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.

It is so sad that you and your DP should suffer further by separating. All because of this women’s behaviour.

However I don’t think you are unreasonable to consider it - you want peace in your life and you don’t want your own child caught up in this.

I think I would seriously need to consider moving far away from this women - literally putting miles between you. A fresh start where she doesn’t know where you live.

Move out.
You have brought a child into this toxic mess who is being impacted by your understandable stress.
Your child deserves better than this.
No man is worth this stress.
Put your child first.

Having been through some of this, and some even worse I left. DD was 1. It was the best thing I could have done for my DD and my mental health.

Never underestimate the ex when there is a child involved.

This sounds really hard.

Something that stood out for me, you've envisioned leaving "even just temporarily until shared child is older." That suggests to me you just want a break from the chaos, but don't actually want to leave your dp. If you do leave he may not wait for you so you can get back together in future either. It's not a good plan.

Talking to a solicitor would give you civil rather than criminal options

Surely the best option is full custody of your step child. Poor kid really needs to get away from this unhinged woman.

One point worth making is that the Police, Social Services etc CAN get involved IF THEY WANT TO

The challenge is to get them to pull their fingers out.

As a 'for example' there are an awful lot of 'omnibus cover all charges' that can be used to prosecute the ex partner as well as some specific ones what is needed is the will to do it.

I might try making a complaint if no action has been taken by the Police

Yeah that’s what the OP has said as well. She said that Social services did what I was suggesting already. The mother has just been ignoring it as they can’t force her. Such a shame they can’t do more. It’s a shame that these types of people exist in the first place that put their needs and pain above their own children.. I guess ultimately you can only do so much to help people if they refuse to see their mistakes. This is why I would just let her unravel and get as much evidence as possible for an anti mol order. Sometimes you just have to people dig their own hole.

How you you propose they get full custody of a 14 year old who doesn't want to live with them full time?

I would second speaking to an experienced family law solicitor. Police won't necessarily have advised you correctly and they will only know about criminal law not civil.

Good luck.

Consider involving your MP if the authorities won't act. My ex did a rival benefit claim causing me aoad of grief.. MP stepped in and helped sort it. They are bothered op.

Social services ARE involved (or have been)
As working with social services is voluntary, and they can't make the child move to live with their father even if they tried, I don't know what else people think they should be doing.

Removing the child to a place of safety?

I know you’ve probably had plenty of posters telling you not to leave your DP, but they’re not the ones living with his ex’s shit.

I just want to enjoy my baby. Would I be a terrible person if I left?
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.

It’s your life and your child’s life. You’ve done lots of fighting to keep everything going and it’s ok to say you can’t do it anymore.

Under what auspice?
removing a child from a parent can only be done via court order and the threshold is extremely high. The child's father hasn't even attempted to apply to court himself, so why do you think social services should be spending tens of thousands of public funds applying to court on a fools errand?

Such a shame! Clearly she’s refusing to take any responsibility and is always the victim. In turn she’s become the abusive one to her own child. She’ll never see it! I would just gather as much evidence while pretending not to be bothered to her face. Let her unravel, then speak to a solicitor and the police to get an anti mol order. Let her dig her own grave! She’s ruining 3 people’s lives because she’s triggered by his happiness. It’s not always the ex or the parents or another ex that’s causing you to act like a terrible human being. It’s you (her)! You can be hurt and choose not to become a douche bag! Everyone has scars and problems and has suffered in some way. It’s a choice to move on and act like a decent human being.

I would be careful about all the advice to go to the police or a solicitor. If she's as deranged as we deal with, there's two risks.

1. They tell you there's nothing they can do, so you feel more helpless and hopeless

1. It works, for a time, and it might buy you some peace, but she'll return even more "vengeful and wronged" afterwards. She's not going to change or to see how destructive her behaviour is towards her child.

If you have any money to spare I'd spend it on therapy, not lawyers, again assuming she's a psychological threat but not a physical one.

I don't understand why this country's legal/police/social services system is so fucking useless when it comes to abusive, threatening harassers like this.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. You should be enjoying your family, not being threatened, bullied and having your money and rights constantly at risk due to this psychopath.

It also seems the main problem lies around your SD, the way she's been guilt-tripped and made to fear losing contact with her siblings.
Ideally, she would just let her mother bluff with her threats (or carry them out if she's that stupid) - and come live with you full time, block her on every media end of.
Several posters including myself asked before,

Where is the father to these siblings and why can't contact be facilitated through him??

Gosh, this sounds a lot
like my mother. Except I didn’t have a sane adult around to help me. It would have helped a lot. Can you go to a good counsellor as a family (you, your partner and step daughter or a mix of these)? It’d be good for her to have someone to offload to that isn’t involved. And whatever decision you make, to put value on your relationships despite this poisonous behaviour. Good luck.

I think the stepchild needs to live with you full time and go NC with their mother. I know that is not what the SC wants but it is what needs to happen in order to safeguard their mental health and wellbeing, and also to safeguard you all as a family. I understand that the SC's mother may try and stop them having a relationship with their siblings but if this happens then social services should definitely become more involved and try and facilitate a continued relationship between them. It is not the responsibility of the SC to protect their siblings at the age of 14 that is a job for the siblings' parents and social services. This situation cannot be allowed to continue both for the sake of the stepchild and for your's and your baby's sake. Counselling for the stepchild would be a good first step and I would also sit down with them and your DP and calmly discuss what needs to happen for their own protection and wellbeing and also that of your family.

@Brokenn I had exactly the same situation as you. The behaviour absolutely ramped up after my second child was born. She reported me to social services for leaving her child and my eldest alone while I gave birth. That was only one of the things, but actually the last straw. I was relentless with the police, relentless and they actually did go around to see her and warned her to stop. Which she actually did. If you can bear it, be the squeaky wheel and maybe the police will actually act

I've something a bit similar with an abusive family member, social services and police involvement due to false allegations.

A police officer told me that cases like this are hard for them to deal with, as the abuser wasn't mad enough to section, and wasn't directly attacking me.

I thought they could have pushed for a harassment charge, but it was messy and I think they just didn't really see how stressful it was for me, sympathetic as a couple of individual officers were. They see so much worse.

I don't think you leaving will make you happier to be honest, so I don't think it's the best thing to do.

I think your stepchild and partner need to stop telling you what she's up to, you need to get a break from her, your stepchild can still get support from his Dad, but they need to leave you out of itball.

You need to tell any family members not to pass on any information about her to you. Once your stepchild is 18, your partner needs to do the same.

I suspect your stepchild will break with his mum when he's an adult, so she's not going to be able to get to you in a few years.

If you live anywhere near her, I think you should move.

The non-molestation order is a good idea, but don't give up hope if it doesn't work.

Keep a record, tell the people who need to know what's going on - in my case it was GP, school and my work, as my family member had written to all of them with false allegations that I was abusing my kids.

You have all my sympathy, you'll get through this.

The minute the woman threatened suicide the game should have been over and the child extracted full time.

I think get advice from a solicitor (though this sounds like psychiatric or personality disorder territory so may not stop her), and some kind of mental health/emotional support for your step child. The latter so that your step child at the very least stops involving you or your child in this by showing you messages etc. and stops telling their mother anything about your lives - DP needs to reinforce this too. And hopefully some support with stopping them feeling responsible for the well being of everyone else in that fucked up family to the detriment of themself. That might enable them to realise they need to get out. The mother may turn more abusive if she's not getting info.

Your DP must have known how insane she was before he got together with you but didn't take any steps to ensure she knew as little about your shared child and you as possible? How does she know enough about you and your child to be able to put false UC and child benefit claims in? She'd need your and your child's birthdates surely?

If any of the social media/texting harassment is direct (your post is a bit unclear) you need to deactivate or delete your SM profiles, report to the SM provider (who may not do much) change your phone number and not give the new number to your step child. Of course you shouldn't have to but it may get you some peace.

The question is, can you stand this until your step child turns 18 and possibly beyond? If not and nothing changes I think you need to move house and properly end the relationship, not just pretend to end it.