Leaving DP because of his ex.

I agree they could and they should, but they aren't. So it's either find a way to escalate to someone more senior and get the complaint taken seriously (difficult) or try another approach.

I hope this works out for you OP. This sounds so tricky for you. Your solution of a combination of a solicitor and therapy may help. Unfortunately your SC may have to choose beteeen a relationship with their siblings and living at yours.

I have been where you are apart from my dsc were a lot younger and far more malleable. My DH turned up every time he had court ordered contact, she brought the children to the door and made them tell him they no longer wanted to see him. He still tried to collect them until she had him arrested for harassment. We tried going back to court to enforce the order, she claimed he had assaulted her and the children during a collection.

She attempted to make the first 10 years of our marriage as miserable as she could. Dangled the children when her abuse failed. Those children are now in their 30’s, she died about 5 years ago. My DH and his children are rebuilding their relationship, they are damaged to a degree and each meeting brings out more of the harm she did.

Think carefully before you split with your DH, it won’t stop her, she might even ramp it up, to include that they are sleeping together etc. Get some legal advice together, you are stronger together than apart.

OP, your life shouldn’t an ongoing conflict you need to win. So what if she wins by you leaving him, if by staying you lose far more? Staying and ‘winning’ would be a Pyrrich victory for you if ever there was one.

Is it your husband’s fault? Or your stepchild’s? No, but that doesn’t mean you’re in any way duty bound to remain in a situation you’re finding increasingly intolerable. You have one life, you don’t have to spend it fighting and being miserable.

Not sure of advice but I am exactly in yours shoes so thought would share my story if it helps at all. DH’s ex has mental health issues and is very abusive and destructive, false allegations etc. I also have a young DC with my DH and didn’t want another child to have a broken home if we could avoid it and our own relationship is great, just her behaviour that cast a constant cloud. I did consider leaving but chose to stay. Why should she ruin my marriage basically. Our solution was to go NC with her so she has as little “ins” as possible to our life. DH blocked her on everything. We stick to agreed contact times so don’t need to contact her nor she us. SC are 14 and 13 so more than capable of communicating to DH themselves if anything comes up like illnesses etc that mean they can’t come. Wasn’t easy at first as it made her worse to SC about us initially but then it was like without any info or outlet she got bored and things have been better. I would say NC or minimal contact if you feel you cannot go NC. Even just being able to give her less of your head space is an amazing freedom.

This is an awful situation for you.

You talk about your stepchild and then say: "constant emotional abuse of my stepchild, she blocks them, tells them she wants nothing to do with them, threatens suicide all the time, sends them lists of reasons she hates them".

How many stepchildren? That is confusing, at other times you just mention one.

If he/she is a teenager now mother will soon be less able to manipulate. I presume the other children are younger and feel very sorry for them being in the middle of this 'war'.

Keep evidence. It will add up.

As you have a young baby of your own, I can understand you wanting out of this situation. However I doubt your husband wants you to go. He should take some advice from a solicitor, producing copies of all the messages and posts his ex-wife makes.

I wonder why she is so bitter or if she is mentally ill though that is not your problem.

A warning to other young women, often said on Mumsnet. Do not get involved with men who have dependent children!

I may be way off with this but she sounds like she needs to be sectioned under the mental health act. My first step mum was acting crazy after they got divorced and threatened me, she ended up sectioned. I was 12 so I don’t fully understand what actually happened process wise. I’m sure it’s very complicated but she sounds genuinely unhinged and if she’s making threats of suicide to her child surly that’s a sectionable offence?

If you have Employee Assistance Pregram at work, you can get FREE legal advice, Free counselling and also sometimes
even free counselling for a member of your family (so the teenager may qualify)

It is all confidential and is worth a phone call today. Don’t leave yet!!

If you have EAP at work or your husband does, try that they can be really helpful. Good luck x

I haven't read all of this, but I would have thought there would be potential recourse via the Protection from Harassment Act, or at least the threat of it. I think you should take legal advice from a specialist solicitor.

Why are the police so bloody useless.

Why would the children be in foster care in an ideal world?! In an ideal world they would be with their fathers. Why would foster care come into the equation?!

The bar for social services to remove children, unless extreme physical neglect or abuse, is just so high. In an ideal world all of these kids would bebin foster care - ideally kinship care - while the mother got intensive therapy.

If she chose to continue to be emotionally abusive to her kids, she shouldn't get unsupervised access to her children.

But as no one's died, or is going to die, police and social services can treat this as a very low priority.

The kids will hopefully break free when they're older - the OPs stepchild has a good chance, as he has a supportive involved father. Hopefully the other kids will go NC too, and be able to get family support from each other.

I had an ex once threathen to commit suicide - the very worst type of emotional blackmail, it's disgraceful for a parent to do this to a child.

Oh she’s evil!

Good luck in whatever way you move forward.

I think get advice from a solicitor (though this sounds like psychiatric or personality disorder territory so may not stop her), and some kind of mental health/emotional support for your step child. The latter so that your step child at the very least stops involving you or your child in this by showing you messages etc. and stops telling their mother anything about your lives - DP needs to reinforce this too. And hopefully some support with stopping them feeling responsible for the well being of everyone else in that fucked up family to the detriment of themself. That might enable them to realise they need to get out. The mother may turn more abusive if she's not getting info.

Your DP must have known how insane she was before he got together with you but didn't take any steps to ensure she knew as little about your shared child and you as possible? How does she know enough about you and your child to be able to put false UC and child benefit claims in? She'd need your and your child's birthdates surely?

If any of the social media/texting harassment is direct (your post is a bit unclear) you need to deactivate or delete your SM profiles, report to the SM provider (who may not do much) change your phone number and not give the new number to your step child. Of course you shouldn't have to but it may get you some peace.

The question is, can you stand this until your step child turns 18 and possibly beyond? If not and nothing changes I think you need to move house and properly end the relationship, not just pretend to end it.

The minute the woman threatened suicide the game should have been over and the child extracted full time.

I've something a bit similar with an abusive family member, social services and police involvement due to false allegations.

A police officer told me that cases like this are hard for them to deal with, as the abuser wasn't mad enough to section, and wasn't directly attacking me.

I thought they could have pushed for a harassment charge, but it was messy and I think they just didn't really see how stressful it was for me, sympathetic as a couple of individual officers were. They see so much worse.

I don't think you leaving will make you happier to be honest, so I don't think it's the best thing to do.

I think your stepchild and partner need to stop telling you what she's up to, you need to get a break from her, your stepchild can still get support from his Dad, but they need to leave you out of itball.

You need to tell any family members not to pass on any information about her to you. Once your stepchild is 18, your partner needs to do the same.

I suspect your stepchild will break with his mum when he's an adult, so she's not going to be able to get to you in a few years.

If you live anywhere near her, I think you should move.

The non-molestation order is a good idea, but don't give up hope if it doesn't work.

Keep a record, tell the people who need to know what's going on - in my case it was GP, school and my work, as my family member had written to all of them with false allegations that I was abusing my kids.

You have all my sympathy, you'll get through this.

@Brokenn I had exactly the same situation as you. The behaviour absolutely ramped up after my second child was born. She reported me to social services for leaving her child and my eldest alone while I gave birth. That was only one of the things, but actually the last straw. I was relentless with the police, relentless and they actually did go around to see her and warned her to stop. Which she actually did. If you can bear it, be the squeaky wheel and maybe the police will actually act

I think the stepchild needs to live with you full time and go NC with their mother. I know that is not what the SC wants but it is what needs to happen in order to safeguard their mental health and wellbeing, and also to safeguard you all as a family. I understand that the SC's mother may try and stop them having a relationship with their siblings but if this happens then social services should definitely become more involved and try and facilitate a continued relationship between them. It is not the responsibility of the SC to protect their siblings at the age of 14 that is a job for the siblings' parents and social services. This situation cannot be allowed to continue both for the sake of the stepchild and for your's and your baby's sake. Counselling for the stepchild would be a good first step and I would also sit down with them and your DP and calmly discuss what needs to happen for their own protection and wellbeing and also that of your family.

Gosh, this sounds a lot
like my mother. Except I didn’t have a sane adult around to help me. It would have helped a lot. Can you go to a good counsellor as a family (you, your partner and step daughter or a mix of these)? It’d be good for her to have someone to offload to that isn’t involved. And whatever decision you make, to put value on your relationships despite this poisonous behaviour. Good luck.

It also seems the main problem lies around your SD, the way she's been guilt-tripped and made to fear losing contact with her siblings.
Ideally, she would just let her mother bluff with her threats (or carry them out if she's that stupid) - and come live with you full time, block her on every media end of.
Several posters including myself asked before,

Where is the father to these siblings and why can't contact be facilitated through him??

I don't understand why this country's legal/police/social services system is so fucking useless when it comes to abusive, threatening harassers like this.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. You should be enjoying your family, not being threatened, bullied and having your money and rights constantly at risk due to this psychopath.

I would be careful about all the advice to go to the police or a solicitor. If she's as deranged as we deal with, there's two risks.

1. They tell you there's nothing they can do, so you feel more helpless and hopeless

1. It works, for a time, and it might buy you some peace, but she'll return even more "vengeful and wronged" afterwards. She's not going to change or to see how destructive her behaviour is towards her child.

If you have any money to spare I'd spend it on therapy, not lawyers, again assuming she's a psychological threat but not a physical one.

Such a shame! Clearly she’s refusing to take any responsibility and is always the victim. In turn she’s become the abusive one to her own child. She’ll never see it! I would just gather as much evidence while pretending not to be bothered to her face. Let her unravel, then speak to a solicitor and the police to get an anti mol order. Let her dig her own grave! She’s ruining 3 people’s lives because she’s triggered by his happiness. It’s not always the ex or the parents or another ex that’s causing you to act like a terrible human being. It’s you (her)! You can be hurt and choose not to become a douche bag! Everyone has scars and problems and has suffered in some way. It’s a choice to move on and act like a decent human being.

Under what auspice?
removing a child from a parent can only be done via court order and the threshold is extremely high. The child's father hasn't even attempted to apply to court himself, so why do you think social services should be spending tens of thousands of public funds applying to court on a fools errand?