to think my parents shouldn't be meeting up with my ExH behind my back?

[catcuriosity]

Namechanger, because I want to share a link of this thread with my Dad and stepmother...

I split up with my ExH nearly 2.5 years ago, after 2.5 years of marriage and nearly 7 years of being together. I didn't tell them the reasons our marriage broke up, and they didn't really ask. He wasn't ever close to my family, to the extent that he would always get out of going to family occasions unless absolutely neccessary, and always insisted we stayed in nearby B&Bs or hotels rather than their house when we went to visit them.

The divorce was horrific, and I got dragged through the courts to get my share of the house. The way along, he hid money, refused to sell the house claiming that he was about to lose his job and wouldn't be able to buy another one, and just made the whole process as expensive as possible for me. The house was eventually sold this summer, and the judge awarded me just over double what I had originally asked for (so I don't think my original request, which he turned down, was greedy and grabby as he was claiming to everyone who would listen).

I heard from him afterwards that throughout the process, my 20 year old stepsister had been feeding him information (new relationship I was in, that I was planning to move in with my new DP etc) and ExH was using this to try and reduce the amount awarded to me. I therefore stopped telling my stepsister anything, and told my dad what she had done and that I was furious about it.

Fast forward to this weekend. I phoned my Dad and in the course of the call, he mentioned that my ExH had emailed my stepmother to ask if he could collect some bottles of wine which had been given to us as wedding presents but are stored at their house. Stepmother had apparently said this was ok, so Dad was checking with me.

I told my Dad that this was not ok, and that all the wine was mine under the terms of our court order, and that I would be sticking to it. I also said I would phone ExH and tell him this, which I duly did.

In the call with ExH, I lied and said the wine wasn't at their house anymore, and he couldn't have it. He replied that he knew it was at their house because he had been for dinner with stepmother last week and she said it was still there, and he was welcome to collect it whenever he wanted.

Because this sounded very far fetched, I phoned my dad back to tell him about ExH's claims, at which point my dad sheepishly said that yes it was true. Stepmother, stepsister and ExH had been for dinner and the wine had been discussed.

I lost my shit at this point, and have said I want nothing more to do with stepmother. Dad said I was over reacting, and we agreed to have lunch on Sunday to thrash it out.

At lunch, he backed her 100%, said I'm totally over reacting and I have no right to dictate who she does or doesn't see, and that she is the good person in all for trying to be the peacemaker and try and keep things civil. He admitted that if he had known about the meeting in advance, he would have advised her against it, but doesn't see that she has any reason to apologise to me as she has done nothing wrong. He has also said that while he hopes she doesn't have dinner again, he can't stop her if she wants to.

So, thoughts? Have I over reacted? Is it unreasonable of me to not want my life, my relationship and my wedding plans discussed with someone I desperately wanted out of my life?

Isla
We are just not that sort of family!

I also carried the usual guilt and embarrassment of having 'failed' so didn't want to have to involve them any further.

My brothers knew a lot of the gory details and advised I didn't tell my dad about the DV, in case my dad went there to sort him out! But generally, he didn't ask, he didn't want to know, he didn't ever ask how I was doing. When I told him about the court cases etc, I got a 'that is nice dear, anyway...' change of the subject so never thought it was my place to 'over'share with him

cat time to overshare. he is treating you like a baby. He needs to get that there is more than one kind of divorce and this is not like his own, or like your SMs if she also had one.

beast
He knows now. I told him on Friday. I told him about the drug use and also that it is more than likely why my stepsister sees him.
He gets information from her, she gets cocaine from him.

My dad was shocked about this, but I doubt anything will be said to either my stepmother or stepsister

I would hope your SM would want to know that her daughter takes cocaine and the ex is her pusher. Unless SM indulges in cocaine herself? If your Dad doesn't tell SM that, I would tell her that myself.

I can't believe your own father would go behind your back like this - not much of a parent, is he?

It's extremely odd that your SM wants to establish a relationship with your ExH after your divorce - does she have form for trying to stir up trouble?

Personally I'd be raging about this, and would pop over to get the wine before your SM gives it away - does she know that giving away someone else's property is the same as stealing it? And that you could take her to court over this provided you have made her aware that it is your property and does not belong to your ExH?

To be honest I'd break off contact with your DF, if he's backing her behaviour it's very clear where his loyalties lie - i.e. not with you.

OP, I would be beyond furious.

I would consider that the height of betrayal, but I would also think that this is being instigated by your ex to get at/to you. Your stepmother and stepsister are being very stupid indeed being hoodwinked by your ex in this way. It is very common behaviour for an abusive ex to try keep controlling you via contact with family. Normally this would be achieved by contact with the children - but as there are no children, he's gone for own extended family instead.

Was your dad present at this dinner? I'd consider that a huge betrayal if so. If you can't rely on your parents to side with you in the event of a relationship breakdown, then who can you rely on??

I'd consider the DSM and DSS out of my life, I'm afraid. I'm very for you. Very unpleasant business for you.

sabrina
No, Dad wasn't there and claims he didn't find out about it until after they had met up.
His version of events is:
Stepsister lives in London, and Stepmother was up staying with her (I think for work). Stepsister mentions to stepmother that she had plans to meet ExH for dinner that night, Stepmother agrees to come along as well.

I suggested that at learning stepsister was going out for dinner with ExH, the more normal response would have been 'that isn't a good idea, why don't you and I go out instead' rather than going along as well

It sounds as if your step sister and step mother resent and dislike you and are using your ex husband as way of hurting you.

I would collect your wine, and anything else they are storing for you,

ask your father if in the future you can meet at your home or a neutral place,

and be very careful what information you share with any of them.

Their behaviour is horribly undermining and seems designed to upset you, it's a shame your farther has not put your needs first, that must be very hard to come to terms with.

Families should be a place of security and support at times of bereavement (you have lost the life you thought you would have), to enable an abusive person to undermine that support is truly vile, these people(step relatives) have grabbed an opportunity to push you away, take the hint go.

If you dad wants a relationship with you, make sure you do your best to protect yourself from hurt, do not trust stepmother and sister, they do not have your best interests at heart, they have used this vile situation as an opportunity to push you away, don't jump up and down and rant, they will enjoy that and use it as evidence as to your unreasonable persona,

Withdraw from the toxic ones, anything you do or say will be used against you.

Does your stepmother have an ex? Would she like you inviting him to dinner to discuss her failings?

You can't "win' in this situation, just remove yourself from it, hopefully your father is not a weak man, and will make an effort to maintain a relationship, quite sad for both of you, but if he has negative people constantly being restful about you around him, he will have to have a word with himself and take control of his relationships.

Well, that version of events is credible, cat.

In which case your problem may be slightly different.

StepS has a relationship with ExH which may nor may not be based on cocaine use and supply (disclaimer- I can't know, so am going only on what you have said in your posts). StepS has form for leaking interesting stuff to your Ex which has been very serious for you in the past.

I am prepared to believe that SM did not know the full story when she agreed to have dinner with Ex- especially if your suspicions are true (which we can't know)- but if they are, what mother would willingly have dinner with her daughter's cocaine supplier?

Without confronting the truth or otherwise of your suspicions of drug use, it will be difficult to take this further. Your StepSis is at one remove- the issue is not really stopping your dad and his wife from seeing your ex, but stopping her. It's not realistic to think that you can prevent StepSis knowing about your life; nor is it likely you can stop her passing it on.

if you do pass this thread to your StepM I think she ought to think very hard about this "friend" of her daughter. She needs to think hard if it seems plausible to her that her daughter is indeed using cocaine. She needs to be aware that if she is, it is likely she will lie about both the use and the supply.

In which case your StepM may have to confront a much more horrible problem than she imagined.

Your dad may feel 'caught in the middle' between you and your SM/SS - but even so I think it's your stepmother who is being unreasonable here - you didn't over-react in the slightest IMO.

I'm afraid I agree with quoteunquote - you won't be able to prevent your step-relatives from seeing your ex - regardless of how unreasonable their behaviour is. I would wonder why on earth they want to strike up a relationship, now, with an abusive man who wanted little to do with them whilst he was married to you....but there you go! That's their look out. But hopefully you can maintain a relationship with your father.

And get your back!!

I agree that it sounds as though SM and SS don't hold you in very high regard, what other reason for such odd behaviour? I'd also be utterly baffled and hurt by my father going along with all of this. Is this how he demonstrates his love and his loyalty to you? Truly strange seeing as they had no real relationship when you were actually with your ex.

Move your wine pronto, you can't control what your peculiar family choose to do but you can protect your assets.

You owe nothing to SS and SM, I'd loudly announce SS's fondness for cocaine and then leave, with my wine bottles clanking along side me.

OP - poor you. How utterly disloyal of your family. As difficult as it may be, you need to give them a wide berth. Some people are just toxic.

SM may well have no idea about the (alleged) cocaine and think there is no reason why StepS should lose a friend over this and "can't we all be civilised".

OP hasn't yet told her about all the domestic violence, emotional abuse and drug use.

So give SM the chance to prove that she is a responsible mother to her daughter, let her deal with this totally undesirable "friendship" and- you would hope- apologise to the OP for the hurt caused.

Do what quoteunquote says. Clear your belongings from there and withdraw from the toxic ones.

Agree with the ones above who say to just collect your wine and cut them off - if they carry on hanging out with your ex they'll slowly squeeze you out anyway, better to do it now yourself and take charge of the situation as best you can.

If you do pass this thread on so they can see it I hope they realise they're being awful and maybe it'll be the kick up the arse they need to see that!

I would be devastated if my family ever did this to me. Your dad especially should be ashamed of himself. I would immediately settle any outstanding issues and then go No Contact.

I like what squoosh says, merrily announce SS's cocaine habit on your way out with your wine bottles.

Some fairly extreme advice here about breaking off contact with the family.. Let me try to put the opposite POV.

Your StepSis has a friendship with your Ex. As far as your Dad and StepM know, it is a perfectly normal friendship. You suspect otherwise and you may very well be right. Either way, your StepSis is not concerned with loyalty to you or with protecting your privacy- that's a fact, as we know about her leaking things during the divorce. Although your Dad and StepM weren't close to your ex during your marriage, we don't know how long StepSis has been friends with him.

OK. Now StepM is in London with her daughter and is asked to dinner with StepSis's friend, your ex. Step mum has had her own breakup, and watched your Dad's perhaps (don't know the timing there) and will no doubt have opinions on keeping things civilised etc.

At this stage, StepMum knows nothing about the emotional or domestic violence or the drug use.

Your own Mum, or your Dad, would probably still have said no. StepMum is however persuaded to support her own daughter, because all she knows at this stage is that you are very angry about the divorce and want nothing more to do with him. She doesn't know why, and is probably being fed stories of you being greedy, unfair, whatever. She thinks, it's not such a big deal, no reason why my daughter has to lose a friend, let's show Ex that some of us can be civilised. It's not as if I have invited him over myself. Off she goes and has dinner.

I think if you did not tell your Dad, StepMother and StepSister anything about the real reasons, this is not gross disloyalty. It is patronising, sure, to be such a know-all about how civilised to be about someone else's divorce, but that's parents for you. I don't think it's your dad's fault at all at this stage- nobody asked his opinion, and if they had, he'd have said no.

The source of your problems is actually your StepSister and I think a lot will depend on whether your stepmother recognises that this friendship must now end, and that her daughter has behaved very badly.

Having been in a very similar situation to yours, I completely understand why you feel your family has been disloyal to you. My situation didn't end well and my dad sacked me from my job at his company and I had to leave there and then. We have been NC since then (well over 2 years ago). I hope your dad reacts in a different way, ie more like a father and can show you some loyalty.

What strikes me (as it was the same in my situation) is that your SM and SSis have stepped out of line, yet the focus is on how you've reacted to it! That would be something I'd consider too when dealing with the aftermath. Good luck!

Thanks guys, really appreciate all the advice, and the reassurances that I haven't made something out of nothing, which is what I've been told.

I can see that maybe stepmother was just being naive, but ExH is 45, and stepsister is 20, which alone should be enough to say 'this isn't a normal friendship'. Stepsister has always been very immature for her age, which is why I excused to some degree her feeding my ex information during the divorce. But I can't believe that stepmother didn't think for one minute 'hmm, this is a bit odd, why does ExH want to see me all of a sudden' and not think she might be being manipulated.

Your stepfamily sound toxic. Your dad sounds like a pathetic enabler who would passively sit by and watch his wife shit all over his own child. What a messed up situation.

curiosity Some parents do this. I don't know why, can't explain it, but they do.

My parents fed my ex information throughout my (incredible messy) divorce, and even put pressure on me to tell them my plans and arrangements for the sole reason of passing it on to him.

The believe they know why we split, because ex told them and they had no reason to disbelieve him! There are significant omissions in their knowledge, however. They ensure they were available for him to talk to after each of our mediation sessions - and they sought support from ex-IL to deal with the grief they experienced when my marriage to their DS ended (WTF?). Oh, and they hosted ex and his wife when they honeymooned last year.

Unsurprisingly, I've been non-contact for years.

Cat do I understand it correctly that your SS would've been 15 when you married your ex, and 17.5 when you divorced, and 17.5 - 20 as she either sought out or accepted a friendship with your ex, who was 40-45 at this stage?? am I the only person who finds this in itself terribly inappropriate, given that the ex never had much of a brotherly relationship with the SS?

For her to be feeding info to him sounds like teenage girl drama and I could imagine she got a right old kick out of feeling important and adult, an equal player in a messy situation.

Your SS has been devastatingly disloyal and your SM is not much better. Even without knowing about the drug use/DV/EA, they both knew your ex was someone you had a contentious divorce with, and they should've steered clear. To then pass on details about your relationship, private life etc is unforgivable. They knew meeting up was wrong, otherwise SS/SM would've told you about the ongoing relationship as it unfolded, not letting it get discovered 2 years down the line. I'm afraid I would cut SS/SM off altogether until they sincerely accepted that they crossed a pretty obvious line, and even then I wouldn't be sharing any private info that I wouldn't expect to get back to ExH.

Your dad - how terribly hurtful. I wonder how he'd feel if you struck up a relationship with SM's ex, and filled him in on your dad's private life? He owes you a hell of a lot more loyalty than he's shown so far. There's a big difference between wanting a quiet life, and hiding one's head in the sand. Your ex is a Bad Dude; your dad should now be moving mountains to keep him away from you, not grousing that you're making a big deal of any of this

Sidney
Yes, that is broadly correct. I've just looked her up on facebook and it seems her 22nd birthday was a couple of weeks ago, so I'm a bit out with her age in my OP.

I made a big effort with stepsister because she was a bit of a lost lamb. I invited her on family skiing holidays (and bloody paid towards her!) with me, ExH and my brothers and generally treated her like a sister.

When she was 18, she wanted to take a gap year, which ExH and I helped her plan, putting her in touch with friends we had in the countries she was visiting. Then, she went to university in London, but hated it, so spent her weekends with us. After a term, she dropped out altogether and spent a while living with us while she decided what to do.

So there was some sort of relationship, but nothing that was so unbreakable that she should continue it after we split.

What is particularly galling is that ExH always considered her a bit of an annoyance. He really didn't want her coming on our holiday and I had to beg him to let her. Oh the irony!

My parents maintained contact with my ex when we split after 5yrs marriage. I found it very difficult to talk to them, as I felt they kept trying to reconcile us. It caused massive arguments.

They have no contact with him now, but I can't forget how it felt.