To suggest this to SC’s mum?

[OoooImBlindedByTheLight]

DP’s Ex is very hostile towards us, a whole host of issues I won’t go into detail on here but if you search up my username you’ll be able to find out if you so wish.

We’ve bought a new house which we were supposed to be in by now but our completion has been delayed due to the coronavirus.

Anyway, DP’s Ex doesn’t allow us anywhere near her house. She’s lived in the same house for nearly 9 years and DP has never been past the front door.
There have been occasions where either one of us have knocked the front door to either collect the kids or drop of something and she has opened the door then said “I’ll get them” and shut the door in our faces.

She has left us stood in the rain whilst the kids faffed with their bags or getting their things together rather than just asking if we would like to stand in their hallway.

It’s got to the point where we wouldn’t even get out of the car now and just ring the kids mobiles when we’re outside.

Anyway, we’ve bought a new house and one of Ex’s new demands was “I need to come see your new house before they can stay over”

We told her the address obviously, she needs to know where her kids live with us but then she said “No I need to see what their room is like and whether the house is suitable”.

My SCs are 11 and 15, not babies for goodness sake.

DP replied “That’s great, we look forward to seeing their rooms at your house so we can get idea of how to decorate it for them and see how they’d like it”

She hit the roof and said we have no right to see inside her home but couldn’t see the irony when we returned that sentiment.

I would have no problem if she was civil or reasonable with us, but she is abusive towards and about me.

She’s simply being nosey and trying to exert power over me which is quite obvious considering she’s never asked to see inside DP’s current home where he’s lived for 6 years. She just wants to force her way into our home.

I said to DP maybe we should be the bigger people here and allow it but he rightly pointed out that she’ll bring up things for months afterwards about anything she doesn’t like about our home and that if we let her get away making bizarre rules again then we’re effectively giving her a green light.

So AWBU to say no, she’s not welcome in our home?

Ex partner, they were never married

Yep. Just pure jealously and her being nosy. Maybe she just sees you on the up and perhaps her lufe is at a standstill relationship and/or jobwise? Either way just laugh off any suggestions of a grand tour!!!

Can we get a wee look at the new house?
Love a bit of property porn, me.

As for your husband’s ex wife. She sounds like a massive twat. Best to disengage, hard as that may be.

It's just a straight no. She has absolutely no right to enter your home and indeed no need to either. It's your home, you call the shots. What's she going to do? Go to the family court? I don't think so. And the kids will soon get fed up of it if she goes on at them. They can show her a photo of their rooms if they choose to, that's up to them.

Don't send her a message yourself. She's looking for a reaction from you. Don't give her one. Pretend she is so low on your list of priorities that you haven't even noticed her psychotic behaviour.

Say no, don't give reasons, don't apologise or half-apologise or make excuses, don't engage. Don't let the woman spoil your exciting move. If you let her in and she says stupid shit about the house, which she will, you will never get it out of your head again. Trust me, my DH has got an ex like that, and I'll never forget some of the things she's said to me. Although I wouldn't give her the pleasure of knowing that.

I wouldn't have my ex or his new partner in my house - even if it were raining - either so I understand where she's coming from with that.

But I wouldn't demand to see their rooms in his home, no.

Just stick to your guns with it. She's bat shit.

It's jealousy on her part. You've got the nice house, the good career with a masters degree, and it looks like you're about to marry your DP. And she wasn't married to your DP.

Anyway, she's crazy, and has no right to insist on entering your house. Your DP is an equal parent to her, she has no extra rights simply because she's the mother. As someone suggested, though, watch out for her to ask for a recalculation of maintenance.

I am living an almost identical situation. This is what I have decided; trying to reason with unreasonable people is a futile exercise. Don't bother trying to get her to see your point of view. My fiance would have done the exact same thing by pointing out that we didn't have access to her house. Then she would have twisted it to say he couldn't get over her and was trying to worm his way into the house...

Honestly she is jealous of you which is sad but her problem to deal with. Like you, I wished for an amicable environment - it would make things way easier for the kids. But that's only possible when everyone has the same objective which isn't the case for you or I.

I think if you give in here this will get worse and worse. It certainly was the case here. And now I won't tolerate her at all.
My current strategy is (and life is much much simpler now)-

Give her absolutely no oxygen, explanations or information about anything except regarding pick up times etc. You don't have to wordlessly accept her abuse and pander to her every whim. It is nice to be understanding but no need to be a doormat.

Do not send her a list, it'll fuel her fantasy that somehow she is a principal character in your lives.

I would send one patronising message
"I believe you want access to our home. You will not be getting it. We will not change our minds here so please understand we will not respond to further requests. It's a shame this is how things have become, I had hoped for an amicable relationship for the sake of the children but I guess you are not capable of that for your own personal reasons. That is fine. From now on please be aware that all inappropriate contact and requests will be ignored. You are free to contact me if there is a genuine emergency or concern with one of your children."

"I don’t see the issue with my calling them my SCs, they are my SCs and will legally be my SCs very shortly 🤷🏼‍♀️"
Maybe it would help if you don't refer to them as your SC until after you are married as their mum might feel you are trying to diminish her role as mother (and also you are not their SM until your marriage).

If I were you, irrespective of being really peed off with her, I would show her their rooms and nothing else. Do it asap after moving in and tell her the children are going to decide on how they want them decorated and their bedroom furniture if you are buying it new. Don't let her see anywhere else. When decorated etc, let the children make a video call showing their mum their rooms. If you can do this one thing it may make your future relationship a little easier. Then you can make sure you treat each other the same regarding drop offs and collection of the children in future.

It will be much better for the children if you can try to improve the relationship.

Sounds like a lot of jealousy of the OP going on here.

Great advice given on here. While you would love to give her a long list of the issues its probably best to hold fire and respond no to these requests and then ignore them.

You could keep a list of all of these issues as ammunition if needed and therapy in a way.

Op has tried to improve the relationship and is obviously keen to be reasonable as she is even considering this request. In return she has been on the receiving end of abuse from the ex. Op has done nothing wrong and the ex should be happy the kids have a stepmum (and stop splitting hairs about this, she is engaged to be married, she saved and provided a home for all of them) who cares about them so much.

I fully expect a recalculation of maintenance.
We currently pay the CMS amount (I think it may be out by £10/20 a month) she’s aware of this as it hasn’t been officially recalculated for a few years but she’s happy with it as we pay for all extras including all uniforms, all sports equipment, phone bills, iPads etc including insurances, all haircuts (including highlights for 15 year old which need to be done every 6 weeks), glasses for both kids, all trainers and more expensive items of clothing, all pocket money comes from us even when they are at their mum’s. So if my SCs want a trip to the cinema with friends my DP pings them the money.

DP said he is going to suggest an increase to maintenance anyway of around £40 a month to ensure he’s paying the right amount.

In total we pay nearly £400 a month extra on top of the agreed maintenance.
All of which she is aware of by the way.

DP has said if she goes through CMS to be spiteful then she will have to take on the DCs electronics bills which are due for renewal later in the year and it will leave her worse off than where she is now.

She tried to get a recalculation when we got engaged and was kicking off with DP saying my income should be taken into consideration. Obviously she’s off her rocker and we said no.

She also sees us having nice things and gets angry at my DP thinking she should give more money to her. I think she forgets that I work too and that these things could either have been bought by me or jointly anyway.
She doesn’t work so I think that might be skewing her thinking.

If I were you, irrespective of being really peed off with her, I would show her their rooms

Yes do this if you intend to be a pushover for the rest of your relationship OP.

Oh god she sounds like a total pain in the arse.

My advice is don't give your step children keys (I am fully aware of how awful that sounds) because we were in the same situation and DPS ex let herself in our house whilst we weren't in under the guise of collecting dss' stuff.

If they were tiny tots I might sympathise because mum paranoia is real so she might have worried the rooms were unsuitable in some way.
But with the ages they are and how she acts when you go round hers, nah, she's just being rude for the sake of being rude.

Tell her no, and tell your DP not to entertain it either, if she mentions it she should just be told "No, that isn't happening".

@TrustTheGeneGenie good point. We never gave the DSC keys for that reason.

Maybe it would help if you don't refer to them as your SC until after you are married as their mum might feel you are trying to diminish her role as mother (and also you are not their SM until your marriage)

I don’t refer to them as my SCs in real life and do not talk to their DM anyway so it’s not like even if I did she would know.
I tend to refer to my DCs and SCs collectively as “the kids”.
Generally speaking that is, like “We took the kids out for dinner on Friday” iyswim

I used SCs on here because it’s easier than writing out “my DP’s DCs” every time.

And whether she likes it or not, my SCs would describe me as their stepmum. If people would ask they’d say “My dad and stepmum”, they also refer to me by my first name. It’s up the them what they call me, I have no issue with either

If my partner’s ex asked to come into my house she would be told to fuck right off and I don’t care who that offends. I could just imagine her having a nose around and then running off to her little ‘huns’ with things like ‘oh and their curtains were vile’ and ‘you should see the rug in the bedroom, didn’t match the colour scheme at all!’

shudders at the thought

My advice is don't give your step children keys (I am fully aware of how awful that sounds) because we were in the same situation and DPS ex let herself in our house whilst we weren't in under the guise of collecting dss' stuff

Omg you’ve just reminded me of something that happened about 4 years ago!
DP’s Ex’s washing machine had broken and she asked DP if he could put a couple of washes on for the DCs as they were running low on clean clothes and the delivery of her new washing machine wasn’t due for another few days.

No problem, DP said he’d happily help her out and she dropped a couple of bags of clothes and bedding around.

Next day he said he’d left it dried, folded and back in the bags which put in his porch.

He came home a couple of days later to find his washing machine on... she’d let herself in using SC’s key and had washed all of her own and her partner’s clothes.
I think she’d been letting herself in all week when DP was at work.

We then noticed things like his council tax and other bills had been moved from one kitchen work top to another and a Valentine’s card from me on his fireplace had been put in the bin.

I had forgotten about this until now! Seriously, she’s done so many crazy things in the last few years that this slipped my mind in the big scheme of things!

SCs won’t be having a key, they won’t need one to be fair as we collect them and drop them off so they’ll never be there without us.

Absolutely not!

OMG she sounds like a total crackpot. OP definitely stick to your guns, and don’t let her in.

Like others, I'd have sympathy if the kids were tiny and/or there was some history of inappropriate sleeping arrangements for the children at your house. But in this case, she's being silly. Surely the answer is a simple, "both kids have their own bedroom and there's 1 and a half bathrooms for the four kids to share" and leave it at that.

Maybe it would help if you don't refer to them as your SC until after you are married as their mum might feel you are trying to diminish her role as mother (and also you are not their SM until your marriage).

Rubbish.

I've just read your update op, you are living my life! Silly little power plays and treating our house like it's her other house. I actually had blanked them out too till it all went too far and I began reflecting.

I was utterly determined to be patient and understanding in dealing with it all because I thought no matter what it must be tough to see another woman standing with your children and ex. I also thought most people can be reasoned with if you just try to see things from their point of view.

I've since decided that you can only do so much. Keep her away. She has one agenda and that is to cause trouble.