DP’s ex making my child’s birth about her children.

[mikka404]

I had a pretty traumatic labour with DD (12days old) and was hoping for at least a week without the step kids (SD4, SS3) staying over nights so that I had time to heal and process becoming a new mum, as well as soak in some quality bonding time just DP, DD and I before becoming a bigger family. We have them twice a week for dinner until their bedtime and every weekend either friday-saturday or saturday-sunday.

DD was born on saturday 2nd, and off the bat DP’s ex tried kicking off saying we were in the wrong for telling my grandparents and his brother before telling the kids that she had been born.

We then had them over after school on the Monday to meet her—this was met with a comment about how DP didn’t want to actually see his kids, he just wanted them over so he could post photos of them with the baby.

Keep in mind this is still not even a week after DDs birth, we had SD and SS stay with us Thursday-Sunday. They were both ill with the flu which meant I was on edge the entire time with all the coughing and sneezing around my then 5 day old baby. Not only this, my SD and SS are not the best behaved—it’s mostly problems with listening and so when told to stop getting in the babies face or waving their hands around/kicking their feet/playing rough around her I am repeating myself continuously. 3 times SD hit DD in the face from messing around which lead me to snap at her, walk off with DD, and breakdown into tears….

As usual, we had them over for dinner on the wednesday, only to then have to have them over night again because their mother was “stuck in traffic” (both DP and i checked and there was no traffic).

I feel exhausted and as if I have had no time to really rest. I’m grateful for DP, his two weeks off he has done almost all housework and cooked the majority of meals. But just that first week of having them the 4 days has knocked me. Entertaining two toddlers and navigating new motherhood is taking it toll.

Rant over… I think what I’m trying to ask is AIBU for feeling this way? Is this something I should have expected and should just suck up?

Come off it. That isn't a statement of OP's feelings towards the kids, but towards their mother, and justifiably so imho, given what OP has shared.

What prove do you have. I think people who come on the internet to be intentionally mean must have issues.

I do not have an ex husband who’s left me and my kids for another woman, but I find the OP’s posts extremely troubling. My concerns have nothing to do with relationship jealousy issues and everything to do with my concerns around child welfare/ wellbeing , and children’s mental health

Exactly the same here, @Tandora It's odd that people imagine that only jilted ex wives could have these concerns.

I don't think the mother is covered with glory either. She has monkey-barred her way from one man and one set of children to the next, too. She's not really any different from her ex partner.

What a weird opinion to have about someone you don't know.

Agreed!

I'd be very curious to know how it was handled when you were first introduced to the kids and how long you'd been in a relationship with your DP for.

No doubt your story will be that it was handled completely perfectly, gradually, all at the kids own pace, no crossing of boundaries early on, complete respect for both the kids welfare and for the mothers feelings when her 2 tiny toddlers were first going to be around another woman, but I very much doubt that that will be the true story.

It's not right at all that she says stuff in front of the children and comments negatively about you, but I do think that there's a lot more to this story and I don't think you and your DP have been the saints to this womans devil that you make yourself out to be.

If you are ever in her shoes I think you might end up seeing her perspective pretty quickly, and you would be probably outraged if your ex tried to claim he was doing 50/50, and massively offended and hurt if you asked for some support disciplining your child because you weren't coping and the response was that he'd take full custody (and essentially let another woman be the mother). That's not the helpful, reasonable suggestion you that you think it is. It comes across more like an insult and something to make her shut up, and a threat as someone else said.
She wants support disciplining them, not to give up her children. And I'm sure if your DP ever said something like that to you your co-parenting relationship would sour pretty quickly and you wouldn't be too fond of replacement mom either.

All anyone can ever have on MN is an opinion about someone that they don't know, based solely on the information they choose to share. They ask for opinions based on this partial information, and we give our opinions. That's how MN works.

I have no idea what the OP is like. However, I have been a parent for nearly 25 years and I've seen an awful lot of different family set-ups. Based on that experience, I would say that families involving step parents and step children are the trickiest of all to navigate, and there are very few cases in which all the adults are acting in the best interests of all the children.

I didn’t think your post was directed at me personally, but I’m sick of posters like you , and others, trying to undermine/ silence certain perspectives by trying to paint mumsnet as a place that’s hostile to step mothers, claiming it’s full of bitter women projecting their own relationship issues onto others. (OP has clearly latched onto this narrative and used it as justification to dismiss any opinions that don’t reflect what she was hoping to hear).
I spoke of my own experience simply to offer one example that can help counteract this toxic (and misogynistic) stereotyping.

Frankly also I think the kids will know of how mum feels towards op
yes . we haven’t heard from mum and don’t know her point of view, but she also should be working on trying to have a positive attitude to ex and new partner. At a minimum she needs to get to a place that is disinterested enough that she can fake goodwill for the kids.

i think any damage to the children will reside with her.
oh do you now? why? cos it’s always mums fault 🙄? Dad and new partner have no role to play?

Op doesn't have to like, love or even respect the mum in this scenario, and all she does is has to treat mum like mums treated her.
You reap what you sow and that cuts both ways. If your a arsehole to someone, that person doesn't owe you kindness

This is a toxic, selfish and childish attitude to have when it comes to coparenting I’m afraid. As I’ve tried to emphasise through this thread, when it comes to raising kids, adults really do have to try to put their personal feelings aside and prioritise the kids. Of course OP doesn’t have to “love” mum, that’s clearly not realistic, but she should be working on making peace in this scenario, not indulging in calling mum all kinds of nasty names and ascribing such awful intent into all her behaviour. The kids will pick up on this and it will hurt them.

From very early on it didn't add up, it was clear from when OP said that 2 evenings and one overnight meant that it was almost a perfect 50/50 split that she was dramatically overestimating and misrepresenting just how much they actually have the children. And if they can be that delusional about something that's completely factually wrong then it's easy to see how they interpret a lot of other situations wrong and that their own attitudes could be making things a hell of a lot worse.

I think people who come on the internet to be intentionally mean must have issues also 🤔 but that's not me!!

A four year old says this?

it was clear from when OP said that 2 evenings and one overnight meant that it was almost a perfect 50/50 split that she was dramatically overestimating and misrepresenting just how much they actually have the children. And if they can be that delusional about something that's completely factually wrong then it's easy to see how they interpret a lot of other situations wrong

exactly. How can OP’s narrative about mum be trusted, when her perspective is so warped on something as basic/ obvious as this.

@SecondUsername4me yes, a four year old has said these things.

@Tandora i said the free time she gets off is almost a 50/50 split not the custodial arrangements.

How do you mean the “free time she gets off is almost a 50/50 split”? Do You mean she gets as much child-free time as your DP? If she has the kids 85% of the time, how does that work out? How do you even know how much free time she gets?

If you have the two older children for two dinners per week and one weekend night - how do you work that one out? How does the children's mother get the same amount of "free time" as you do, when the older children are with her for six nights of every week plus most evenings? Genuine question, not a goady one.

This. Plus the OP seems to live on this thread, I thought she was exhausted from her newborn. Nothing adds up here at all, and I'm so sorry for the poor children.

168 hours in a week
40 hours your DP works (assumed)
128 hours

2 evenings dinner until bed time.

I would say

10 hours

One overnight at weekend

36 hours

So, 46 hours of his available 128 hours is far from 50% of his available time!

You really are trying to skew the figures.

Which is why I find your other comments unbelievable.

@Panaa anyone uses the term "drip feed" and presents some type of evidence like their a court case and that a op is deliberately trying to get one over on them is honestly not someone I'm going to engage with. She doesn't have to prove anything to you or me or any other random on here. She's not writing her life biography, she's posted on a forum and this is kinda how it works 🙄

@Tandora weren't you saying people are allowed to disagree with each other earlier, interesting tack that now you have taken on the role of policing what people can say on here because you have had enough?
Oh the irony. All in the same thread. Joyful.

Pull the other one. Also really weird that you reference me and others who have flagged that mumsnet isn't actually very welcoming to step parents. Since you your own "admission" on this thread, have no links to a blended family and no bias but have gotten sick of seeing me and people like me paint that MN hostile to step parents. Odd ...because that would mean you dwell on step parenting threads with fuck all reason to be there.. like someone spending a loads of time on the multiple birth threads never having a multiple birth. I mean that's really odd behaviour and certainly could be true or perhaps maybe actually you haven't been truthful. Either way though idgaf to be frank. People are entitled to their opinions and I'm truly not sure why you would get so animated that over multiple people saying MN isn't great to step parents that is their opinion , it literally isn't about you or anything in your world so you say.. but I'm sure everyone can read the comments ops had and can make up their mind on how friendly MN to a new mum who by unfortunate accounts is also a step mum. I think the first few pages of people saying ops child shouldn't have been born and calling op names is pretty clear.

On mum in this scenario she deserves to be treated with the same level of respect she's treated op. If she's treated op well, then she truly has nothing to worry about right ? I don't worry about this with my dd and her sm because I treat her with respect and kindness, and she in turn does the same. As I said not everyone deserves kindness and some do only deserve silence. Ops dh should be handling that. Mum is irrelevant to op, but the children are not. The children are not one and the same with mum.

Either way don't have the right to police MN . Can you please stop tagging me, as joyful as our exchange has been, I haven't been posting at you, or about you or even with any regard for you.

I posted my opinion to help op I'm sorry you have so many emotions on this subject but 🤷‍♀️

For me, OP, the issues aren’t really around you and the ex. You are both adults and can fend for yourselves and there are lots of pretty obvious reasons you might not be wild with admiration for each other. I think the reason you are getting a lot of negative reaction is that one of the “issues” people have which in turn causes some MN voices to say stepmothers get a hard time is that very often to objective eyes it can be seen that over time there is a subtle “ nudging out” of the first children by a stepmother, especially in situations where she goes on to have her own children with the dad. Sometimes the full process takes years but when it happens - and it does and there is no point the defenders wading in to deny it - it is fairly repellent to watch. Of course in some blended families it doesn’t, and of course there are even people who would say thank goodness for my stepmum, she was better to me than my mother. Truly wonderful stepmothers exist. But when your ex is only days old and you are already posting about what a bitch it is to have to have the SCs staying over, how their presence is stopping you bonding as a unit of three, you criticise their behaviour, you make it clear you had the “ick” factor about them coming near your dc, and you seem entirely indifferent to the fact that a new arrival is challenging for any child in any circumstance let alone yours, it screams of the nudging out variety of step parenting. Moreover, yeah it’s really tiring juggling toddlers as well as a newborn but there are mums doing it in thousands upon thousands of homes at this very minute. You’ve actually got it easy that they often aren’t with you. So to be acting as though you are hard done by just signals you really haven’t taken them to your heart as your own, but see then as an imposition. Even your subject line puts “my child” against “her children” …

I’m not “policing” anyone; I am simply pointing out (as I am free to do) that it’s fucked up that you try to undermine other people’s opinions by discrediting them on a personal level - they are scorned , bitter , rejected women projecting their own jealousies- rather than engaging with the points they make. It is also false to assume you know people’s personal experiences and motivations.
Now you are accusing me of being weird and creepy and lurking on threads I have no business on 😂.

Your tactics are manipulative and nasty. I haven’t engaged in any such behaviour and there is nothing “ironic” about it.

You already were a 'bigger family'. Sometimes I can't believe what I read on here.

On the fence here. I get you want bonding with new baby. As many mums will tell you whom already have toddlers this can happen.
I understand his ex is being a bit unreasonable but why isn't he helping take the burden? He should be dealing with the kids whilst you sort the baby. Where is he?

But anyway OP, hopefully having your new baby might be a way to move forward with the situation. Even if the protectiveness of your SCs doesn’t come naturally at first, perhaps try to envisage how you would feel if in three years time your DC’s dad moves on and has other children and how you would feel if his new partner were thinking “ugh… I wish this germ ridden badly behaved brat were taken away so we could bond alone.” In others words, please try to use your maternal feelings and apply by extension to your DS s as you move forward in this new family. The show isn’t over yet and nothing is set in stone. There is still time for things to be different.

@namechangnancy

@Panaaanyone uses the term "drip feed" and presents some type of evidence like their a court case and that a op is deliberately trying to get one over on them is honestly not someone I'm going to engage with. She doesn't have to prove anything to you or me or any other random on here. She's not writing her life biography, she's posted on a forum and this is kinda how it works 🙄

Drip feed is a very common MN lingo. 😂This must be your first day on this forum so I'm not sure why you're telling me how forums work 😂

I actually don't think the OP is deliberately trying to get one over on people. I think both her and her DH are delusional about just how much care they provide for these children and that that delusion is massively skewing her opinion of the mother, the mothers behaviour and the overall situation. So it's a lack of self awareness as opposed to deliberately trying to get one over on people.

Of course you're not going to engage, You said a lot of stuff that could equally apply to the OP but you want to firmly lay the blame at the exes door and you want to push the narrative that some people just like to project....some people just don't like blended families....it's just the board you're on...🙄Nope some people just think the OP is unreasonable after reading the posts.