I don’t like my DP’s exW but need to get over it

[Arnies]

I’m asking for real advice here brutal or otherwise and I am going to be really brutally honest - why not, no one knows me.

I am not someone who doesn’t like people easily, I am a people pleaser so I see the best in most people. I also don’t hold grudges usually and give people chances to redeem themselves. This sometimes wasn’t a good thing so I’ve done therapy work on boundaries in the last 5 years and this has helped me with this people pleasing tendencies and I think I’m better at spotting red flags and fuckwits and I am less tolerant now. I’m not jealous and I trust DP completely. He is a people pleaser for context.

DP’s exw. Now I did not know her before I became less tolerant but I’ve known her via him for 3+ years and I still don’t like her. I am trying so hard to make the feelings go away or so I am just indifferent but I just cannot fathom any neutral or warm feeling towards her and she winds me right up whatever she does now.

He has luke warm/neutral feelings - she’s the mother of his children and they see and speak to each other regularly, they get on ok, he finds her annoying at times but he doesn’t slag her off and tries to keep the peace between them. I find myself feeling really protective of him and the DC because she just isn’t very nice. she’s rude, she’s always late, she’s so fucking passive aggressive to DP, she’s flakey, she's lazy, she’s entitled, she’s manipulative.

I really need some perspective here as I don’t like how it makes me feel. It is not my place to confront her and I need to stop wasting mental energy on disliking her. I’m pleasant to her face and say hi and I wouldn’t cause a scene and have no intention of ever comforting her or anything.

I find it hard to move past some of the shitty things she says and does but I know I need to, this is no good for me or our relationship and not fair on DP. I wrote out here and then deleted all the instances of things she does because dwelling on them doesn’t help.

How do I work on this within myself and step back from it? My DC have a step mum and we get on fine, I am open to having a friendly relationship with the woman or just a neutral zero feelings one but I don’t know how to get there

Remember you’re seeing her worst. It sounds like there’s no open hostility between her and you DP but some of their difficulties with each other (they divorced for a reason remember!) are still affecting her behavior is less overt ways.
She might be absolutely lovely around her own parents, a valued colleague at work, she may be a better mother to her kids when she’s not dealing with her ex. The kids probably complain 1 a bit about mum to dad and dad to mum, just like it’s normal for adults to complain about colleagues or family to friends and often vice versa.
Also you really don’t need to like her, you just need civility between the two households. The occasions you have to hold your tongue will become fewer and fewer as your step children grow and get more independent.

Do you need to have any kind of relationship with her beyond the basics? It’s fine not to like her, and ultimately if your DP is content to put up with her being rude, flakey and manipulative towards him then that’s his lookout and not something you need to bother feeling outraged over on his behalf if he isn’t going to pull her up on it himself. And if nothing else, people who are passive aggressive, manipulative and rude are rarely happy people in themselves, so perhaps it might mellow your feelings towards her to acknowledge that a lot of her behaviour might come from a place of low mood and unhappiness.

Why do you need to like her? Why do you need to even think about her? She's his past. All co-parenting should be through him. Totally irrelevant to you. Maybe she is thoroughly unpleasant and there's no reason to like her. That's ok.

I can't stand my ex's new woman, she's barking mad, a sort of interfering mother Theresa wanna-be with happy clappy tendencies.

So I don't engage. She lives 100 miles away. We have nothing in common. I ignore all communications. I deal with my ex. It works fine. I can go a full year between contacts. Ds is 14 so I'll have to say Happy Xmas to her four more times and then I need never see the wretched woman again. 😀

Just forget she exists

I have to see her, hear about her, talk about her as is normal in a blended family I cannot just pretend she doesn’t exist. I want to work on my own reactions I can’t control anything she does or says. I feel so angry at her sometimes I think it might be misplaced or OTT. I’ve over analysed her 😛 and she's clearly insecure so that’s why she acts like a prick most of the time.

Sometimes I am astounded at her brass neck but then try to remember that she’s coming at it from another angle - she feels insecure about her parenting so puts DP down. He isn’t insecure in his parenting so he doesn’t need to retaliate. She doesn’t know she’s feeling insecure as she has low emotional intelligence.

The DC do not complain about her, it is things she does in other ways that cause issues and bad feelings. The reason I posted here is that I get more annoyed about it than DP and he gets my annoyed opinions on it then I am pissed off I’ve wasted mental effort having a rant.

Ironically for somebody keen to describe themselves as a lovely person who sees the redeeming best in everyone, you aren’t really coming across that way. I’d wonder how ex-wife would describe you and her interactions with you, and to what extent that influences how she behaves around and towards you. Have you considered that you might come across to her completely differently to how you believe you do and don’t generate much good will in her?

Other than that, it’s difficult to change your feelings for and attitude towards somebody whilst you’re focusing on all their bad points and how much you dislike them. She clearly has good points: not least, she’s a good mum who manages to maintain a peaceable relationship with her ex husband, who will no doubt have behaved badly towards her prior to their decision to divorce, and to get on with him. And she’s also the woman your partner once believed was the love of his life and so clearly has enough likeable and admirable traits for him to have felt that way. And as a previous poster said, to you she’s just “my partner’s ex wife who I wish I didn’t have to have in my life” but to her colleagues and friends she’ll be a valued and lovely person with a lot of offer. Reframe how you think about her beyond what you know secondhand from your DP and through the brief, strained interactions you have with her, and it becomes easier to relate to her as a person who is flawed but ultimately just trying their best.

I think you just have to try to (mentally) roll your eyes when she does something that annoys you. Your SDC and your DP seem to be able to ignore the perceived bad behaviour, so you have no choice but to do the same.

You seem to not have a good opinion of her parenting. Can you be more specific? Do you think she feels insecure as a parent when she compares herself to your DP? Do you think this is justified?

I think that most of us have someone in our lives that we have to tolerate because it makes for an easy life. Try to put her in this category - someone you see every now and then who annoys you but doesn't do any harm to you or those you love.

Don't aim to have a friendly relationship with her. Aim for neutral.

The more you talk about something, the more it will play on your mind. You need to tell your partner not to tell you his conversations with her. You also need to stop talking about her with anyone. Soon she won't occupy do kuch space in your head.

*so much

The things we find most annoying in other people are usually things we are insecure about in ourselves.

You don’t have to like her. Aim for indifference.

Why are you having so many conversations about her in the first place? Might be this is the source of your irritation. I wouldn’t want to be hearing about too regularly either. It’s weird

I meant that it is not usually how I feel about people as a default. It is quite unusual for me to feel this way about someone.

I did not say I was lovely I said I was actually a bit of a doormat in my life and now I am less so. At least if you comment, which I appreciate your time doing so, please do not interpret what I have said to be something completely different in that regard.

Generally day to day I do not think about her or care but it feels like every week feels like another annoyance of being late, being rude, her petty nit picking or implanting her insecurities on us. I don’t parent their children, I am not their parent and have healthy boundaries in that regard. I am always polite so I don’t know what she would say about me, she doesn’t know me, I assume I am not mentioned very often as I am more of an under the radar step parent - there a fairly new step parent going to school parents evenings and doing a lot of parenting, and it’s not me, put it that way (my choice I honestly think it’s ridiculous).

I do try to reframe everything into another perspective and that’s usually how I move on from it. I will try harder

I do not know why you assume her DH (my now DP) behaved badly leading to a divorce when that was apparently not the case. She met someone else and left DP with the DC for a few months. He’s just grateful she’s decided to up her parent game and now she’s turned into a Parenting expert tutting her head at him over the most petty of petty.

I’m back to square 1 complaining and I don’t want to do that. I do find it hard to find any redeeming features. Her DP is an alright guy and seems to be doing a good job with the DC, does that count?

I don’t really understand her tbh, I am not insecure in my parenting or my own kids or relationship with DP.

I don’t like how she treats DP and he always feels like it’s so so low level petty, he can’t say anything. So she might be 2 hours late to something, after he’s tried to get an ETA (which she ignores) so he’s been waiting around patiently, not able to make his own plans and then she and will deflect it (not apologise) by criticising him in front of the DC for something insanely tiny and insignificant and he doesn’t want to react in front of the kids so it’s gritted teeth time.

I don’t really want to go into all the reasons why as it just stokes my anger and it’s so PETTY most of the time. She is a taker and not a giver put it that way.

Op with respect why is your dh putting up with this? He should tell her be on time or we are going out, and you will need to tell the dc why and bring them back the following day. He doesn’t need to put up with her contempt.

’Thank you for dropping the dc off, dc will be back by 4pm’ on the door step and say goodbye!

What are all of these conversations and PA comments. I don’t understand why it’s needed. They can discuss childrens needs by email if necessary.

She just doesn’t comply with any requests. She won’t give a straight answer of return times even if he asks a million times or tells her a time so he usually collects them most of the time, unless she’s got plans then suddenly times matter a lot more to her 🙄. She’s always late to everything to do with us, always.

They are never ready at the time he arrives sometimes not even pants on. Then if they are dropped off to us she hangs around talking to the DC making comments to DP. If I am present she does this less. But she’s never sorry.

It is not a new issue it’s long standing she gives no shits about whatever inconvenience she causes. There are loads more instances of being amenable but then being an asshole but they are outing so I won’t list them.

Why do you need to have warm feelings towards her? Or spend so much time thinking about her? You're being obsessive. I'm the ex and I also deal with a couple of exes as part of coparenting. I just feel neutral/indifferent towards these people 🤷‍♀️ I wish them well, see no reason to slag them off in front of the kids etc but I don't generally give them any headspace and I don't expect I'm given much, either.

It sounds like your anger is misplaced on her. Your dp is triggering you for being a people pleaser with his ex / putting up with behaviour that you've worked through isn't acceptable for you.

This makes a lot of sense actually. Thank you.

I do feel angry with him about it cos I think he’s not standing up for himself and it makes no sense? He will tell me things, I get mad then he decides he’s not going to do anything so I have got annoyed pointlessly. I have sympathy for him but he could stand up to all of these things and then maybe she wouldn’t do them. I got really mad at him recently over one situation then today he’s riled me up again about it.

Can dh wait in the car? Or go for a coffee? Is he standing waiting in the house?
At some point the dc will be coming to you independently of her and this won’t be forever.

I don’t think I would be doing any level of small talk beyond basic manners, the dynamic is not healthy. If you stood in silence it would not be as comfortable for her.

If dc are being dropped at your home, I would plan for them to be very late and crack on with DIY, reading, gardening and become unfazed.

Stop caring and stop talking about her.

In many ways I could have written your post. Nothing to add other than that as the DC get older, my feelings improved a little. It says a lot for your emotional maturity that you recognise these feelings as an issue. Make sure you have someone to talk to about it irl. Perhaps a therapist, or trusted friend. I have my sister. My husband got fed up and doesn't want to talk about her. Which I do understand. But doesn't help when you just want to offload.

@Kissingfrogs25

I think @boomoohoo has hit the nail on the head
I do judge DP as his excuses as to why he can’t talk to her about these things are very conflict avoidant. I don’t know why he just let’s her do things and never says anything, but he does. He has let her get away with all kinds of things that wouldn’t wash with me. I did tell him many times that she ‘does X because she can’. He always goes on about not wanting to affect the kids but this is just cos he’s too scared to talk to her. So now he’s got himself in a right annoying situation in coparenting where there are 2 of them against 1 of him and then there is me, sitting down in the basement annoyed and resentful.

I don’t know if I can be neutral if he is doing this pretending it’s all fine

I don’t like my DH’s exW, but in her presence I can chat to her and get along with her. I feel mostly indifferent towards her. I don’t avoid her but I don’t really make an effort to see her either.

Op I'm like you in that I'm a recovering people pleaser, and when I notice people around me doing people pleasing things in situations where they're being treated badly, i have such a strong reaction of anger towards them. I think its because people pleasing is a trauma response to ensure our attachments aren't disrupted, and part of our strong reaction about it is rubbing up against the reasons we had to compromise ourselves in the first place..

I don't know if that makes sense. I'm very tired..

Could it perhaps be subconsciously that your DP loved her once and she reminds you of his past ?

You just need to accept you don't like her, in the same way you might not like anything else in life. Avoid what you can, endure what you can't. There is no benefit whatsoever in giving her this much head space. Give yourself permission to not like her and make a concious effort to dwell on her less.
I agree you're angry with your partner, and you need to talk to him. Explain how his (lazy/easy way out) 'people pleasing' approach impacts you and your life together and what you would like him to do differently.

It’s stuff like this that make me convinced that if my marriage went down the shitter, I would not be blending my family with anyone else’s. It sounds like a miserable ball ache.