Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not help because I don't like her?

157 replies

Op11 · 23/07/2023 14:19

My husbands ex has another child with her ex partner after my husband who is 5 i think, my husband and her also share a child who is 8, my stepchild, and me and my husband have a 2 year old together.

I entered this relationship (6 years ago now) with the hope that we could get along well but she was very hostile at the start and though she's somewhat civil toward me now as in we'll say hello when we see each other, she can be an absolute horror to my husband when she doesn't get her own way with something. The way she speaks to him sometimes it's atrocious and because of this I do not like her as a person at all. I never get involved and I'm always polite when I see her but I think she's just a selfish person in general.

Anyway onto the AIBU... her childcare has fallen through tomorrow for her 5 year old, DH is working, I'm not. She's asking me to watch her child so she can go to work and I've said no basically because I just don't feel like doing this woman any favours. I'm having DSS because it's our normal day to have him (week on week off) and I probably would even if it wasn't because he's my stepchild but her other child I've only met a brief handful of times and I put bluntly I just don't want to do her any favours because she's an awful human being.

Aibu?

OP posts:
strawberryandcreams · 23/07/2023 22:46

I would have said yes. To repair a relationship with me and the ex and hope it would cause less friction as time goes on

Original poster
Op11 · 23/07/2023 22:48

strawberryandcreams · 23/07/2023 22:46

I would have said yes. To repair a relationship with me and the ex and hope it would cause less friction as time goes on

There's really nothing to repair. I am past wanting a relationship with her. I can stomach her to be civil to when I have to see her. I'm perfectly happy with that extent of having her in my life.

OP posts:
Dubuem · 24/07/2023 13:11

Livinghappy · 23/07/2023 15:01

@Hesma Wow...the op needs to be careful when looking after a child she has no experience with. If anything happened can you imagine the backlash she would get!! I would never look after a child where I didn't have a good relationship with the mother...way too much risk.

Yes, it could open a can of worms. Sounds like no good deed goes unpunished with this lady.

BadNomad · 24/07/2023 13:37

Nope. She should go ask her friends, not someone she has been a dick to.

nalione · 24/07/2023 13:58

If she didn't like you and used your child to spite you. Would she be unreasonable?Looking back in 5 years at this situation it will be you and your children on one side and her with her children on the other. Or you could ALL actually be a lot CLOSER. Unless you have already decided that prolonging unnecessary contention is helping you grow. The negitive relationship she has with your husband is about those two. Leave that to them. It sounds as if you dismissed your separate relationship with her based on your husband, a third person. If you cant do the Favour then fair enough. If you WON'T do the Favour based on your judgement of her toward her ex husband. Seems a little cross contaminated. What's that Based on what you've said. What has she actually done to you personally?. Is it worth all that unnecessary complication? Or could this be an opportunity for a GREAT sibling play date with happy memories.

SemperIdem · 24/07/2023 14:12

nalione · 24/07/2023 13:58

If she didn't like you and used your child to spite you. Would she be unreasonable?Looking back in 5 years at this situation it will be you and your children on one side and her with her children on the other. Or you could ALL actually be a lot CLOSER. Unless you have already decided that prolonging unnecessary contention is helping you grow. The negitive relationship she has with your husband is about those two. Leave that to them. It sounds as if you dismissed your separate relationship with her based on your husband, a third person. If you cant do the Favour then fair enough. If you WON'T do the Favour based on your judgement of her toward her ex husband. Seems a little cross contaminated. What's that Based on what you've said. What has she actually done to you personally?. Is it worth all that unnecessary complication? Or could this be an opportunity for a GREAT sibling play date with happy memories.

You refer to the op’s relationship with her husband as though he’s some random irrelevance.

The op does not want a relationship with the woman, nor is she obliged to have one.

NameChangePoP · 24/07/2023 14:18

I'm with you OP. No no and no again. You have absolutely no obligations to do this for her at all. You reap what you sow I'm afraid, and if she wasn't such an arse things might have been different.
Stand your ground because if you relent it will become a common theme and she will always throw the "but you did it before" line.
Sometimes in life people need a lesson to not be a dick - this is one of those times.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page