Just a couple of clarifications. I could see that this convo about what can be done to help S8 seemed a little age inappropriate but now with a little more info it seems like they genuinely thought they were talking to a teenager, and it's pretty clear why S8 got mad instead of sad. I'm glad he spoke his truth in that moment.
I mostly wanted to help you understand that picking up the pieces isn't entirely your job here. S8 is going to have to learn how to cope. He's going to need to gain coping skills with this because dad and OW aren't going anywhere. And if this hurts you so badly to see him like this you will continue to do the coping for him. Which serves no one. Which is why I'm pushing therapy.
S8 dumping all of this on OW is doing what a lot of LBS do and a lot of kids from divorced homes do. Blame the interloper. Now OW may be a dumpster fire of a human being. Or she's a pretty nice person with a terrible picker, like the rest of us. But his anger toward her 1) doesn't change his situation 2) is being directed at the wrong person 3) is giving him and embodiment to his struggles with the split and she is going to get a lot more vitriol that she deserves because of that. Therapy is super important so he can name and place his issues. So he can learn to cope. So he can learn to effectively detach from stbxh in the best way a kid can and so you don't have to do the heavy lifting here.
I'm with CW, and honestly I don't see how stbxh could refuse. But if that's the case I'd frame it around the problems in their home, not that they are the problem but that he's clearly not adjusting well, that him calling and crying to come home is stressful for you and you want his time over there to just be their time, and S6 is doing fine so clearly this is necessary. Doesn't matter if it's true, just matters that he hears what he wants to here to get on board. What happens once S8's in therapy even if it's a "I hate OW and I hate dad" session every time that's none of stbxh's concern. Just need to get him to cosign on the starting therapy part.
I spent years co-parenting with a useless other part, and parenting next to another totally dysfunctional co-parenting relationship with my H and his ex. I can spin just about anything into something palatable for the useless, selfish or not so sane. And if necessary make them think it was their idea. If you need to find words to "talk" H into getting on board with this when the timing is right I can help.
Next I never caught if you're in therapy. Are you? If you're not I strongly suggest you get into IC. You need support through this. You need to be able to off load and you need a sounding board to assist you in ways to support you're kiddo without doing the heavy lifting for him.
You are doing what a lot of LBW's do and are carrying a burden because no one else is there to do the heavy lifting. And to be honest, the pretty common secondary reason that there isn't an LBS around here who isn't happy to find one more thing that the WAS/WS has left for them to do on their own without any assistance. But this burden carrying is something that took me a really, really long time to understand fully. I had to learn it's not our job to fix everything for everybody. Things beyond our scope need to be outsourced. And things within our scope don't always need to be done by us. Fixing, and the psychological relief it provides a lot of us, especially for those of us who've been conditioned to fix via emotional abuse, being on over do-er, control issues, whatever, is not the selfless act that we like to believe it is. More often than not fixing is completely and totally selfish. And when we try to fix everything for our kids it can distort their version of reality, it can rob them of natural consequences, it can rob them of learning coping skills in a safe controlled environment. Sometimes fixing makes things worse in the long run.
All of this is a super hard pill to swallow. And lord knows none of this is resolved overnight. It's a process and a journey. Just know you are strong enough to carry this until you don't have to. And you're kind enough to do it all with grace. But please try to keep in mind here the best you can do to help S8 and S6 and you is get the help S8 and you need in therapy.
