I apologise for this being so long, I know i'm ranting. My partner has a 6 year old daughter with his ex and they split up 5 years ago, they have a lot of contact regarding their daughter (which I absolutely expected and understood when getting into the relationship)...but...I am struggling to deal with the way his ex goes about it.
The way she speaks to him really bothers me. I don't see anyone being able to sit back and accept someone speaking to their partner like that regardless of whether they have children together. It's all demands and belittling, 'you will do this', 'you need to do that'. She acts as though she has some right to his eternal compliance because they have a child. When he responds telling her to wind her neck in a bit, she switches to telling him what an awful father he is.
He is far from a bad dad. His daughter is with us 3 nights a week, he always turns up for things (swimming, gymnastics, parents evening, school plays etc), they spend time doing fun daddy/daughter things, he pays mum on time every month and splits the big one off costs, he does just as much "parenting" as her mum does. However, if mum doesn't get her own way or he doesn't jump when her fingers click she starts speaking to him like total shit.
Example: A few weeks ago mum called him to say that she'd forgotten to order school dinners so could he run in a packed lunch for their daughter? He was able to rearrange things and nip out of work that day, so could do it and said ok. In her good books.... Then today the school called mum and wanted daughter to be collected because they thought she might be unwell (she was fine, she was actually fibbing about it). Mum automatically rings my partner to tell him to go but he says he can't because he's very busy at work. Suddenly he's a piece of shit, doesn't care and needs to get his priorities right!
For context, my partner works a stressful 50 hours a week and she doesn't work (she does have a 1 year old but, in fairness, she has never really worked). We live equal distance from the school in opposite directions, and she drives too.
We've been together for 4 years now and this has always happened, for the first year or so I didn't let it get to me because .A. I thought it would stop at some point. .B. Not really my business. But I'm a stable, long term part of him and his daughter's life now and this affects me too.. His ex and I are civil, we text very occasionally to make/confirm arrangements for their daughter and I have once or twice stepped in when her and my partner have been arguing to stop the pettiness and just put their daughter first. I have taken her side completely once when I thought he was being unreasonable.
This probably seems like a minor issue in the scheme of things but it is all the time when he doesn't kowtow to her: talking down, patronising, belittling, attitude, sarcasm, criticism. She'll say horrible things about what their daughter will/does think about him, just to hurt him. If he dares question anything she does (she does some very questionable things at times) she will take no responsibility and turn it all round on him. If this was any other person, especially another woman, speaking to him like that I would've been at her door by now, I love him and want to protect him. But it's his daughter's mother, I love his daughter and don't want to hurt her with drama. How do I navigate this? it can't keep going on, I can't keep accepting someone (in my eyes abusing my partner) but it can't explode either.