Irritated that ExH gf wants to meet me to discuss 'parenting' before meeting kids

[EmsHugs]

Ex and I have been separated for 18 months. We have 2 kids 3 & 7. Was a bit on/off for first few months of seperation. We drifted apart but have never started divorce proceedings, he will still come stay over when looking after kids if I'm on night out etc. Amicable.
He told me he was dating at the start if the year which was a but if a gut punch but I just read that to be snagging about and hooking up (fair enough, lack of sex was one of his reasons for splitting) however it turns out he has been seeing someone for 4'5 months. At the drop off this morning, he had said she would like to meet the kids but feels that given their age, she should meet me first so that I can see who it is they are spending time with. He gave me a letter from her that basically reads like a CV. It has got me properly riled up and I'm not sure why, feels a bit like she is trying too hard to be nice and certainly too soon to 'co-parent'.

Amongst other things she wants to know:
My parenting 'non-nos'
Their ideal bedtime routine
What activities I would prefer she didn't do etc
My preferred methods of discipline
She wrote she wants to ensure consistency but frankly I think this is all OTT for someone who he has only been seeing for 5 months. Plus how about asking their father who was pretty hands on.

I text him and asked him when he was planning to introduce them and he said he was going to do it within the next few weeks on a day out Pumpkin picking and then the plan was to do an over night and hopefully then they would all go to the lapland santa thing he had booked for him and the kids at the start of December. Seems like he has had this planned for a while.
A bit of social media snooping shows they have been a thing officially since April but he has been liking her pictures for over a year. He said they met online over a year ago and have been messaging for ages but they only started dating 6 months later. Is that not a bit weird?

FYI has no kids, seems never to have been married. Not sure if Ex and kids are a nice wee ready made family for her.

Would like to know:
YABU - she is respecting you as a mother and doing best by the kids, meet her and be the bigger person and maintain the somewhat good relationship you have with the Ex

YANBU -I'd be pissed off and tell her and Ex it is a bit soon.she is over stepping

The fact that the childrens father isn't even aware she's approached OP too

I didn't realise that at all, I thought the Dad passed the letter to op.

That's even worse.

@GilbertMarkham - I do have skin in the game and here’s how it went which is why I am very sceptical of this situation all round.

Immediately after we split up, she was introduced out of the home as a friend. Then the popping in and going for walks began

This takes us to roughly the point OP is at right now or will be in a few weeks.

Three months after he moved out he asked her to drop the children back to me.
She pushed for this as she “wanted to be part of his whole life”
He pushed for this because he thought she was amazing and such a good person (in the care profession)
Meanwhile my kids are sleeping in my bed every night for nearly a year trying to come to terms with their dad being gone.

Let me pause here to highlight the last point. Their dad was chaotic. Trying to get divorced, moving house, accommodating a new relationship, work - even if he saw the kids, it was rarely alone without her and it was all Disneyland and Facebook posts but he just wasn’t truly present.

With her quickly being referred to as stepmum and being in charge of the bulk of the parenting, often without him being there, things quickly turned sour and I’d be getting texts from her about things I should do different or hadn’t done to her expectations. Read that again.

Meanwhile, when I introduced someone a full two years after we split, the kids would get interrogated about the most minute details about this man.

At no point through all this did I slag off the dad or her to the kids. She’s welcome to him. I played nice at the door drops, I tried to smooth waters when the kids were angry at him or her. Or just the situation in general. Sadly, in the process of getting her shoehorned into their lives, they were not able to be as considerate and have on several occasions voiced to the kids that I did this or didn’t do that.

Roll on to my kids being teens, they have a shitty and volatile relationship with their dad, don’t fully trust her or him as they are not consistent, and sadly one of them put two and two together and worked out that their relationship started as an affair. I don’t know if one of their friends told them or if they just did the maths. I got asked about this in the car - great. One of the comments leading up to the big question was “she just got introduced and it all happened so fast”. Again, left to me to manage those emotions as any pushback to my ex and the step mum is met with narcissistic ridicule and gaslighting.

In a separate about death where my kids asked what happens if I died, I asked them as part of that conversation what they thought would happen if their dad died. I am honestly a little shocked as I thought they were closer after all these years but they both laughed and replied that “she’s off”.

There is zero doubt that my ex has used the stepmum responsibilities as a means to and control his relationship with her at various points of the relationship. It is also important for him and many other men to “tick the boxes” and show the world their success as a man. Married by 30, millionaire by 35 etc etc. This ramps up even more if the man in question is a narcissist which I am not saying the OP’s ex is. But he is a man.

OP you must be exhausted from this thread and I wish you nothing but the best as you navigate the way forward. Be the constant, be the light, and don’t forget yourself in all this.

I just used a year to provide an example of how time generally makes the difference between whether something is healthy or batshit.

I said can be normal and healthy, not that it always is, and also that it generally happens gradually, and not the way this woman seems to see it which very much comes across as "I am a stepmum now".

My main point being that people think the woman is doing a good thing......which I would agree with IF this was further down the line......but doing it from day 1 is batshit and overstepping.

Expecting loads of hands on care right off the bat doesn't happen at all in my experience.

At the start most mums struggle with the new girlfriend doing any of the mammy work and definitely don't demand it at all. Most mums want a casual, gradual approach...and I know with my friends etc they've been upset the first time they heard a new woman tucked their kids into bed or comforted them when they fell etc.

Later on, once the mother has got used to it and is over the introduction then if the woman is in the childs life properly and all dads access time is when the woman is there then that tends to be when the rules come in.

@Panaa I've seen plenty of women on here insisting they must meet the new GF before they meet the kids, and planning on laying out a lot of rules when they do so. When challenged they often say "how else am I meant to tell her how I expect the children to be cared for?"

I don't agree with those people but it is very common, on MN at least. This is a consequence - there are people out there giving prospective step parents the impression that this is what they want and expect.

On top of the lack of responsibility towards his kids in going for such a fast/accelereted timetable in terms of introducing a new partner of a few months, and in family type outings and trips too; I'd just like to point out that this "great Dad" left a marriage with an 18 month old and 5/6 yr old, partly due to lack of sex ..... Isn't it perfectly normal and reasonable for your sex life not to be back on track/fantastic, when you've got a year and a half old (and another young child). What unreasonable expectations, what priorities!

How's he a good Dad? This scenario just fits with his shitty decision making, selfishness, lack of responsibility and very short timescales/rushing everything. I honestly think op has the rose tinteds on re her ex too.

The usual statement " you have an (ex) partner problem" applies. This woman's behaviour is desperado and inappropriate, but it's him who's introducing her to his kids lives, and is not applying a reasonable timescale.

(And again, I am not divorced and not a first wife .... Before the usual "bitter & jealous" slurs start).

MN doesn't seem to reflect real life in lots of ways.

Lots of mothers (and fathers) do want to meet first yes, but lots don't get to anyway....and the rules thing doesn't happen because most do need time to come to terms with the introduction and for it all to be done slowly. It is very much the norm in real life to NOT want them to do any parenting early on.

People are definitely giving others the wrong impression, as I said earlier, this whole 'stepmums are fucked either way" narrative is bullshit because many mums and stepmums manage to be civil and friendly..and out of those who can't manage that a lot of the time that's down to the dad being a dick.

Send her to the Step Parenting forum of Mumsnet 😀

Actually think she’s trying to do right by you and your kids and might not be that bad - better than some other scenarios! Agree you don’t have to embrace it all - do refer her to you ex who is the parent when she’s around, but thank her for trying to be nice about it!

I also missed the point about the ex not knowing the new gf had reached out like this without him knowing. This is a pure power move if that’s the case. Best case scenario is she means well because she thinks he’s an idiot and can’t parent but that also has a whole lot of subtext about her being around in the longer term.

No she isnt! She is a teacher and doesnt want to get it wrong which she could very quickly upon meeting the kids. Great for you all that this girlfriend is being respectful to the mum, jeez….she isnt to blame for any of this and is behaving perfectly well.

It literally says in the op that the ex handed her the letter!

@Panaa it might be common in real life to want a slow introduction (though actually I find people are more casual about introducing partners to kids irl) but that doesn't change the fact that if she's done any amount of reading on forums like this about what the ex might want, she may well have come away with the strong impression that they would want to meet and lay down a load of rules.

The thing about this case, as I mentioned upthread, is that she wasn't exactly as far off the mark as people are making out. After she received the letter, she DID come up with a huge list of things she expected to be able to demand of her exes new partner, things I personally would never entertain. The demands might have been all about her backing off, rather than how to go about being hands on, but they WERE still stipulations she expected to be able to make as "the mother". So how wrong was she to send the letter, really?

Thanks everyone for the responses but I am going to ask for this thread to be closed now as many people who are posting have not read all my posts and now posting inaccurate things. MN threads are like Chinese whispers.
To clarify:
Wr have not divorced purely dye to financial reasons. We have no intention if getting back together. I consider him my ex husband. I am not separated.
My ex and his GF have been in each others lives for a year but were dating for 6 months. I was an official relationship for past 5 months. I was just not aware of it. To ex and Gf they consider themselves to have been together for a year or thereabouts.
My ex was aware of the letter he gave it to me.
GF thought my Ex had told me about her prior so that might explain why the letter is the way it is. Ex had told me he was dating but I didn't think it was one person. That was my error and his choice to keep private until he saw how it was going.
My ex is an excellent father. I do not believe he is off loading to the GF or she thinks he is incapable, I believe she genuinely is trying to make sure I am having an input. I do not think she is marking her territory etc.
The projection is unreal and unhelpful to myself and others perhaps going through similar.

I am glad she has reached out in hindsight, my irritation was the surprise but on reflection I appreciate having someone acknowledge they are my children and they will do things my way and in the way I have agreed with my Ex.

Why assume she is going yo act as a new parent? She is finding the guide lines…can she give sweets on first meeting? Would ex lime to meet first. This is lesson 1 in how to do it properly. She isnt new on the scene, been with ex husband for some months. They have clearly decided the relationship is solid so time to meet kids. Most people would be delighted!

I think your jealous of her.

So would you prefer the girlfriend who steps in, gives the kids sweets without checking, plays hairdressers and changes their hairstyle, decides a million things mum wouldnt like or one that respectfully asks? Some of these comments are literally batshit crazy.

Because my own EXH would have lost his shit if I had done that

Absolutely hit the nail on the head here, and perfectly justified his reaction would be as well.
Yet people on this thread are falling over themselves to call the OP “jealous” and “bitter”. The new girlfriend’s behaviour is totally preposterous and wildly inappropriate. Whether it’s “well meaning” or not is up for serious debate and besides the point.

some one else mentioned how the kids might feel about this woman they’ve never even met yet, stepping in to discipline them and put them to bed. quite!!!

Enough posters talking about how this situation wouldn't happen between Dads and new BFs.

Yet everyone ignoring the fact that OP considers her Ex to be an excellent hands on Dad. So why ignore that an excellent Dad won't be offloading and handing over care to someone the kids have only just met??

Dear God , he's not an idiot he's read all the same stuff as the raging posters on here. He loves his kids and wants the best for them too.

He passed the letter on from his Gf. Stop assuming he's a complete muppet.

OP has written a breezy friendly letter and made it clear that here parenting expectations are with her Ex. BUT also kept the temperature friendly and cooperative.

Too bad there's not going to be an EastEnders style bitch fight between OTT takeover GF and threatend outraged OP whilst hapless smitten Dad looks on admiringly. Kids bug eyed in the corner.

No it sounds like 3 realistic, cooperative adults trying to do the right thing. Boring I know.

It's totally chauvinist to presume that OP's Ex won't be managing a healthy and appropriate introduction to the children.

YABU.

Your “move along, nothing to see here” analysis is ironic, given that the OP came on here because something didn’t sit right with her. The clue is in the title of the whole thread.

Are you brand new?

Wherher or not this constitutes ”healthy” is literally what the last 22 pages of discussion is about.

The GF does not have an agenda but just has not benefitted from me finding out about her and getting a letter from her on the same day.
I didn't send the long letter it was more a draft/rant

No irony. @NosyJosie .

No need to a school me on the title. I've taken my lead from what the OP has actually said. Not some other narrative.

*Are you brand new?

Wherher or not this constitutes ”healthy” is literally what the last 22 pages of discussion is about.*

No are you new?

I trust OP's opinion that her EX is " an excellent father" .