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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Original poster

So.... does anyone here actually get on with their DP/DH's ex? Surely I can't be the only one...?

49 replies

CalamityKate · 14/12/2011 01:26

What the title says, really. Maybe it's just the case that nobody bothers posting about their DP/DH's exes if they get on, and I can understand if there have been actual problems like access disagreements/infidelity etc.

Straw poll?

OP posts:

KissMyShineyRedA · 14/12/2011 12:32

Nope, she's a twat

MistyMountainHop · 14/12/2011 12:33

oh hell no i am not

i wouldn't want to be friends with someone who, in the 4 years i have been with DH, has stalked not only me, but my exH as well (don't ask) sent me and my family threats of violence, wished bad things on my children, and worse of all possibly permanently ruined DH's relationship with their DD.

however, i get on fine with my exH's girlfriend, she is lovely, a fab stepmum to mine and exH's DS, and in fact her and exH are coming to us on christmas morning to see DS open his presents. so my side at least is civilised!

squeakytoy · 14/12/2011 12:49

I used to get on very well with my husbands ex. She referred to me as her children's second mother, and at family events for the kids, we would often sit together and chat happily. We would speak on the phone if there were problems with the kids when they were teens, and as there was still a fair amount of animosity between her and my husband, I was the one in the middle who could smooth things over..

Roll on to the kids having kids of their own and she turned into the psycho ex wife from hell. We havent spoken for 3 years, and I didnt go to my stepdaughters wedding last year because the atmosphere would have been so bad due to her behaviour. She chose to move 100 miles away from everyone, yet hates me because I get to see her grandchildren more than she does... ... and to give another example of her mental behaviour.. my adult stepson had an accident a couple of years ago, which meant an operation and a few nights in hospital. She went beserk because he rang me to ask me to take him to the hospital, and sent him a text saying if he allowed me or his dad to visit him, then she would no longer consider him her son.. but she didnt bother to come to visit because she didnt have time...

She is a really nasty, devious piece of work, and after spending a few years thinking that my husband thought that of her because well, she was his ex, etc.. and he was maybe over exagerrating it, I can now see he was absolutely spot on. She is poison.

(I met him 8 years after they had divorced, and she was remarried then too, so definately not a problem with me being the other woman who took her man).

littlemix · 14/12/2011 16:48

Why do some people seem to want to stir things up here? If a poster has reasons to ask a vaild question why should anyone else flame her?

EX's are tricky situations to handle and should be handled with caution.It would depend whether the new partner was in any way responsible for the old partner now being an EX. I think it's best to steer clear of the past and move on unless it's absolutely neccessary eg. for the sake of a child, but again a cautious approach should be adopted.

Baffles me as to why some people need to keep their ex fairly close to them. Do they have a need to keep 'tabs' on them, is it only curiosity, is it because they can't let go?

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 14/12/2011 17:07

I actually think MORE people should post about good relationships, about happy relationships.

Perhaps that would help others to see that there is a different way to live, that if they are in a bad situation, it's not normal and they don't have to accept it.

If every experience shared is a bad one, how many people think it must be normal to be yelled at/lied to/worse? It's just part of a relationship, etc. I wonder how many people really don't realise that they are being treated badly, because all they see is other people being treated badly too.

How much better to read stories that give a whole other picture?

Or am I being naive?

HecateGoddessOfTwelfthNight · 14/12/2011 17:08

give a whole other picture as well, not instead. The support you get when you are having a shitty time is invaluable. I don't mean to suggest we should replace that with My Perfect Family stories.

LovingChristmas · 14/12/2011 17:14

I think I've got this the right way around, I get on really well with my DH ex, we catch up and have drinks, discuss my DSS her DS and laugh about hows he's grown up and I help her with a few things here and there, she also returns the favour. When I married DH, my DSS was best man, his mum and stepdad helped him with his speech and came to the wedding! Sorted!
We are very lucky though and in 9 years have only ever had one very nasty row!

8daystillholidays · 14/12/2011 18:41

I have a little experience of this.

My dad left my mum for a family friend when I was 8 and I was not allowed to see him again until I was 18. This was purely due to my mother's hatred for the OW and my father. My childhood was truly damaged and as a result I believe that children should grow up in a harmonious environment.

I am now with a lovely man who has 2 children. He has been divorced for 6 years, we have been together 4 and I have known his children for 2. I have tried very hard to get along with his ex. Every time I have seen her I have been kind and polite - asking how she is, would she like to come up for a cup of tea/see the children's room etc etc and she doesn't even respond. Sometimes she leaves the kids on the doorstep, rings the bell and walks away before I get to the door.

I am gradually accepting that all I can do is be kind to the children, always nice about their mum and provide them with a calm and loving environment in which to spend one night a week and every other weekend.

Bogeyface · 14/12/2011 19:05

I get on well with my ex. Infact I get on better with him than I do my current, because he is a cheating lying wanker and whatever problems me and exH had, he was always faithful and treated me well.

FabbyChic · 14/12/2011 19:11

I got on well with my childrens fathers girlfriend, why? Because she was nice to my kids, and she got him off my back.

FabbyChic · 14/12/2011 19:12

I get on great with the kids dad we have a laugh, but initialy after he broke my nose in front of them and I had to get two injunctions for a year we didnt get on. Do now though but it has been 15 years since we split.

change99 · 14/12/2011 23:32

Bogey why stick with him if he's that bad?

ballroomblitz · 15/12/2011 00:06

I think it's nice to read the positive stories OP.

For me, ex is coming round to my DP. I was quite when dp told me the other day when he went to pick up ds (I had hurt my back) ex asked him did he want to come in for a coffee?? I am very good friends with ex's brother but we have been friends from the age of 18 before ex and I started to go out. He is yet to start to date anyone seriously yet so it's not an issue the other way round as yet.

I don't want friendship in particular, as long as everyone can be civil to each other I'll be happy.

ballroomblitz · 15/12/2011 00:07

Three 'yets' in one sentence and I don't even have wine to blame

ConstanceNoring · 15/12/2011 08:12

Are you serious Bogeyface, what's going on?

Original poster

CalamityKate · 15/12/2011 09:14

Hecate I agree with your 17:07 post.

OP posts:

Hassledge · 15/12/2011 09:23

Not quite answering the OP's question, but both DH and I are very good friends with my Ex-H. DH and he go to the football together, they go out drinking together, play squash etc. The DCs we had together are grown up now, but I have two much younger DCs who Ex will be the guardian of should DH and I pop our clogs and who he will babysit for at the drop of a hat. He adores them.

It wasn't immediate - there was a lot of bitterness in the first year or so (he had an affair). But while he was a crap husband, he was always a nice man - I can't imagine not having him as a friend.

FreyaoftheNorth · 15/12/2011 09:40

^ It's an attack on someone trying to put something positive here. Stop constantly try to force your own misgivings on others.

Wannabe, you're right, this board in particular has a hugely inaccurate, distorted view on relationships, possibly because a large number of posters here seem to re-enact their own past by force feeding others doom and gloom. The reality is some of the more regular posters feed on newer posters in a frenzy picking up on the tiniest of problems and turning them into huge issues. Not everyone has a Pandora's Box full of disaster, but you'd be forgiven for thinking everyone does judging by some of the unjustifiable comments seen here regularly.^

Hear hear!

The phrase "stealth boast" is very unpleasant.

FWIW the last time I was in such a situation, I wanted to be friends with her, but she didn't want to meet me - she was still really upset about the end of her relationship with him, which was less than a year before I met him. And he didn't deal with the situation well; for example he tried to get me to meet their DC without telling her, though I insisted he did talk about it with her.
Which makes me holier-than-thou, obviously. :D

perfumedlife · 15/12/2011 11:13

To be fair to izzywhizzy it seems she read it the other way around from what the op meant. I think she thought it was asking do any of us who have split/been left, get on well with the woman our partners have since hooked up with. It was this line that made me think thats what she read : Would you care to expound on the secret of your success in creating a harmonious relationship with your ex's new love? Could it have anything to do with the fact that you had no further interest in him?

Seems she was reading it about our ex's and their partners, not partners and their ex's.

I did get on well with an old bf's ex years ago until she asked him to babysit her cats by moving in to her house. We weren't living together but even so, I felt it was too weird and he would be sleeping in her bed whilst she was gone. I was suspicious of her motives from then on, and it turned out I was right to be.

kaluki · 15/12/2011 12:59

I get on so well with my ex's ex wife that I invited her and her dd (who I still think of as my sd) round at the weekend for a meal and drinks and we had a lovely evening. We joked about being in the ex wives club and how long it will be before his current victim girlfriend sees through him and joins the club!
I have never met my DP's ex wife and don't intend to because she is a crazy harpy who uses her kids as weapons and does everything in her power to cause trouble and spread her spiteful hateful poison wherever she can!!

MistyMountainHop · 15/12/2011 15:21

I have never met my DP's ex wife and don't intend to because she is a crazy harpy who uses her kids as weapons and does everything in her power to cause trouble and spread her spiteful hateful poison wherever she can!!

are you dating my DH kaluki, as they seem to have the same exW :o

kaluki · 16/12/2011 11:37

I hope not Misty!!!
But surely there can't be two such hideous creatures on the planet!!!

MistyMountainHop · 16/12/2011 14:56

hehe :)

fuzzynavel · 16/12/2011 16:07

Yuck

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