Co parent has new GF - help.

[learnincurve]

Ok I'll try to keep this as succinct as possible. Sooo glad I found this forum, really hope it's busy.

My daughter just turned five, and her dad and I have been separated for four years. We have always had 50 50 custody, arranged mutually, nothing legal.

I left him, and for a long time he was lost. because we have 50 50 parenting, we obviously communicate a lot and always have done. We haven't always got on, and her dad bullied me for, well, since I left him. Four months ago he got a GF, his first serious one since we split. A month later he announced they were moving in together, and a month after that they did.

Now, this woman (I hope!) is the best thing to happen to me since my daughter was born. However, being that we co-paent 50/50, my daughter's dad and I have a very different relationship to the one she has with her son's dad, who has him overnight on a friday.

She basically doesn't want DD's father and I communicating. She thinks it's unneccessary, but my parenting ethos is that it's bloody essential. She seems to be involved in some kind of power struggle with me that I really don't want.

I'm on here tonight because I rang DD's dad to tell him there was a riot 20ft from my house. She's angry, and says that I shouldn't 'expect him to be there' at the drop of a hat (?) I was imply informing him, in my book that's what co parents do. She went off on one about me asking him to move a chair (I got it wedged on the stairs and asked him to move it when he came to pick DD last week) and asking him when he's due a mobile phone upgrade (he gives me his old mobiles when he upgrades - or did).

I suppose in an effort to be succint there are two mains points here

1. I cannot effectively coparent 50 50 with him if she thinks that him having a cup of tea here when he drops off/picks up equates to 'playing happy families'
   
   
2. I have lived the last four years being told how worthless and awful and substandard and whorish and stupid and evil and pathetic and childish I am. Four months ago, when I suggested introducing my BF (who I've been with a year) to DD, he said a) I had to have BF CRB checked and b) I was never to introduce 'any of my men' to DD anyway. This on it's own is bad enough, but a month later he moved in with a woman I hadn't met. So the pendulum, you could say, has swung from one extreme to the other, very, very quickly.
   
   I'm ready to accept that he no longer wants the coparenting relationship we always had before. I really, REALLY do not want a power struggle with this woman, who I have tried SO HARD to like.
   
   I prob have left out huge chunks or waffled. I just really, really need some advice because my instincts are screaming and this si too big to c**k up. I need as many perspectives as possible and any advice you can offer. Thank you.

[madwomanintheattic]

if he constantly told you how worthless/ awful/ substandard/ whorish etc etc you were, surely you should be happy he's not paying you so much attention now? the phone thing must have been nice, but have you sat down properly and arranged all your finances/ equality of child benefit etc properly? important now that it's all agreed officially - there might be other children involved soon perhaps! (not just her existing child but maybe new brothers and sisters, too)

i know it's not about him (despite your comments mostly concerning him) but tbh she's kind of right. it might seem a bit petty (the whole taking issue with moving a chair/ phone call thing) but she's the one living with him 100% of the time. you are just co-parenting. you don't really have any call on him, per se, unless it is directly concerned with your dd. so she's probably just letting you know that she's his partner now. which of course she is. you're still the child's mother, but you are his ex.

i think she'll settle down once she realises you aren't going to be calling him every five minutes to ask him to move a spider, or to lift a heavy box, or give you a hand fixing the roof/ changing a washer/ moving the furniture around. he's got another life to lead now, which your daughter will be a part of, but you, not so much.

big changes. let it all settle down and it will be fine. wish them the very best in their new life together and try to give them a little bit of space whilst they work out their new relationship. you can still co-parent, but you need to let her know that you understand that she is more important than you are, for your ex. (ignoring dd, obv.)

[madwomanintheattic]

oops, x-post. but similar response, thankfully.