Hi all,
I’ve never posted before but I’m really struggling at the moment and looking for some advice…
My husbands ex during our relationship, has texted daily, constantly, sometimes it’s about the child so that part does not bother me, the child has medical needs so I understand there will be a lot of updates etc
However and sorry for the long post, recently I’ve had some discussions with my husband about opening up to me more and not trying to bottle things up, handle it alone etc (so I feel like I’ve brought this on myself a little bit ) so he did, a few weeks ago he said ex is really stressing me out, I asked what was going on and his ex had messaged about the child and school, again all fine, but then sporadically over the day had started just low key battering him with absolute wild nonsense, he passed me his phone and said take a look and I’m scrolling back and she’s sending messages every day, throughout the day, I’d said about 30% of the messages were actually needed and important the rest is just weird, confusing, to be honest utter rubbish.
i knew she messaged daily but i had no idea the amount of messages and how much content was completely unnecessary.
I find the messages really confusing and my gut says she struggling to handle things alone - for clarity ex only allows my husband access to the child for about an hour every 2 weeks despite him trying to support the ex more and see the child more. Last year he was allowed to see child maybe once every 3 months with FaceTimes inbetween
To give an idea of the messages, some examples are she fills out a medical form and asks if he’s ever worked for the government, he says not directly but has been subcontracted for 2 weeks once last year, Her response is that she is going to contact the fraud police, he’s impersonating a gov official, he’s behaving suspiciously, his probably involved in illegal activities, he ignores, she continues, then he replies to ask what is she talking about and he can provide contracts, payslips etc rather than wasting police time, she then replies with “i don’t have time for this, i have to deal with OUR daughter”
I feel awful for him because he desperately wants to help more, being cut off from his child has had a huge impact on his mental health and he then has the guilt of not being able to help but listening to how stressful the child is to handle
There’s also been instances where ex has said “she bit me today, you don’t know what it’s like to have to deal with this” “she ran into traffic” and it transpires that it wasn’t a bite, or she slipped on the pavement on a busy road and so on but he’s stressing about his child’s behaviour and that he can’t be there to help and it turns out she’s not behaving worryingly
Husband tried not to get into conversation with her unless it’s about the child but he wants to support and keep her happy as she will threaten to move cities every now and then if he asks her to stop messaging constantly unless it’s child related or if he asks for more access, she constantly digs at him, goades him into a conversation and then starts with the “I can’t deal with this OUR child is being disruptive”
I had no idea the messages were like this every single day, the messages from her are like 10-15 messages and then 1 reply form my husband and then another 5-10 from her, all day every day, I don’t know how to help him, we don’t know how to help her, I feel so stressed out by everything
the other thing that bothers me is when they do meet she will arrange but always say things like there must be CCTV, only one exit, she won’t stand anywhere near them, acts like he’s about to beat her to death all the time, (she has family abuse history I thought maybe had something to do with this?)
I can see it makes him feel like a monster and it’s incredibly upsetting and it means there is only 1 or 2 places locally they can meet that allow her to watch them on cctv but not be actually anywhere near them with 1 exit, these are places you have to book so if it’s full, or there’s a child party on he can’t see the child.
the other thing I find confusing is sometimes when he sees the child she will say why don’t you take her to the cafe after, the cafe being upstairs, where she can’t view them - which to me is again really confusing. To require cctv sometimes but not always I just don’t get it
has anyone any advice?!