Ex refusing use of the term “step-mum”

[Iamadaddoinghisbest]

Hi everyone,
this is my first post, so really hoping for some helpful responses here…

I met my current partner (now wife) 18 months ago and we got married a couple of months ago, around 12 months after getting engaged.
we moved in together around 6 months after initially meeting and made sure to integrate my 6yo daughter into the process to make sure she felt able to discuss any concerns and feel included.
My daughter stays with us 3 nights per week and is very happy in her home life with us.

My ex partner (mother to my daughter) has, since the beginning, expressed continual disapproval of our relationship and at numerous occasions attempted to control how we live in our house:
-commenting on where we do our shopping
-dictating routines in our house
-insisting I don’t choose clothes for my daughter to wear
-involving my daughter in communications to me “tell Daddy he never returns the right clothes” etc
-constant judgemental behaviour and constant messaging even after (on a number of occasions) telling her I don’t want us to message each-other other than on handover days or in an emergency.
-insisting that my wife doesn’t kiss my daughter.

Currently she is now insisting that we cannot use the term “step-mum” or any other variant (bonus mum, extra mum etc) that implies the use of the word mother for my wife.
My wife and I have never pressured my daughter to use any of these terms and at all points explained she can call her whatever she feels most comfortable with. She wants to say Step-Mum because she has friends who also have step step parents so we have just allowed it.

Her mum is insistent that this is forbidden and even told my daughter “just because Daddy & xxx are married doesn’t mean that she is your step mum” and offered no explanation to her.

My daughter came to me to discuss this and was clearly confused and upset and now if the opinion that my wife isn’t actually part of the family but just a “friend” of mine.

Looking for some opinions on this.
My wife is legally my daughters step-mum so I don’t feel she has any right to contest anything here regardless of whether she likes it or not.

I think your ex could have said/done some of these things to try to reassure your DD as you have mixed her into a relatively new relationship. Married or not, you've been with this woman 18 months. Nobody has any idea whether it will work out as you are likely still in the honeymoon period. My advice would be to focus on what you can do to be a decent Dad rather than focusing on what your DDs coparent is doing.

Same here.

Most of these posters are not answering the OP question. It’s actually irrelevant whether the OP and his wife were the cause of the divorce, although it’s pretty clear from the OPs responses that this was not the case. Jumping in with both feet and blaming him for his past actions, without any evidence that he has done anything wrong ( except possibly fathering a child within a relationship which wasn’t very secure, but he has form for moving rather quickly, it appears).

If I have read this rightly, the DD wants to call her stepmother ( for so she is, they are legally married, it’s not some three week ‘partnership’) by the term stepmother when speaking to other children who also have stepparents. That’s not unreasonable.

so it comes down to two options : OP can either tell his daughter not to use the term stepmother when speaking to her birth mother about her, well, stepmother, or his ex wife can put on her big girl shoes and go with reality. I think it’s pretty obvious which would be the better course for the only person who matters in all this, a very young child trying to negotiate a complex situation.

OP, try to separate this issue from the others re shopping etc. They are just banging on, and not important - or shouldn’t be- to you. Though try to get the clothes right.

This is correct. Thank you @Ohnobackagain
I have totally misunderstood the term OW.
at no point was there a crossover, any cheating on my part or affair going on at any point.

My ex actually instigated ending the relationship a number of years before I met my new partner (now wife)

It's not though.

Whether she was the OW or he had a string of OW, still doesn't entitle the ex to call the shots.

Agree with posters suggesting mediation about co-parenting and means of communication.

You seem in denial that engagement after 4 months and moving in together after 6 months was clearly not in the best interests of your DD. What’s done is done, but that was poor parenting.

Your ex can comment on things all she likes: you don’t need to respond to argue, defend things or whatever, just do as you choose.

Pending resolving how best to communicate with each other, what channels etc, it’s not on to refuse to communicate about co-parenting matters.

18 months is far too soon for your poor daughter to have a fully fledged step mum, what the hell were you thinking?

It is seriously poor parenting to just bulldoze another adult into your daughters life in such a short period of time, how confusing and unsettling it must be to have this new woman appear and marry her father in just over a year. Where was the consideration for your daughter in this? Your now wife should have been introduced at a more sensible pace ffs, what on earth was the rush to marry her and force everything to move so quickly?

I would be saying exactly the same if it was a woman posting. It is horrifying how much some adults prioritise their own relationships with little thought to the potential impact on their kids.

It's relevant because on MN posters use it as a stick to beat you with.

I'm a defacto step-mum myself whose partner's ex is hostile.

The first poster who answered your thread gave you all the advice you need.

The only things I can add:

• If your ex starts shouting at you during mediation end the session immediately. Only do shuttle mediation going forward and refuse to be in the same room as her.
• The clothes thing is very common. My DP had it for years and so have other separated parents. It is a control thing. Simply don't engage. If the clothes you buy for your DD go missing then send her back to her mother's in cheaper clothes that you are prepared to never see again. If the clothes are school uniform make sure your DD always has duplicates. Once the child gets to be a teenager then she will choose her own clothes.
• If or when your wife gets pregnant and has a baby, your ex will increase her hostilities. Make sure you have family and friends around who will help you kept your DDs routine the same around the birth. So you need to have people she is comfortable sleeping in the house off. Also introduce your DD to her new sibling as soon as possible after the baby is born.

A lot of meaningless words there.

I’d think a parent who moved this quickly very foolish indeed. No amount of words about supporting your daughter can change your very selfish actions.

That doesn’t mean her mum can act like this, it’s clearly inappropriate.

But it’s very sad your daughter doesn’t have either parent putting her first.

Technically, you are correct here and your ex should have no say. However, in reality that leaves your daughter in a very awkward place, which I'm sure you don't want.

I would let your daughter know it's absolutely fine to call your wife by her name, and just to refer to her as 'dad's wife' if she needs to explain the relationship (ie when talking to someone new). It shouldn't need to be this way, but it won't have too much impact on you or your wife, and should make things easier for your little girl.

@TheShellBeach, but even if he did cheat, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get to move on and be happy. I don’t condone cheating in the slightest and whilst that may go a way to explaining why his ex is unhappy, the fact is, he’s moved on and is now married. Even if he cheated, she’s left with a shit life and he’s kept his amazing job and friends and still gets to see their daughter (all understandably unreasonable in her eyes) It still doesn’t make how she’s acting reasonable. It makes it understandable, completely, but not reasonable moving forward in the best interests of her daughter. I totally get that she’d be bitter, as would I but that doesn’t mean she gets to manipulate her DD’s relationship with her dad and stepmum.

I think you need to stop communicating through your child and tell her mother that it will no longer be acceptable. The issue , I assume , with calling your wife step mum is that your ex can quite rightly see that for a 6 yo that could soon be abbreviated to just mum as step mum is a mouthful and like most normal people she doesn’t want her small child calling someone else mum . It would be much better to tell your daughter to use your wifes name . This is not the hill to die on .

@Reugny God the clothes thing. You're right, it's control. We've had years of nonsense over this!

I’ll clarify again, there was no cheating.
I misunderstood an abbreviation.
there was a 3 year gap between relationships.

But I agree that your daughter using your wife’s name would be better, at least for now.

Letting your daughter decide is not going to fix any issues you or your wife have, and is just another version of using her to pass messages.
Get professional mediation.

I agree with this. Her mum's concerns might be coming from the fact that you involved your DD way to soon and she's now attached to this woman and no one knows if it will last or not. Calling her step mom just adds to that attachment. I don't want some whirlwind romance person playing such a big role in my DCs life. Marriages are hard enough to make work without rushing things. Maybe she needs some time to see this will work before she's willing to commit. I did vote and do believe it should be 100% child led, so what DD wants to call her as long as you can honestly say you haven't encouraged her at all to call her step mum and I don't agree with some of your ex actions like involving DD with messages, but there may be valid concerns behind her saying DD can't call her step mum.

@Iamadaddoinghisbest, yes, if you read my first post, I said I thought you’d misunderstood the abbreviation, OW, which refers to the other woman in an extra marital affair.

My issue here is correcting her when she has decided what term she would like to use as this only creates confusion for DD surely?
My wife and I have never enforced or encouraged use of the term, and to correct her and change what she would like to use seems counter intuitive and not supportive of the wishes of DD.

Mediation and reduce contact with your ex to an app.
My exhusband’s ex was like this, It got worse and worse so nip in the bud if you can.
And never bad mouth mum to your dd, hard though it might be at times. Don’t let her overhear conversations.

Step mother and step father are actually legal terms so she might just have to get over herself.

This will just go round in circles OP.

Mediation is the only answer. You need to sit down with your ex and agree to put all past complaints behind you both, and move forward in a manner which only considers what is best for your daughter. Clear boundaries, clear limits on communications, etc. Honestly it does not matter who did what or who behaved badly, the fact is you are currently in the position you are in and the most important thing is to protect your daughter. As you’re in a hostile situation it’s unlikely that anything other than mediation will achieve this.

Of course it’s perfectly reasonable for your daughter to refer to your wife as her step mother (though it’s not a legal term, as you suggest in your initial post!). If she says “my dad’s wife” to her friends, that infers an issue, she clearly doesn’t want that. As long as you’re not pushing the term on her, it’s none of your ex’s business.

There are some issues that are still unclear though.

For example, "dictating routines". Of course your ex doesn't get to do that. BUT... just asking... what are the routines at your house? I have a friend who is constantly frustrated because her DC come back from their dad's having not eaten any decent food, not showered/bathed and not had a decent night's sleep. She spends Sundays trying to get them sorted, cleaned, fed, and into bed so they can catch up before they have to return to school. Then she has to do all the washing they return home with.

I already asked about the clothes thing and whether there are issues around what you send the child home in and someone else did point out re for example school uniform/PE kit etc.

Commenting on shopping etc is, of course, totally unreasonable. My guess is that she is quite bitter for whatever reason - rightly or wrongly. Why did she end the relationship? It's not quite the same but one of SIL's endless frustrations is that exBIL never contributed financially to the household. And yet, when they broke up, he suddenly got himself a very expensive flashy gym membership. It infuriated her because for years she'd been begging him to contribute more - either financially or practically.

Agh! Having been a child of step parents I actually rarely used the term. It was more mum's partner/ dad's wife and their first name in person. For the sake of your daughter who is in the unfortunate position of being stuck in the middle I would just go along with it. If you insist she uses the term she'll get it in the neck from her mum. Over time those experiences have a big psychological impact. It's unreasonable but who cares really. When your DS is older she can make her own mind up

I think this is a case of ex not wanting her dh anymore but then having a tantrum when he moves on.
And yes he met and married his new wife in a short space of time but he had split almost 3 years before.

@Iamadaddoinghisbest you’re married now so all the comments on how quickly you introduced dd to your new partner are not much help.
Be guided by your dd, let her decide what terms she uses and keep contact with your ex to a minimum.
She can keep her rules for her own house, she doesn’t get to impose them on you unless she’s really worried about her dd. She’s not, she’s just jealous.