ExH, his new girlfriend and the family beach house

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ExH and I split in late 2022. I left him
after years of abuse, including physical abuse. Haven’t regretted it for a second. I have a new partner who I am very very happy with, exH has a new girlfriend, I have as little to do with exH as possible. He has our two children every other weekend. He pays bare minimum child support, won’t buy clothes for them to keep at his house, is generally a shit dad and human being. My 9 year old son came home with a bruise on his arm a couple of weeks ago from Dad pinching him. Not the first time my son has been hurt by his father. This has been logged with the police.

I bought exH out of the family home last year. It’s nearly killed me with massive mortgage + peak interest rates, but I am lucky enough to have a great job and have been able to manage. We also co-own a beach house. This is about to be listed for sale - for various logistical reasons it was financially advantageous to delay the sale. (Had we sold a year ago we would have paid circa $150K in extra tax and the market was v v depressed).

When I bought the family home the (substantial) beach house mortgage was paid off from my mortgage to save us from usurious interest rates. Both of us have good jobs - exH earns slightly more than me. He rents a property for about half what I pay in mortgage. ExH is waiting for the beach house to be sold before he buys a house. I gave exH the option of buying me out of my interest in the beach house so he was the sole owner. He refused - he doesn’t want to be “left with it”.

I have never taken my boyfriend to the beach house - in fact have gone to considerable expense booking airbnbs when we have gone away together. My view that when we split was that the beach house was a family home, it was special to our kids and what was once our family and taking new partners there would be disrespectful of that.

Despite this, exH nagged to take his girlfriend there. I said I wasn’t comfortable but I am used to him disregarding my wishes on everything so I said not with the kids there and not sleeping in my bed.

A month later (at Easter) he took the kids away as his sister was visiting from the UK for a family long weekend. Unbeknownst to me (or the kids), the girlfriend was invited. When he was told, my eldest son (9) cried and asked t go home (he told me later). ExH then refused to allow the kids to call me for 48 hours to make sure I didn’t find out.

Since then, exH takes his girlfriend regularly and I can tell they have been sleeping in my bedroom. I have tried to be grey rock about it all tbh as he’s such a lying cunt I can’t be bothered engaging with him.

Over the last month, exH has got very busy preparing the house for sale and announced he was going to plaster and paint the interior walls. This is a man who, in the 21 years we were together, couldn’t paint a doorknob. It transpired that New Gf is quite a dab hand at renovations and plastered and painted 3 bedrooms over the course of a week. For free.

I said to exH that was weird and he could afford to pay someone and I hoped that at least he was paying her… his first reaction was to say “she wants to help!” and the second was to ask me to chip in for half of it. That would be a no.

This weekend just been was a long weekend here and I took the kids to the bach. New Gf has been very busy, reorganising the linen cupboard (I can tell as the towels are folded into thirds, something exH never mastered in 20 years). My wardrobe… with all of my clothes hanging in it … has been tidied up and reorganised.

The house is far from Manderly but at this point the Rebecca vibes are off the chart. My tampons are literally in the bathroom drawer.

My strong suspicion is that exH has told New Gf it’s his house (“I let her have the family home for the kids… I took the beach house in the separation … but I still let her take the kids there on holiday because I’m Such a Great Dad”).

Whether she knows or not, AIBU to find it massively creepy and intrusive and go full Mrs Danvers on both of them?

I’m not going to burn the bach down, don’t worry 😂

Side note - Maximilian murdered his pregnant wife and somehow Mrs Danvers was the villain. I was pondering this recently. 🤯

it’s literally racks of my beach clothes, drawers of t shirts and underwear, bathroom drawers in the en suite off my bedroom (which is upstairs - just one bedroom + small bathroom so no reason for her to be up there at all as there are several bedrooms downstairs) with tampons, make up, my skincare stuff etc

Creepy as fuck

I don't nt know what you mean by Rebecca vibes.

Divorce is hard, you're entitled to feel however you feel.

But from where I'm sitting, he comes off as the ass, not her. She is clearly naive and being mugged off by him. But she sounds like she will be nice to the kids and perhaps her presence will make him less of a dick.

So yes, I get where you're coming from, but you can't trust the word of a man you're divorcing, especially your ex as you know he wil just say what you want to hear and do what he wants anyway, so grit your teeth and know that you're moving on and his girlfriend could be a lot worse than the lost little lamb she appears to be to earn his approval.

Eta - she is probably trying to earn your approval as well by doing what she thinks are nice things like tidying your stuff to show she doesn't want to come across petty but it actually feels to you like marking her territory. Given she's decorating the house for her boyfriend so soon, I think I'd feel sorry for her rather than threatened.

No… it literally says I understand why she is uncomfortable with it…

Odd to go through your things - but you don't know what he's told her.

However, your kids may well be safer with her around than going to the house alone with him

Then fair enough, that is massively overstepping a boundary!

His wife wasn't pregnant

oh you are right. He thought she was though!!!!

“ My 9 year old son came home with a bruise on his arm a couple of weeks ago from Dad pinching him. Not the first time my son has been hurt by his father. This has been logged with the police.”

not to derail your thread, but how bad does it have to be in NZ before the authorities take action to stop your bastard ex from hurting his child?

I agree and DS has said as much - he feels safer when she is around. This is probably the main reason I haven’t told mutual friends to warn her, horrible as that sounds

I absolutely get this. She will function as some sort of “protection” for your child.

Glad to see you have decided to make full use of the house with your children and partner - the idea of making new, happy memories there is a good one, especially for your children whose recent experiences of the house seem quite fraught.

It doesn’t really matter what hey told her about ownership, as the truth will come out when it’s sold.

I would absolutely be petty enough to go in and rearrange things back to how I wanted them. I’d redecorate if necessary.I would also move any possessions of Ex and GF to a guest room.

Pretty fking bad I think. Tbh I don’t think it’s the police - the officer I spoke to was really good. It’s that it’s hard to secure a conviction, and then that a history of DV doesn’t rule out a father getting access, particularly when (like my ex) they make the right noises, fake remorse, do a course for violent men. As anyone who has read Lundy Bancroft knows, these men rarely change. The Family Court prioritises a child’s relationship with both parents and the default is 50:50. Thankfully exH is pretty lazy so I have established the status quo is him only having EoW so I think that would be hard to overturn now.

I was shocked when I got legal advice. I think it’s pretty similar in the UK too.

OP if your son is saying he feels unsafe with his dad surely Thetis some action you can take?

I too would probably be pissed off at the rearranging of my stuff.
I would put it all back as it was before but then I'm petty.

I would be less concerned about his use or the beach house - which is his too - and more about his physical violence toward your DC. I believe your priorities are seriously askew here.

Really @SouthernFashionista

what do you propose I do, pray tell. Go the the police? Consult lawyers? Ensure I have primary care of my children? Limit access to their father as much as is humanly possible? Take my kids to therapy?

None of these things have occurred to me

It is, sadly. My ex son in law is the monster we have to deal with. Children have made repeated disclosures of abuse. He’s made all the right noises to SW so it’s his word against there’s. I think he would have to actually break bones before the “threshold” is reached, and possibly not even then.

His history of domestic abuse against my daughter isn’t considered relevant, except to paint her as engaging in parental alienation when she raised the children’s disclosures to SS.
It’s all wrong.

A cursory glance at the NZ Herald pretty much any day will tell you all you need to know about the horrific levels of child abuse and the lenience toward perpetrators. It is disgraceful.

Exactly the same in the UK, sadly. 😢

Yep it's wierd as hell of her to do that. I can't really understand why she would touch any of your things.
On the plus side she's gone and done a grand job on the DIY front so it's win on that front. I agree go with your DP, ex clearly doesn't care about rules so you might as well enjoy it before it's sold

Urghhh I feel for you. Totally encroaching. I’d be raging.

However I think for your own sanity you are just going to have to let it roll off you. She may be a nice enough woman, give her the benefit of the doubt. She’s saddled with him now so you can be magnanimous.

He sounds a horror. Best of luck getting yourself extricated and looking out for your children- your poor son.

The biggest problem I see here is if he’s told her it’s his house and not joint as he may not want his lie about it revealed and dig his heels in to delay the sale.
Honestly that bloody house just needs to be sold. Until then I think you need to be as chilled as possible about it all. Grey rock, bite your tongue and a use a little bit of tactfulness to get it sold. Is it on the market yet?

Like others said, she’s not some usurper, you don’t know what lies she’s been told and your son has said he prefers it when she is around. So to me that means doing everything to propel their relationship forward.
Make a big thing of how much the kids like her, you’re happy that she is building such a nice relationship with them, blah blah blah. It would be nice for the house to be sold so they can move in together. Or maybe she can afford to buy you out.
You’ll always be connected by the children, that you just need to deal with as things arise, but the house and property etc. needs to be separated. It’s not acceptable to be financially linked to someone after a break up unless for a very good reason (not wanting the children to be homeless etc.) but you sound like you are managing so focus on whatever you have to do to get this situation resolved and your freedom from him.
Keep the peace to get it sold.

I don’t think he will delay sale @Nodlikeyouwerelistening - I think it will be the opposite problem, he will want to drop the price for a super quick sale. I’m less motivated to do so as I have a good idea of what it will sell for and the market is slowly warming up here (literally and metaphorically 😂) - plus I’m bringing up 2 kids pretty much single handed so I need every dollar I can get! It’s listed now.

I do wonder how he is going to explain needing me to sign of the sale of “his” house. He is not very smart.