subtle!  When you catch yourself about to make a disparaging remark, or you hear the resentment or anger in your tone of voice, it helps to actually force yourself to say something kind that you can muster as true (you may have to do some preparation ahead of time for when these kinds of things come up!)

What can you do about badmouthing?

You be first to do the work to get through your anger and leftover feelings.  This is a tall order, but your healing will start a ripple effect that cascades throughout the family and will impact the ex as well.
Introspect to see if your desire to be RIGHT is getting in the way:  what’s it really worth to you?  Being right might have quite a cost.  Will you destroy your child to be right?

If it’s coming from your ex-spouse or your partner’s ex:

A. IF there is decent communication, ask them to read this article to understand the     harm they are doing – and make an agreement to stop together.  If the child is     complaining about it or obviously suffering from that no-win position of being “in     the middle”, you want your ex-spouse to realize that there are a host of problems     that this can lead to.  (Here I am assuming the other parent loves the child, and is     simply misguided or stuck in their issues and hurting the child un-knowingly.  One     way to think of it is this:  the child’s DNA comes from half of each biological     parent.  When someone disparages one’s parent, in some subconscious way, it
is a criticism of the child – the child takes it to heart, believing in some way he or
she is partly “no-good”.

B. Enlist a trusted friend or relative (if you have a mother-in-law, sister, brother,     common friend) have them explain what this is doing to your child.

C.  If there’s good communication between your child and the other parent, your     child might feel comfortable having this conversation with the parent who’s doing     the bad-mouthing.  Here are the steps in that talk (practice with him/her):
mom/dad, I love you.
I want you to know how much it hurts me and makes me feel awful when you say bad things about mom/dad
You know I came from you, but I came from him/her too- no matter what, I’m still half from you and half from him/her.  So when you say he/she is bad or wrong, I feel like you’re telling me half of me is bad/wrong, and I hate it.
I’m not going to listen to it anymore.  I will ask you to stop, and if you don’t I will leave the room.
It’s not my business to figure out who is right or wrong, bad or good.  I don’t want to.  I want to love both of you because you are both my parents and I need to love you both.  That’s what makes me feel good.

Hearing this from the child will usually stop a parent in his or her tracks.  They might even see that badmouthing can really backfire on the parent doing it – the child sees the whole picture.  He/she will often (eventually) side with the parent who is taking a more healthy, positive approach and moving forward).  Even if they don’t at the time, it can definitely happen as they grow up.

Being spoken about badly is a painful experience, and we care deeply how our children feel about us.  So it hurts doubly if we believe that the other parent is swaying our child’s opinion of us.  It takes a lot of emotional maturity not to lash back; but know that if you do, your child will suffer.

The Stepfamily Success Course covers a number of methods in addition to these, to help you with difficult issues in stepfamily life.