Leaving DP because of his ex.

[Brokenn]

I can’t take it anymore.

My DPs ex is genuinely batshit. He shares a child with her. For the first few years of our relationship she was ok, but since we got married and had a baby in the last couple of years, she has amplified her behaviour to such an extent that I feel I have no choice but to leave my DP (even just temporarily until their shared child is older).

I can’t detail all of her behaviours out of fear I’ll be outing myself, but I’ll list a few so you get an idea:

• making threats to turn up at our house and death threats. made via their child and social media. this causes my stepchild to have massive emotional stress which we then have to deal with all the fallout.
• constantly telling their child what an awful person my DP is and that he’s an abuser in every sort of way, and saying horrible things about me, I’m fat and lazy. she sends text messages and makes social media posts about us which my stepchild then shows us.
• making fake child maintenance claims saying my partner has his child for zero overnights, which we still haven’t been able to resolve with them and it’s costing our family hundreds every month.
• constant emotional abuse of my stepchild, she blocks them, tells them she wants nothing to do with them, threatens suicide all the time, sends them lists of reasons she hates them. It’s like a teenager bullying another teenager, except she’s an adult mother.
• putting a phoney claim in for universal credit in my name, attempting to claim my babies child benefit which I got a rival claims letter for, me and my partner get lots of random post from companies we’ve allegedly signed up for recently, which we definitely haven’t and have never heard of the companies (I don’t have definitive proof this is her but it’s obvious given the context of everything else).

i kid you not, she’s done something new every week. every week we are having to deal with more abuse, more craziness. Social services are involved and have been for a couple of years, but frankly they are pretty useless. The police say they can’t do anything as she mostly terrorises us through the child (a third party as they say) rather than directly.

I just want to enjoy my baby. Would I be a terrible person if I left? I feel dreadful for my stepchild as they understandably already have huge trust issues and we have a great relationship. Also I love my DP and it’s not his fault his ex is like this but I am not myself and haven’t been for a long time, my family and friends have all noticed.

I think they should have a formal meeting with the mum and print out all the long novel like messages she is sending her 14 year old about her threatening to kill herself if she stays with her dad etc.. explain to her that she is destroying her own an child’s mental well-being by being emotionally manipulative and abusive. It’s not normal to send those to a 14 years old. Terrible parenting and very damaging. Explain to her that they, Social services are there to protect children from different types of abuse and this consists of abuse. Is she continues to send those to her child the child will live permanently with her dad. They will also keep an eye on the younger children so they don’t get the same treatment and if she doesn’t stick to these new rules they’ll have to intervene. They are literally there to help struggling families and that poor child is struggling! Their mental health is being destroyed and even if OP decided to leave so that the mum would stop. The mum would eventually find another reason to emotionally manipulate and abuse that child and probably her other children. It will carry on into adulthood. OP removing herself will calm down this fire but not the others she’ll experience from her mum in her life. So now is the best time for SS to really come down hard and for the mum to get some therapy from GP. Otherwise those children will learn the same patterns and repeat with their children.

Op this sounds incredibly hard. My relationship has just broken down and a large party of this was due to his ex who was high conflict and highly manipulative. Not as bad as yours but felt like I was living under a microscope. (Long messages about everything that was wrong in our home, disrupting visits despite a court order, turning up where we were suppose to be, the list goes on and on) The main issue for me is that my now ex couldn’t deal
with her and relied to heavily on me and it was exhausting!

Unless you’ve lived it you have no idea how draining a high conflict / emotional unstable / manipulative ex can be. She’s also causes huge damage to her youngest child which has been heartbreaking to watch! Both children are going to need extensive therapy at some point!

Social services have done this and she doesn’t care or acknowledge it. When she’s been confronted about the messages and told to stop, she just blames my dp and says she wouldn’t be this way had it not been for his past abuse (there’s no evidence he abused her btw). when my dp was with her, she blamed her ex before him, with the ex before him it was her parents abusing her… you can see a pattern emerging. ive been shocked at social services attitude tbh, which hasn’t been on the ball at all with all of this.

Just a brief message to say please don't take your legal advice from the police. First, they really only deal with criminal law, not civil law so even the best could only give you half the posibilities. Second, they are not lawyers and at least some have an extremely shaky grasp of even the possibilities of even criminal law beyond their day-to-day, bread-and-butter bits of it.

Try to find a few long-experienced family solicitors and sit down with them for a brainstorm of the possibilities and options you have.

That isn’t correct because a non mol would generally include a prohibition on indirect harassment which means encouraging someone else to do it. You won’t get one (because it wouldn’t be the right category of family relationship) but your DP could. This is a civil remedy. It’s a straightforward process and you wouldn’t need a lawyer.

Harassment though is a criminal offence so don’t be fobbed off by the police. She is harassing you and for proceedings to be initiated you don’t need the special category of relationship you need for a family injunction. Be firm with the police.

Also be firm the Local Authority. Her behaviour is abusive.

Unanswered question from a PP-

Why is she so hung up on your DH if she has younger children that are not his? I presume they’re not his as you have made no reference to them as SC?

Did your DH leave her for you? And then she went on to have a relationship with another and when that failed turned her attention back to the man who, in her view, ‘started it all’?

If you leave him, SD has more disruption and she has got what she achieved.

Go and get PROPER legal advice from a Solicitor and take PROPER action. Did he and she ever have mediation?

How can it be costing you HUNDREDS more than it should be if he only has 1 child with her? That can be sorted with ease, surely?

There are many gaps in this story and whilst I can see you are distressed, people can’t give advice if things aren’t clear.

Re non- molestation order, talk to a solicitor, not the police. They can be worded quite specifically and with the best will in the world, the police are not trained in all aspects of the law.
Also, can you afford to get your SC in to see a psychologist privately once a month? It might help her to know she has someone to talk to who has no agenda, and won’t tell anyone what she said. It sounds like the poor kid has a lot on her shoulders.

By your own admission you knew already about the loony bitch before you got married. To betray your husband now that he has fathered another child would be ignominious.
Also, you are making the assumption this unhinged woman would leave you alone once you have left your husband. That's quite a leap of faith. She will probably carry on pestering you knowing that your baby is his baby, too. You will have to deal her deranged behaviour on your own. Say you move in with somebody else. Do you think they would be safe? Clearly not.
You need to have a very serious chat with your husband. Communicate in clear terms that you are so desperate that you are considering leaving. And then put together a plan of action to fight this bitch.

The police can charge her with actual offences which will be far more powerful than a non mol order that will probably be repeatedly breached…

You know that social services can only get involved with a family with parental consent right? They aren't police, they can't 'come down hard'. This child has two parents. The other parent needs to protect the child, social services can't do it. They can't threaten to remove the child or any of the children because that's not how things work. They can't force the mother to do anything.

Have you seen a solicitor about this? Are they right? I only ask as my ex was arrested for harassment/stalking and a lot was done via a their party…. They didn’t get charged in the end but it did stop the behaviour.

They aren't going to though. A non molestation order is civil and doesn't need police involvement.

I’ve intentionally been vague as I don’t want to be recognised.

she has what I can only assume to be severe mental health issues, and she cannot accept responsibility for her behaviours, she has to blame someone. When she’s was in a relationship my DP, she blamed her ex’s abuse for her behaviour. Basically everyone in her past has, according to her, abused her - exes, friends, parents. it’s her way of absolving herself of her behaviours, by saying she only behaves like this because x y z person abused her.

I met him years after they split but I’m his first proper relationship and all of this ramped up when we became serious and moved in together, got married and had a baby. she can’t stand that he’s happy and moved on, as in her current delusional mind, he’s to blame for everything miserable in her life.

im going to suggest we go to see a solicitor and get legal advice, i think that’s a really good suggestion. I’m going to ask stepchild about therapy too and see how they feel about that.

Op you need to talk to the police and see if she can be charged with malicious communication offence or harassment. This is not acceptable, and will be taken very seriously. There is even a case for stalking, which carries a long prison sentence and may be the deterrent you need. There could be charges of fraud and misrepresentation.

Why haven’t you contacted the police?

Social services are the wrong agency. Unless she is severely abusing her child, and there is evidence of such neglect etc they aren’t going to do anything. It isn’t their job to protect you, just the welfare of the child in her care - which doesn’t sound like it’s reached the threshold of intervention.

I would move out.

Op it's really up to your OH to sort this out. He knows his ex far better than you and at one point they were close enough to have a child- so she must have some redeeming features.

It is up to him to maintain a relationship with his ex that is functional enough to make sure that both children are being raised in a good environment.

He has a responsibility to sort this out. I would give him distance and you some calm while he does that.

Agree with this. Whilst dsc feels they are helping by relaying to you what’s been said about you, it doesn’t help at all. Ex is using your dsc as her mouth piece in communication with you. Block that, and she will soon realise that this path to get info to you isn’t working anymore.

Delete all sm. Block ex in every way. Dp can message dsd without going through his ex now she's 14
. Delete any messages dsd tries to show you. Or remove her phone when she's with you /airplane mode...

Hi OP,

im sorry to hear what you are experiencing.

Here are some suggestions that you might think about that could do something in the short term.

1. Report her name/profile to whichever SM platforms she is using to harass you. Specify that you are the person she is threatening and/or harassing.
2. Go back to the police and do this online so there’s a paper trail. Make a referral for a non-urgent crime. You can enter dates and specify details such as threats. Or get DH to do this.
3. Ask Citizens Advice for guidance on harassment.
4. Photo/screenshot any further written abusive messages to DSC.
5. Try to ignore it by thinking you are taking action and you will not let her control your life or your happiness.
6. Perhaps give the fraud department a call re the UC as others have suggested.
7. Look for a solicitor that specifically deals with harassment, rather than family law as I can imagine solicitors would view the two matters as separate.
8. If you stay with your DH ask him to come up with ideas to support DSC and minimise letting the DSC the distress it’s causing you so she’s getting less attention and less satisfaction from upsetting your family.

Now most of that is easy to say when I’m not you and while you shouldn’t have to do any of it or deal with it, it’s what I’d be doing in your shoes, I think.

I hope she’s mostly a keyboard harasser and that it’s not a real threat to you or your family but for the obvious risk that it may not be just that, I’d report any and every harassment to the police. A threat is a threat .

my only question is - are the messages you are being shown (at her insistence via DSC) not available to you independently? Ie if say on Facebook she posts something is that publicly (has she an “open” profile so that anyone can see her posts) or “just” to family/friends (hers)? I’m asking because I think a solicitor would be useful to you especially if it’s in the public domain and easily found.

Is the father(s) of her younger children involved with them? Could you approach him and discuss the effect she is having on his kids? Get him onside and work together?
Sorry if I have missed this info upthread...

At this point seek legal advice from a good solicitor. If you have any evidence, or have logged incidents, you need to take this with you. The more information you can provide to a solicitor, the better they can help you. I absolutely agree that your step-child needs therapy, because the poor child is carrying a heavy burden around, that they shouldn't be carrying but more importantly, doesn't have the emotional maturity to deal with. Leaving your husband is extreme and honestly I'm not sure the situation would be any better. Your husband does need to take the pressure off you, as much as he possibly can - for example only he sees the messages from his ex. However, therapy may be wise for you and your husband, either together or separate, because both of you need good mental health. A therapist can give you both strategies to help you cope.

You are incorrect. She is the stepmother and is specifically given this power by Part 62, s 3(d) of the Family Law Act. Op can take action herself if she wished.

The child is being alienated and it would be entirely appropriate to take action against the mother in the form of an order that the mother be restrained from doing so to the child. That specific action should be taken by the child's father who doesn't seem to realise the extent of the problem.

You are incorrect. She is the stepmother and is specifically given this power by Part 62, s 3(d) of the Family Law Act. Op can take action herself if she wished.

The child is being alienated and it would be entirely appropriate to take action against the mother in the form of an order that the mother be restrained from doing so to the child. That specific action should be taken by the child's father who doesn't seem to realise the extent of the problem.

You need to get proper legal advice and manage her behaviour proactively, through the courts if necessary. The police aren’t a reliable source of advice in a situation like this. Harassment even via a third party is still harassment.

Why haven’t you contacted the police?

@Nestingbirds OP has explained at least three times what the police response has been.

If you leave, she won! She just wants to hurt your DP IMO, did he leave her? Maybe tries some lies to see what happens, ‘split up’

(sorry not read full thread but didn’t want to read and run).