Controling ex wife...

[Shalotta]

I don't know if anyone was/is in a similar situation... I am in a very happy relationship but have to deal with the controling ex-wife of my partner, who rejoyces in making my life miserable... she is controlling and manipulative, and since she has a little boy with my partner we cannot just tell her to bugger off ( oh, how I wish!)... since I met her she is constantly crossing our boundaries (bombarding my partner with phone calls, contstant attention seeking using the child as a pretext, etc.) and we have to keep her in check all the time yet trying to remain calm and diplomatic... she also tries to make me jealous and angry with provocative behaviour.

I hate the guts of this woman and the way she tries to get advantage through her child... besides she has tried a couple of times behind my back to get my partner back, as for some reason she thinks he belongs to her, although their relationship is over since a long time... (and nothing to do with me). Needless to say that she has recently started to manipulate the little one against me, who really likes me but is now very confused if he is "allowed" to be friends with me or if he should stay loyal to his mother. I cannot understand how people like her are allowed to have children and it outrages me...

How can I get my peace and hapiness back?? ;(

[Mamulik]

you new that your partnet has little boy and ex wife, so be nice to her!

[PfftTheMagicDragon]

Maybe you should think about what it would be like to be a woman raising a child alone, and facing the reality of the person who they used to be married to being with someone else.

You have to have a relationship with her if you stay with your DP. They have a child together so you will never be rid of her. So be the adult and get on with it.

[aseriouslyblondemoment]

lets face it its rare to find someone who doesn't have a past and in this case its an exw and a child
im sorry to hear that its causing you problems
tbh i can't really offer advice as such
tho would say if you want your relationship to work then you're going to have to let her apparent antics not grind you down
i would imagine that if she is deliberately trying to sabotage your relationship then the more you rise to it the more she'll get off on the fact
however you do have to bear in mind that she does have the right to contact your dp as she is the mother of his child and quite rightly wants to involve him in his ds life
as far as the ds is concerned then it is natural for him to perhaps feel disloyal to his mother by actually having a relationship with you as well,divorce does impact on children heavily and they do have divided loyalties

[Shalotta]

I do think about how it feels for a woman to raise a child on its own and I would have a lot of sympathy for a woman who truly had the best interests of her child at heart. This woman hasn't. She just thinks of herself and is not in the slightest bothered what kind of damage she does to her child by acting and behaving like that. My partner and I have lost all respect for her since a long time, still remain treating her though as if she was a respectful women because she is the mother of the child we love who has deserved to have a good image of his Mommy. This woman has cheated on my partner when they were still together and "slept" her way through life and now that her ex partner is in a new relationship she cannot stand he is happy without her. Sorry for the rant - and I don't want to be moralsing, I give a , but she has no right to ruin other people's lifes and I want to know what I can do to "protect" myself... as I know she won't go away....

[beanieb]

Did she tell you about sleeping her way through life, or did that come from your partner? I woudn't take everything he says as the gospel truth, he's been hurt and hurt people sometimes don't say nice things about the people who hurt them but her alleged past conduct has nothing to do with your relationship or your life really.

[BonsoirAnna]

Step back. You do not have to get involved with your DP's exW - she is for him to deal with, not you.

[aseriouslyblondemoment]

she won't go away end of
you can help yourself by not allowing her to get to you
and when the ds is with you and your dp concentrate on building a relationship with him
and yes it's very much a learning curve with children you'll have good times and some pretty rotten ones too
you really need to remain calm about all of this or you will be in danger of ruining your relationship

[Shalotta]

I also would like to say - I have always been nice, respectful and helpful to this woman. So please anyone here stop blaming me! And yes, I knew my partner had a child - and I love the child, but I did not expect that there is a force involved here who wants to sabotage our couple! The nicer and friendlier you are with some people, the more resentful they get with you. They just cannot bear it. This woman is mentally instable, she wants to be where she has no right to be... she wants it all and no sacrifices! But how do you deal with it when a little child is involved...you have to give the child priority. But it is hurtful and painful. So at the moment it is me who feels I make the sarcrifices....

[BonsoirAnna]

Don't be nice to her. Why are you being nice to her?

Just be nothing. Stay neutral. Have no expectations of any kind of relationship with her.

[Shalotta]

thanks, aseriouslyblondemoment... this is some good adivce

[Shalotta]

the info of her sleeping around does not come from my partner... he did not even know that and he gives a it comes from common aquaintances from uni who have seen her "in action"... I don't care, she can do whatever she wants in her life...but as I said she "wants it all and no sacrifice".

[aseriouslyblondemoment]

shalotta i wasn't blaming you at all
i'm merely pointing out that the way forward is to let things go
all the mental energy that you're wasting here is basically futile
she isn't worth your head space
use that for your dp and his ds

[Surfermum]

I've been there. It's hurtful and frustrating when all you are trying to do is get on with someone. And it used to make me so angry that dsd's mum put her in the middle of things and there wasn't a thing I could do to change that. Made me feel very disempowered.

My advice would be to detach. You haven't done anything wrong, so it isn't about you and anything you are doing. It's all her stuff. Concentrate on making sure that when that little girl is with you she has a brilliant time, and keep building your relationship.

And give her time. I tried very hard in the beginning to show dsd's mum what sort of person I was, that I was kind, wanted to be helpful, didn't have a problem with her, loved her dd. But it didn't matter what I did she was going to hate me. So I stopped trying to build bridges but left the gate open for her to start building from her side as and when she was ready.

It took about 8 years, but eventually she changed towards me, and looking back I just had to leave her to deal with her issues and wait for her to be ready to accept me.

[Shalotta]

BonsoirAnna, b/c she tried to befriend me. That's the ironical thing. Wants to be friends with me...in order to have more control over the situation is my guess. I don't want any friendship with her and I never contact her, I just do the minimum of the minimum remaining "friendly". When I say I was nice to her, I mean I helped her when she needed help with the little one (only when my partner cannot attend). But a lot of times when she needs help, she actually just wants attention. She is manipulative - can be very nice and charming but at the same time is lying and manipulating the little one.... ;(

[Shalotta]

true, it is a big waste of energy...but it is so hard not to get involved. And yet, this woman has a lot of issues, true... and now I feel I have issues too ;)

[AnyFucker]

surfermum gives good advice there

[Shalotta]

would like to know from surfermum how the little one re/acted in all that. The kids sense it if their mother hates the stepmother. She does not explicitely need to say or do anything... it's not great for the kids either...

[prettyfly1]

I am involved with someone with a child and it is difficult. You kinda have to put yourself in their shoes and always be the bigger person. I dont see how calling her a slapper helps. If kids can guess what mums think, what is to stop your stepchild guessing what you think.

Take a big step back. SHe isnt your responsibility to deal with - you trust your dh so let him get on with it. It is annoying when they keep calling but she does have a child with him and isnt going anywhere so you are just going to have to take a deep breath and ignore it. Dont ever slag her off in front of the child, always tell the child how much you care about her and enjoy her and allow her to make her own mind up as she gets older. But getting yourself into a bitter rant about the mother of the child is going to do noone any good. If thier relationship is well dead then you dont need to worry about anything.

[prettyfly1]

I meant he re: the lo.

[prettyfly1]

p.s -the relationships thread isnt great for stepmums having problems. Head over to stepparents to speak to the rest of us in this position. You will get a lot of good advice there.

[marmon]

I really sympathise with you as my life used to be like this. My dhs ex left my dh for someone else and my dh was on his own for 6 years till he met me. She also befriended me in the beginning and i was cool about it as there is a kid involved but slowly over time i realised i was being manipulated by a very controlling egocentric woman.
Its all well and good for people to say get on with it but its very difficult when people behave so terribly. Is your partner supportive? My dh would always avoid confontation with her and in the end me and her came to blows. I also realised alot of it was jealousy based.
To be honest you have to detach from the whole situation to stay sane and in our case my dh does not have as much contact with his ds as he used to. The reason for that is before i get flamed is his ex made the boy feel very uncomfortable having a relationship with me and i know he felt awkward in my company as he did not know whether to like me or not so we made the decision to both let the ds have control of when he wanted to see us.
He is now 14 and the contact with the ex is virtually nil as the boy phones and makes his own arrangements. It does get better but you have to stand together.

[Surfermum]

I think on the whole dsd coped brilliantly with it, but when she got angry things would, understandably, spill over. They still do in fact. Her mum has told her a pack of lies about her dad and to this day she is finding that really difficult because she doesn't know who to believe. And it puts us in a difficult position. What do we do? Tell her the truth, in which case it shows her mum up in a bad light, or let her believe bad things about her Dad.

And she would play us off against each other because she knew we'd never talk to each other and catch her out. She had us both thinking that she was made to do loads of chores at the respective houses - it was only when her mum started to talk to me that we both established that actually our rules when it comes to chores are almost identical! But for years I bet her mum was thinking I was the stereotypical wicked stepmum making Cinderella sweep the floor!!

I noticed a difference when dd was born because dsd became a lot more insecure about our relationship and her role in the family, the worst point being when I told her off about something (minor) and she went home and told her mum I'd hit her. Dear God did the shit hit the fan . I can laugh now, but I was devastated and there was no way her mum was even going to listen to me to reassure her that it hadn't happened. She was straight on the phone to social services. But having got over the hurt I realised that there was this little girl who actually really liked me and was really put out by dd's arrival and my diverted attention - as much as we had bent over backwards to make sure she was as unaffected as possible. I suppose it made me realise that I was important to her, despite her mum constantly going on about me being nothing to do with her.

I did what prettyfly has suggested. Not only did I never speak badly about her mum, I made sure I would make positive and supportive comments about her. Even if I didn't feel that way. I always asked after her (hopefully in an interested, not nosy way) and her siblings (who aren't dh's) and would sympathise if things weren't going great and be pleased for her if things were.

Oh God, I don't want to come across as smug and like I had it all sorted. I so didn't!

[marie1979]

just reading the whole thread and ur exs wife is me i hate my exs girlfriend even before she spread shit about me no doubt partners ex wife isnt feeling good about herslef she probly just loves him and cant help herslef

[Shalotta]

Thank you all for your interesting opinions. I can understand that for a woman who has a child it is not easy to "let go" and accept that another woman might take care of this child and get physically and emotionally close, it is somehow instinct based. But when I started the relationship with my dp, I got the idea that it was all clear cut and there was this woman who might pop in and out of my life occasionally and that would be it - and how mistaken I was about that...

I had no idea what amount of raw emotions, hateress and stress there would be involved... and now dsd starts as well... I had such a good time with him before, cuddling up and all... that's all over for the time being. Grrrrrr. You really need to be quite strong and detached about it all, otherwise it just feels like "why on earth have I deserved that"....

I think this woman just fooled herself. She thought she can make a child with someone and then step out of the relationship when she had enough and pass on to someone else, and now she realises that things don't work like that and she bites her fingers, as now it is too late for regrets...

Luckily my dp is very supportive of me and he gets better and better in setting her boundaries. He is also very good with the little one and it normally takes only a few minutes for him to take all the mental and emotional shit out of him when he comes back from Mommy... but it is a contstant struggle at the moment.

[Shalotta]

surfermum, I really feel for you! It is horrible when this happens ( the false allegations) and honestly, I almost expect this to happen to me too. I 'm thinking hell, what would I do if it came to that, as it might, who knows... the other day when dss (sorry, I keep confusing dsd and dss, it's a boy) came back, the bio mum called in uproar saying she was "very worried" about her child not wanting to come to our place any longer as he HATED his stepmum (me!)... and that was after I had brought him to school and he kissed me goodbye... these things put you into a kind of shock when you experience them for the first time. Now both me and my dp know that we just CANNOT believe her anything she says any longer... from now on it will be "oh yes, really" and switch to something else.