Partner’s crazy ex wife.

[UpsetGirlx]

I met my fiancé in 2019. He has one child with his ex wife. He told me from the beginning that his ex wife was unhinged, but I put it down to him using the phrase flippantly, and assumed he had probably done some wrongdoings in their marriage. His friends and family also used to mention how insane she is. I genuinely didn’t take much notice, as how many times as women have we been told about the ‘crazy ex’?

For the first year of dating, everything was fine. However, any time something big happens in our relationship (or any time to be honest) his ex does something nuts.

It first started in March 2020, when my partner and I decided to move in together as we didn’t want to spend lockdown alone. My fiancés ex sent him a huge rambling email, probably over 2000 words long, accusing him of being unsafe, killing vulnerable people, that we were terrible for breaking lockdown rules. We didn’t do anything to break the rules, other than combine our households. My fiancé obviously couldn’t see his child at this time due to Covid restrictions. Throughout lockdown, we had visits from the police who had been told we were having parties and flouting lockdown rules. We can’t be sure it was his ex wife, but we are pretty certain due to her earlier email, the fact it was all lies and nobody else would have any motivation.

In 2022 my fiance proposed to me, and the day after the proposal, she turned up at our door with my stepson and said that he was living with us from now on. No explanation, just turned up on the doorstep with his bags. This caused huge issues as we had to change our entire lives around to do the school run some half an hour away, take him to all his clubs, his friends houses. We both work full time and didn’t plan for this. Before this, my stepson had been over every weekend, so it was a massive lifestyle change. Eventually, his ex wife agreed that stepson could come and live with her again, and it’s been a 50% arrangement ever since.

In 2023, I got a promotion at work. I’m not sure how she found out (maybe LinkedIn, is all I can think?) but a couple of weeks later we had a fraudulent claim made against us via the CMS. She claimed that we never had stepson overnight and we became liable for massive payments which took months and a court order to eventually sort out. In the meantime, we were down thousands and have no way to get the money back, even though it was clear fraud.

Yesterday I announced my pregnancy, and today she has sent my fiancé a long email saying she is going to be reporting us to stepsons school and social services as she doesn’t think we are fit parents, this is despite her up until this point being happy for us to have stepson 50% of the time. We are good people, stepson loves his time here, this is just another attempt to disrupt our lives.

These are all the big things, intermingled in all of this is lots of crazy phone calls, texts, emails. I’m at my wits end. It’s causing huge arguments between me and my fiancé and I’ve reached the point of just wanting to leave and go it alone. I can’t cope with the near constant disruption and living on edge not knowing what she’s going to do next. I feel idiotic as I was warned from the beginning that she was crazy, but it wasn’t until we made major life decisions that she really became a massive disruptor in our lives.

I went through something similar for 10 years.

He needs to communicate with her only when strictly necessary. Short conversations only, straight to the point and if possible by email, no personal call, whatsapp, social media or messages. Keep records of everything.

Try to avoid mentioning things you wouldn't want her to know in front of the kid if at all possible.

Don't allow her antics to interfere in your personal life. I know how difficult it is, believe me. Try your best to keep her out of your life as much as possible.This situation is temporary.

If you are arguing with your partner because of her, she is achieving exactly what she wants. The last thing she wants is for you two to be happy, so try your best to set things in place so you can live your best life. The kid is 12, and he won't remain a kid forever. The little power she has over you has an expiry date.

I don't know the law on this in the UK, but it sounds like he has a solid case to sue her for harassment. He needs to gather up all the evidence he has (emails and texts, I hope he kept them) and engage a lawyer to send her a cease and desist warning letter. Often that alone will do the trick.
If it doesn't work he can then decide if he wants to take her to court. It's his problem to solve, not yours. If he won't do anything about it, you'll then need to decide if you want to stay in this relationship.

No thanks. I've looked at every thread you posted in with the word "lockdown" and couldn't find a single one where one parent was seeking to prevent contact (for whatever reason) for the duration of lockdown.

And even if there was a thread with these exact same circumstances and you thought the non-resident parent should somehow force contact, I doubt half of the posters who are now condemning the OP's DP for acquescing to the wishes of the child's mother would have done so at the time.

No-one else seems to have been in this situation, @UpsetGirlx, because the CMS really doesn't just 'believe' the resident parent about an absent parent's salary increasing - not without evidence. That's just not been posters' experience at all.

And this, as many posters have pointed out, is incorrect, so that's why posters didn't experience it:

'My fiancé obviously couldn’t see his child at this time due to Covid restrictions'

In such circumstances as you've described they tend also to stay off social media using real names and photographs.

So you seem to have been in a perfect storm of unusual, multiple circumstances. My practical advice would be for your DP to update his knowledge on his rights at all times, and stay off social media as far as possible.

You are wrong because plenty of us fought hard on many a thread to ensure children had access generally to their dads.

My point still stands no parent who is worth their salt would never have sacrificed access.

OP I agree with others, just block her on everything except DP's mobile and just don't rise to the bait. Some people just like attention. She sounds a nightmare.

I do agree with others though that the lock down thing doesn't add up. A PP put it really well when she said how would you feel if your baby was at their dad's and you didn't know if you'd see them again for a long time, wouldn't you check the rules? I appreciate this feels a small piece of the puzzle to you and like people are getting fixated on something minor but often with abusive men it is all small signals that eventually add up to a full blown abuser - or just a selfish ahole. That may not be the case with your DP but you can't blame people for asking about it.

This seems a good option.

No-one else seems to have been in this situation, because the CMS really doesn't just 'believe' the resident parent about an absent parent's salary increasing - not without evidence. That's just not been posters' experience at all.
But this isn't about a salary increase, it's about a change in the number of overnight stays (or an alleged change).

Personally, I don't think a man agreeing to suspend in-person visits at the request of the child's mother, to protect someone's health, and instead buying his child weekly gifts and doing zoom calls with them is all that abusive.

That may not be the case with your DP but you can't blame people for asking about it.

People aren't "asking about it." They're riding that dead fucking horse while ignoring OP's actual problem until OP has given up entirely.

OP was there at the time. She saw her partner put in a no-win situation, where he could either agree to the mother's ask to pause in-person visits or be framed as the asshole ex who didn't care about the life of her poor elderly grandparent. And they don't have a court-ordered custody agreement and the mum's was DS's primary residence, so the reality is the mother could have refused to allow visits anyways... by the time the dad could go through court proceedings to force visits lockdown would have been long over.

Amen.

@AGoingConcern I didn't say he was abusive, I said you can understand why people are asking about small things. I also think you and others are making stuff up - the OP said they didn't know the rules and thought he wasn't allowed to see the child. She didn't say the mother pushed the dad not to see the kid until after people called her out on it. You are choosing to see the good. Others are choosing to see the bad. My point was merely that all people have to go on is often small pieces of the thread that may or may not lead to an accurate conclusion.

Ah so the OP is a liar?

We didn’t do anything to break the rules, other than combine our households. My fiancé obviously couldn’t see his child at this time due to Covid restrictions.

Sorry, I couldn't get past this. He could have seen his child if he hadn't combined households with you?

The mother wanted to protect a relative. It was her decision. Why are you not condemning her? How was the father supposed to change that? Go to a solicitor, drag her to court? Please explain how he could do these things when the entire world had shut down.

No, nothing to do with combining households.

The Ex told the OP's DP that it was against the rules for him to see his son (which it was not) and also that he couldn't see him because she had to visit a vulnerable family member. During the period of no in-person contact, the OP's DP did video calls and bought weekly gifts for his son.

Yes I would and saw fathers go to court to maintain their childs access. Plenty did courts were in zoom here.

Ah. I'm not in the UK but where I am you had to stay in bubbles at certain points, so it sounded like they were saying their DH chose to bubble with her children rather than his own. (ie he could have stayed living alone and then see his kids but chose instead to live with her and her kids).

No, you've misunderstood, and presumably not read OP's follow ups. The DS was already not coming over to dad's at the mother's say so.

The first statement is in reference to an anonymous person (suspected to be the ex) reporting OP and her partner to the police for having parties during lockdown. But OP and DP were not having parties or socializing outside their households or otherwise breaking rules, they just combined their households into one and observed restrictions from there. The reports were just harrassment.

The DS not coming over was mentioned here to show there wasn't some valid concern on the mother's part that doing so was risking her, her son or her family that justified her making the reports.

I've read the OP's follow ups. It's not clear to me at all. I also don't understand why the OP and her DH were so put out by the ex wife "leaving her son" with them full time. It sounds like the stepson is a pawn in the ex-wife's game, but it also sounds like her DH was happy to start a new family with someone and his son was not his priority in all this.

Agree.
The time comes and it's wonderful and I'm coming from this from both sides and actually got on well with ex's / new partners.

Can your DP consider seeking a harassment prevention order?

They were "put out" because it was an unbelievably awful thing for a mother to do to her child.

She packed up her young child's belongings, plopped them on her ex's doorstep and told the ex (AND HER CHILD) that the child suddenly wasn't allowed to live in her home anymore. OP and her husband didn't have weekday childcare or transportation planned and were thus scrambling to minimize disruption to this poor child's life after his mother had chosen to upend it for her own ends.

I agree with this.
It was the ex pulling the stop in covid. How many times does op have to repeat this.
Covid was a very difficult time and rules were blurred and ignored in equal measure

I agree it was terrible -- so why would her DH convince his ex to take his son back full time? Why wouldn't he prioritize his son and ensure his son had a stable home? It don't understand it.