DP tracking his ExW and reading her emails.

[NameChangeAsThisIsBloodyAwful]

Urgh. This is really messing with my head.

So, DP has been separated for 2 years. Divorce in progress. He left. There are 2 older teenage DCs. We have been together 1.5 years, it's serious and we will be moving in together.

Basically, without writing a novel, there are a few issues at play here. He tracks his ex wife on Find My IPhone - he has the password. He says he does it to see where his children are (on same cloud), and so that he doesn't ever have to bump into exw. I've been unhappy with this as it smacks of not letting go, and of control - not to mention legal implications of invasion of privacy.
Thing is, it's not just for the kids. The exw had a night out on Saturday and he kept checking to see where she was and was frustrated that her phone seemed to be offline.
We rowed about it. I told him he needs to let go. He told me that he has let go, but because of the nature of the split - she took it very badly and it's impacted massively on his relationship with his children who took their mum's side and don't really want to see him, that he does it to feel part of the children's lives still...or something,

It's not only that. He regularly checks her email. He also has that password - she isn't technogically minded, and he set up all these things when they were still together. He says he does it see if there are any emails regarding a sport his eldest dc takes part in, as the exw is telling him nothing anymore. I think that is also completely unacceptable.

Further, he's been very reticent about telling her that he has a new relationship. I accepted that due to the precarious nature of his relationship with his kids and didn't want to rock the boat. However, at this stage we are serious about a future together. The other week we were spotted by a relative of the exw who reported back to her that we had been seen together. She text him to ask if he was with someone else, and expressed that he had promised to tell her if he was seeing someone new, and that it hurt to hear second hand (totally reasonable of her in my opinion) and that she (and the kids, she always involves them) would like the truth from him.

He text her back minimising everything, saying it was someone he had very recently started seeing and that it was far too soon to tell the children.
Lies. Total lies. We've been together since 2016. He has met my entire family and child many times. We have had family holidays together and we are going to be buying a house together.

He is just so scared she will use anything against him to create an even worse relationship with his children.

To say I'm fed up of all of this is a huge understatement. We also rowed about his reply to her text. I understand he would have preferred to tell her that he was in a relationship and not for her to hear it second hand, but he should have told her before, in my opinion. And now that she knows something, he should have been more honest. Not to rub her nose in it, but not to minimise me and make me feel like a nothing in his life.

The rest of our relationship is excellent, otherwise I'd not be able to cope with his.

I don't know what to do about this though. I don't know if I'm being unreasonable or he is. I am looking for some advice on how to handle it.

Teenage kids don't just stop seeing their dad like that. They just don't. They might be pissed off for a while but they wouldn't drop their relationship with their father.

If you don't leave, or even if you do, actually, this is what he's going to do to you. If he's not doing it already.

OP you must have low self-esteem to put up with this shit. Your man is a psycho. He’s not even hiding it from you. Please stay away from him and keep your child safe. You deserve much, MUCH better.

The finances are all sorted. She got the house and he was Incredibly generous - his guilt about leaving fuelling that, and hope that he would get dc's on side.

Let's take this example, shall we? This was a long marriage. I'll bet she was primary caregiver, right? Is the financially vulnerable party here? Wouldn't be in a position to take on a mortgage alone? It is the law that she gets a bigger share of the capital. Not his generosity. Each party needs to end up with somewhere to live, so she ended up with the house. However in return, she will have had to give up a similar amount of her claim to his pension, which will likely leave her destitute in old age. She was forced to choose between homelessness now, or poverty at pensionable age. Yet here you are, lauding his generosity. And to top it all off, you allowed him to stay one step ahead of her in any negotiations, by letting him read her private emails.

You say you're not naive, and I'd agree. You're as bad as he is. You're willing to justify any amount of appalling behaviour, smile at any lie, and actively collude in criminal behaviour in order to keep your fantasy family going in your head (that's the only place it exists).

Have you no shame? No concern for his wife, or her children? No concern for your own child?

It probably won't make a difference, but I'll drop this statistic anyway. When stalking involves parties that don't know each other, the risk of it ending in violence is 1 in 10. When the parties know each other, it's 1 in 2. Your partner's wife is at risk of significant harm, as are his children. His sense of thwarted entitlement is growing, and you're feeding it. And when this goes full-on family annihilation, you're going to be telling the press what a lovely man he was, who just got a bit distraught at not seeing his kids.

There's more to this than you're saying.. or more than you know. I have a good idea...but you'll only deny it.

You prefer to believe she's bitter and not over him.
She's out having fun and he's the upset one. She's over him, while you're under him and he doesn't love you.

If he wanted to know about his child's sport he could find out other ways.

His kids don't want to know him.

He's not seen them in 2 years...how much worse could it get.

You're like a mistress...yet he's so keen to know her every move.

Farrier - he shouldn't be castigated for stalking a person? Thankfully the law in this country does not agree with you. It has taken many years of campaigning for wider society and the establishment to recognise what a serious, dangerous and damaging offence stalking is.

Stalking is doing him no favours - It isn't doing his VICTIM any favours. This has been going on for 2 years now.

He will be able to gain help and support when he is hopefully held accountable for his actions.

The Suzy Lamplugh Trust states that around 45% of stalking is committed by "ex-intimites" and is often considered to be the most dangerous.

The fact he told you that he said he'd just started seeing you shows how little you mean to him.

Men like him are controlling and dangerous.

@NameChangeAsThisIsBloodyAwful what reason has he given you for having left the relationship in the first place?

She still means more to him than you do- whatever his skewed thinking is. He still has a desire to know where she is and what is going on in her life and he is doing that dishonestly and without her knowledge. The police would be interested in him breaking into her emails.

He has wanted her to think he was not involved in a relationship so has not told her about you at any point in the last 18 months.

Now his hand has been forced and she has found out he has not spoken up honestly and said 'Yes, she is called xxxx, we have been together for more than a year and it is pretty serious. She's a (occupation) and I have known her a long time but only romantically since last year. She has been divorced for x years herself and has x children. I should have told you myself last summer when I knew it was serious but as usual I've made a mess and I'm sorry - you should have heard it from me. I haven't handled this very well.'

Instead he has acted as if he barely has a relationship with you to mollify her.

He is not putting you first. Do not move in with him. Stop making excuses and trying to rationalise his actions- they are not rational.

Your partner's wife is at risk of significant harm

This is my worry. That if she thwarts his attempts to stalk her, even inadvertanly say by changing her passwords or switching off find my friends, he will escalate his behaviour to be able to track her. His kids will be tech savvy and they may spot it also. His reaction to not being able to track her on her night out tells us he won't react well to him being stopped.

In addition if she gets involved with a new man he may react very badly indeed. I'd agree there is a risk of danger here either by his stalking being thwarted or a new man entering the scene.

I also doubt he was very generous in the divorce proceedings, and it's more likely it was balanced due to kids ages, her being primary carer etc. He's just playing it that way to the op. Just like he's playing it they will live together and playing it he doesn't know why his kids don't want to see him and playing it he tracks her because he wants to know where his kids are ( which in itself is mind boggling anyone could believe that). He clearly doesn't care about the op as he lets her witness his behaviour.

So yes a 50/50 he may go onto hurt someone or escalate this when he finds he's either been replaced by another man or he can't track her easily.

You'd also have to wonder what else he is doing. Driving by her house. Messaging her. Messing with her emails. This is just the bits the op sees, there is absolutely guaranteed to be more she doesn't know about.

There are no reasons or excuses that can justify his behaviour either towards her or you

Start realising that

How would you feel if you discovered that your ex from 2 years ago was secretly reading your emails and tracking your location?

Seriously, don't minimise this. We'd all be tempted to call the police, and we'd all feel desperately violated.

He tracks his ex wife on Find My IPhone...He says he does it to see where his children are (on same cloud), and so that he doesn't ever have to bump into exw...The exw had a night out on Saturday and he kept checking to see where she was and was frustrated that her phone seemed to be offline..he does it to feel part of the children's lives...He regularly checks her email

When you break it down like the above op, can you see it? Can you see it's nothing to do with his kids? It's her? It's always been about her?

Oh OP, I really feel for you.

You came on here looking for advice and understanding, and wanting someone to tell you it would all be OK, and you've got 16 pages of people telling you to leave your partner, and much, much worse.

This thread has really brought back to me a time when a few years ago I posted on here seeking the same and was loudly told to LTB and that he was awful and still fixated on his ex. (totally different scenario but perhaps the same issue)

I remember how I felt as I tried to justify his actions, and everyone came back and told me I was an idiot. It was awful. I feel sick reading this thread and remembering. You must feel awful and alone.

I did not take the advice, I wasn't ready. I had invested years in a relationship with a man who had some great qualities. I thought that this little problem could be overcome if I helped and supported him. But I now realise that it was symptomatic of his personality rather than an external problem that I/we could solve. I also realise that I feared the alternative.

You don't sound as if you want to end your relationship. Could you ask him to go to counselling to talk through his marriage breakdown and separation from his kids? Perhaps this is fixable? I don't think that it would be unreasonable to demand that as a requirement of your continued relationship as he has obviously admitted to you that he is still upset. if you don't feel that you could ask this of him (for his own good) then I think that you need to think about your relationship. I wouldn't have been able to ask that of my ex, and I now realise how wrong our relationship was.

I did not tell anyone in the 'real world' about what was happening. To protect my ex from their scrutiny, and because I could understand him, but thought that they wouldn't. I think now that this was because although I understood the world that he had created, I couldn't quite explain it to anyone else. Perhaps you feel the same.

Please, please think carefully about what you do next, and be braver than I was. You sound like an intelligent, thoughtful and caring person, and you are doing your best to support someone that you love. I don't know anything about you other than what you have posted, but your story feels familiar to me. I had my eyes opened by googling emotional abuse and coercive control.
Please PM me if you want

SandyY2K speaks a lot of sense as usual.

Op think, who's not over who here? She is out having fun with friends while he sit in livid and stalks her.

It's so glaringly obvious he's the one that's not over her. He's obsessed with her.

You can say 'I'm not trying to justify it but...' Because then that's exactly what you are trying to do and I see no passable excuse for stalking this poor woman.

three adults (ex wife, adult teen and one not far behind) and not one of them has the sense to change their passwords???

that would put an end to his shennanigans.

How did he leave the relationship? Because if he'd sat the kids (adults, as near as dammit) down and explained that he was leaving because he and their mum weren't getting along, nothing to do with them but he had decided to move out, they were welcome any time to visit and he would, of course, make sure that they and their mother were well supported financially...why would they cut off contact? Yes, mum might well be upset and angry (especially if this was all news to her!!) but it's unlikely that anything she said would make them cut off contact. They'd go by their own experiences of their father at that age, wouldn't they?

So what, exactly, were their experiences of their father, is what I would ask.

They don't know that he's stalking them, otherwise of course they would change their passwords.

Apart from anything else @NameChangeAsThisIsBloodyAwful , how do you feel about being in a relationship with some one who spends a Saturday evening getting worked up and frustrated because his ex-wife has turned off her phone so he cannot continue to stalk her.

What a fun time you are having.

What a prize you have gained there.

It's not too late to call woman's Aid and ask them what they think about his behaviour. You could make enquiries about the freedom programme while you are talking to them

All the best.

@MsHomeSlice

three adults (ex wife, adult teen and one not far behind) and not one of them has the sense to change their passwords???

...unless they all know what he's doing, and only let him see what they want him to see.

Another reason he might not want his wife to know about OP is in case his wife warns the OP about things he's actually done. For all the OP knows, there's a barring order against him.

So why exactly did he leave his wife. I don't think you've vitally said OP

He most certainly wants to go back.

I cannot add any more to the horror and outrage of all the PPs who have told you that this is totally unacceptable and you should not stay with this man.

I have a strong feeling that you'll stay with him though.

Thanks @yesyesnono that's EXACTLY how I feel. Thank you so much for your thoughtful post, this has all been incredibly isolating to read so and making me question my entire reality to be honest.

NameChangeAsThisIsBloodyAwful your reality has been gaslighted. Is there anyone in real life you could go and get support from? Undoing this mess is going to involve tears.

Actions speak louder than words Op and your dps actions are ones of obsession over an ex while denying status of current relationship
What does that tell you?
He is still mentally in a relationship with his ex wanting to know where she is who she's emailing what she's doing on a weekend.

How do the rest of the world manage to avoid ours exes without tracking their movements indefinitely? He's been invading her privacy for two years now how many more years does he plan to track her social life and general day to day whereabouts? Forever? Til youngest is 18? Until his dc get in contact? Until they stop playing sports?
Until his ex stops leaving home ever? For fear of being stalked
Until his ex starts a new relationship?

Have you asked him why he thinks that he has a right to know his exes whereabouts at all times? In case he bumps into her ? Eh can't be cross the road like everyone else instead of stalking
Have you asked why he doesn't attend his kids sports instead of prying into a private email account? Has he never attended or met or had contact with his dcs sports coaches ever before the spilt? Wouldn't he already have all these contact details/ know his dcs actual coaches?
His ex needs informing that she is being stalked daily that nothing of her online activities are private, that a bitter man is obsessed with her daily routine and her private life at weekends.
She deserves to know these facts to protect herself