Ex is splitting us up

[Huntress1]

Hi. My first time on MN and I don't know all the acronyms so bear with me. Basically, DH and I have been together 7 years and married 5. Our DS is now five months. DH has two girls by ex aged 9 and 11. They were together 5 years and not married. From the moment I met H I was fully involved with the girls and grew to love them like my own. We had them to stay every other weekend, bought them everything they needed, gone on lovely holdays, Disneyland, all the things we would if they were ours full-time. But without boring you with detail, ex has been total utter nightmare from day one. She once told me H went to her place often for sex, going into crude detail. A year later she admitted she lied. The odd occasion we had to change time H picked the girls up - say sat morning instead of friday night (it happened maybe 3 times in five years) she would phone me or H and yell abuse. She has never worked. Both me and DH were holding down full-time jobs. She has hit him in front of me and girls. She has screamed abuse outside our front door, and called the police several times - once, they went back to her house to give HER a caution. She used to make me tremble with fear. There are many many other things I could add here. In the end I put house on market and we moved 80 miles away from her. DH drove the distance every other weekend to pick up the girls. Then I fell pregnant. Incredible, since I had had fertility problems. Since the moment she found out her behaviour worsened. Half-way through pregnancy H asked her to start sharing the drive - even to do just 10 miles of it, but she has point blank refused. Relations slowly got worse and finally, in last month of pregnancy I put my foot down and said either she drove part of the way or H should just go and see them on a sat, and that after DS arrived we should have four weeks to ourselves and not have the girls for a full weekend til I got the hang of the baby. Ex then refused to talk to H at all and stopped the girls ringing him. Relations went to nil. Xmas was a nightmare - we had agreed the weekend we would have them, then she tried to alter arrangements saying we should get them on Boxing day or not have them at all. An hour later she said she was dropping them off that afternoon, we waited and nothing happened. She then demanded everything in writing from him (refusing to speak to him). In all of this we had new baby, I am older mother and found it very hard! DH did try writing but her new tack was "the girls are not available that weekend...". Finally we had a letter saying she is moving with new boyfriend 130 miles away from us. She still insists that DH does all the driving to get the girls when they move, that she knows nobody among her circle of friends who shares the driving with an ex. At this point, for the first time, D saw a solicitor who wrote to her. She has written back lying about us and saying she won't be "intimidated", insisting DH does the driving once she has moved and that anyway the girls may not be available once they have begun their "new lives". As a result of all of this (her not talking to DH mostly which made making arrangements impossible, and then saying the girls are unavailable) we have seen the girls twice since December. My whole point is, it has brought relations with my husband to breaking point. I love my DS to bits and feel I can't enjoy being a mum because of the gnawing rage and uset her behaviour causes. Our hands are tied and we cant afford solicitors fees. We could get a Specific Issue Order over the driving but she can just ignore it I guess. I no longer want anything to do with the girls really, though it's not their fault, and I have asked my husband for a separation. I look at my lovely son and don't want him involved with any of it. I have always had to tell my H what to do over the ex - prompted him to see solicitor etc. He would have walked away from it all much more willingly. And maybe he was right, because this poisonous woman has brought our marriage to its knees and I want out. I can't face more years of this shite. The oldest girl is coming here this weekend (first time we'll have seen her since Feb) and here I am at 2am awake and actually wishing she wasn't. I want to take my DS away and start a new life. The way the ex has treated us and DH has made me lose resect for him and has totally brought me down. Any advice or help would be huge as neither of us has any family to support us.

This is a horrible situation for you. You obviously know that you will be playing straight into her hands by splitting up with your dh. I really don't know what to suggest, as I don't have any step-children, I'm the mad ex wife in my relationship with xh and his ow

I think if you want any chance of your relationship working, you must tell him that this is his problem. You will be happy to see them when they are at your house, but as to the rest, it really is not your problem (because let's face it, it ISN'T your problem, and he's old enough to fight his own battles). It will at least remove some stress from you.

Try not to hold it against his girls. It's not their fault their mother has a screw loose. All children deserve love and support from both parents, even if some of those parents deserve locking up.

Littlewoman, thanks so much. Incredible that there are others awake out there and ready to help. I just can't do that because DH really has no idea how to handle her and is himself totally screwed inside over her behaviour and how his relationship with the girls has slowly been eroded. If I didn't prompt him he would Do Nothing. But more than that, I couldn't live with myself if we didn't at least try to keep contact with the girls going - even if just to prove to them later in life that we did our best. Also, my son is now their half-brother and since he will probably be the only child we have I want him to know them. But it's how it's totally ruined my relationship with H that is most devastating. His ex has refused to go to mediation so that avenue isn't open to us. I feel so sorry for my son that his little life is already exposed to this, that it could affect him later in many ways, and that his parents may not remain together because of it. I feel fiercely protective of him and unbelieveably angry at H and his ex.

"From the moment I met H I was fully involved with the girls and grew to love them like my own. We had them to stay every other weekend, bought them everything they needed, gone on lovely holdays, Disneyland, all the things we would if they were ours full-time."

You couldn't afford that if you had them full time. You can only afford that if you don't have them everyday. So no, if they were yours, you would have to rethink. Children need love, not material gifts.

"She once told me H went to her place often for sex, going into crude detail. A year later she admitted she lied"

I was still having sex with the father of my kids until i fell out of love with him. When i was in love with him i screamed at the woman he was with. A year later, i decided it was easier to say i lied, as i didn't want him. I also thought he loved the woman he was with so it was best to say i made it up.A year later you don't care any more.

"The odd occasion we had to change time H picked the girls up - say sat morning instead of friday night (it happened maybe 3 times in five years) she would phone me or H and yell abuse."

Have you any idea what it is like to not have a partner in your life and then they ring up and ruin your friday night that you have plannned? As you have done everything for a fortnight and need a break? They say they can't make it while the mother sacrifices her very being and can never cancel anything? There is a huge difference between a friday night and a Sat Morning if you are excited about freedom.

"She has never worked. Both me and DH were holding down full-time jobs"

Good for you,but i bet she would be working if she didn't have kids.

She has hit him in front of me and girls."

Could you go to Relate or some sort of stepfamily counsellig yourself? Just purely for help and strategies with your own feelings, because this is an awful burden to carry and if you tell friends they will plead either your DH's case or tell you to bend over backwards for the girls' sake.
Though given that you say your DH would not bother with his daughters if you didn't prompt him does suggest that maybe he is contributing to the unpleasantness of the situation and needs to get actually engaged in stratiegies to mke it easier for everyone else rather than sitting bacik and bleating about how awful women are.

dont blame the girls its not thier fault and dont punsih them by not letting them see their dad! i understand that you feel you are in a difficult situation but have you tried looking at it from her point of view?

the man she loved has started a new life with some one else maybe she is worried her kids will yake a back seat to your son?

and if she isnt working and has her kids to look after can she afford the petrol money to drive?

if you really do love your h dont let this come between you but maybe try talking to her civilly to see if you can work something out> it sounds like both sides are being unreasonable to me

and,,,,,,,,,, if you do split up....... are you going to drive your son to see him every fortnight?

Sorry but he should have had all of this sorted before he even thought about marrying you, let alone having a child with you.

She sounds perfectly fine to me, just cross with having the piss taken out of her. You say she is mad and crazy, is that why he had two kids with her? Or...... did she make love to a man and feel exactly the same way you do and suddenly became unimportant and told to piss off and look after her babies alone, oh and not only that, drive them to where the father is now living.

and also an x cannot split you up, it's impossible......if you are solid nobody can touch you.

Thanks for messages people. Fairfly, I have considered things from the ex's point of view of course, many many times. And we have given the girls much love - the material things came with that. I don't think for one minute that H was having sex with her after we met. Lying and casual violence come naturally to her. She could have worked part-time once the girls started school. I will certainly have to. Both she and H were seeing other people, by agreement, before they sorted out the break up and they loathed each other. I met him soon after. But we are all 7 years down the line here and to be still causing such awful misery is unnecessary and unjustified and I can't take it anymore. I suppose that's the main point. I don't for one second blame the girls. I think it might be easier all round if I just made the break and got out. I agree with Littlewoman that splitting from him will play right into the ex's hands - she has taken great pleasure in the past in telling me that we will end up in the divorce courts over the girls. She is now probably right because I cant face more years of this. DH and I have thought of moving abroad and just letting the girls go. But would it haunt us? At Christmas ex said that we should have the girls live with us and she would take the baby which just makes me feel sick. She has rung up a few times over the years and said she doesn't want the girls anymore, and they have come on the phone crying - we have said we will have them, but then she shouts "over my dead body" or "they don't want to live with YOU" which is no doubt true. I mean, how do people cope with this situation? I could try counselling for myself - a good suggestion. But frankly, right now, I just want to get in the car with DS and disappear.

Beg, steal or borrow the cash to get a solicitor. Once access is formalised, she will be in trouble if she reneges. Can you stop contact except via lawyer? (not girls).

Where do the poor girls come in this? I think they will see it like this. For 7 years they saw their dad and you regularly and had a loving and happy relationship with the pair of you. Then you have your own baby, and suddenly everything changes and they aren't wanted any more. I'm not saying that's what's happened - ~I'm saying that's how the girls might well see it.

i really don't have any advice to offer but to tell you I am now a single parent partly due to similar behaviour from my H's ex over access to his other children.

there were a lot of other factors but the ex was definately a major part of H's ultimate breakdown.

i too was very involved with his kids and it was also me who pushed H into confronting the ex and pushed him to continue putting effort in etc.

ultimately this and other things caused him to have a breakdown when i was pg with our dd.

2.5yrs later we are seperated and his contact with dd is sporadic as it is with the other kids. my dd barely sees her siblings and i miss them.

being a single parent is very hard and due to H's ongoing issues and possibly just his nature i get very little support. the only break i get is when my parents have dd for me which isn't that often.

things are slowly improving but i have no confidence that they will ever get to a "normal" situation where dd sees her daddy and siblings regularly.

your words about being the driving force behind dh's continuing access to his dds ring alarm bells for me. it was the same with me and now i am not driving it he does nothing or the bare minimum and blames his mental state.

it's a viscious circle for him. he feels like a crap parent and gets depressed to the poitn where he can't face seeing anyone including his kids, which feeds his crap parent syndrome.

in a weird way i now empathise with his ex in some ways. not all because she is as mad as a box of frogs and has been vindictive and nasty and money grabbing. but it has taught me that at the time i had no idea of how things might be from her perspective. she didn't need to be nasty and vindictive and she should never have demanded cash on delivery for access (show up with £500 and you can see them even tho he was paying maintenance already etc).

i can only recommend mediation, H tried this but she would only go if he were present. the first session is supposed to be alone and H really didn't want to be there at the outset of the sessions etc.

be careful what you wish for, be absolutely sure you have exhausted all the possibilities before you split and try to remember this is HIS relationship with his ex and his girls and give him the space to deal with it in his own way.

try to seperate your relationship with him and his relationship with your ds from the ex and his other children. at least for until you can try to find a resolution to the problems with his previous family.

i really really advise mediation for him and the ex and maybe even for you and him.

good luck, it's a horrible situation and ultimately the children are the big losers at the end of the day.

i still miss my sdss but occasionally get to chat on MSN to them.

Katiescarlett, contact with ex has foundered totally anyway because she won't talk to H - which has been hopeless in trying to arrange to see the girls. He did write to her but she wrote back saying the girls were unavailable. As far as getting a lawyer involved goes, from past experience she just wouldn't take any notice. H is now going down the mediation route but she has already said she won't do it. We have no idea how family courts work or how any action would turn out but I have read elsewhere that she could just ignore any Order anyway and just keep making us go back. We don't want to end up in court at all really. Paddlechick, thanks for your message. I am sorry to hear your story. I have come to believe that there is just not enough help for people in this kind of situation. We have had 3 counselling sessions and they have been very helpful, illuminating and helped us cope but it is too expensive to go to as often as we need to kind of keep us on track. The ex/girls situation keeps knocking us for six. It sounds a little as though you regret your marriage breaking up and while there may have been other factors, in my experience a poisonous ex has a seriously destabilising effect on a relationship. Love can be strong but sometimes outside, professional help is necessary too. I just wish there was more of it available.

Just wanted to add that a new baby is a huge change for you. It has taken me 18 months to finally settle into motherhood and have wished my DP away all this time becuase he wasn't good enough. Please work together to build a secure family for all the children, if contact is not an option MSN. e mails and letters show them he cares and wants to keep in touch.

I hope you can find some middle ground to work on.

Huntress1, I tried to CAT you but couldn't. Don't want to drag out my story here, just saying I'm sorry to hear this has happened to your family (including your dsds). Do not let her behaviour go on for any longer. My best friend had the same misery with her biological mother. She would make life for ex H and new partner hell till they moved away to Australia. My friend openly despises her mother for her vitriolic actions and has started contact with her father trying to get back those years spent apart and the letters thrown away.

You reap what you sow.

huntress, our family law solicitor told us that it was virtually impossible for court to enforce any rulings over access if the resident parent chose to be obstructive.

they will not penalise/jail etc the resident parent.

it can be an enormous help when the children are considered old enough by the court to choose. i think this is around age 13 or it may be younger. should the mother still be obstructive it would go against her even more.

yes you are right i very much regret the fractured family my dd is now growing up in. i wish my h was able to be more pro-active and even angry about the situation rather than wallowing in self pity over and taking no action.

i understand these things are expensive in terms of counselling/mediation/family law solicitors. you can get legal aid for contact orders. a lot of mediation services will agree to reduced fees or means tested fees.

you can't put a price on an emotionally healthy child tho and none of these children will have a chance for a healthy happy relationship with all their parents if you can't find a way to resolve this.

i know i put everything into saving my marriage and perpetuating a relationship with my sdc. i also know i continue to do all i can to create opportunities for h to see our dd. i can't force him to do anything he doesn't feel able to which is a problem i am trying to dis-entangle myself from.

If I were your partners girls, I would have wanted to know that my Dad tried everything possible to see me. Up to and including solicitors. One day they will be grown up and if horror ex continues to use the girls to spite you both, he will need to show them that he did everything he could to have access. Otherwise, imagine what poison she will be filling them with?

My Dad died last year after having no contact since I was 9 (30 years). He was an absolute fuckwit, but a small part of me still wonders how he could just have written me out of his life like that. I never got to know my step-siblings either, and as I am an only child, that's hard.

KatieS I think the same: that if we don't go down the final, dismal route of solicitors and courts, then the girls might think in the future that their dad didn't try everything. And a part of me is doing it for our own DS too; they are his half-siblings etc. But we know it won't work, and it is going to be costly financially and emotionally and it makes my stomach churn. I still think the strain of it all could finish off our marriage anyway so why not separate now...Such bad, debilitating thoughts that I just don't want to be having when I have such joy in the arrival of DS. Re your dad, that is an awful burden to bear and even if he was a fuckwit he will have felt your loss immeasureably inside him down the years, believe me. Now he has passed on could you try and find or get to know your step-siblings? I think that many men are able to shut themselves off to the emotional ties of a child if those ties are too painful or the battle to keep the ties alive too difficult. They can somehow programme themselves to put the absent child in a deep mental drawer. I have seen it time and again with H: only I have always kept opening that drawer and getting the girls out. And out with them leaps the horrendous ex! It might cost me my marriage but then writing them off was never an option so I was damned if I did and damned if I didnt. I tell you what, it's been incredibly useful to talk, and get advice, feedback and anecdotes from others, on this website. I feel more human, perhaps even more positive about it all, now than I did when I was writing here in the middle of the night.

Hmm.

I was going to suggest you thought about applying for custody of the girls and then you say you want nothing more to do with them. Loved them as your own did you? Clearly not. All those girls are going to think is you don't care about them anymore now you have your own baby and everyone is arguing about them.

Your husband's ex can only split you up if you let her.

"DH and I have thought of moving abroad and just letting the girls go. But would it haunt us?"

What about what it will do the children? You are not letting a bloody dog go!

I think when the girls are old enough they will realize that it was their own mother who made it so difficult for the OP and her dh to stay in contact. I'm sure the girls will be old enough to see the truth of what went on. When they are women with a partner they will understand that the OP and her dh were on the verge of splitting up and had to make self-preservative decisions. Why should there be another family split up, just because the ex is jealous and spiteful? That woman has brought the misery down on her own daughters. How many times does a new relationship deserve to be ransacked and destabilized before they are allowed to turn their backs on the person who is making the OP's life hell? Why is the ex entitled to hit the OP's husband and be so vitriolic and angry at her own daughters? I feel sorry for the girls having a mother like that.

Do not let her split you up, huntress1.

Ploease please

PARAGRAPHS

Hi. My first time on MN and I don't know all the acronyms so bear with me.

Basically, DH and I have been together 7 years and married 5. Our DS is now five months. DH has two girls by ex aged 9 and 11. They were together 5 years and not married.

From the moment I met H I was fully involved with the girls and grew to love them like my own. We had them to stay every other weekend, bought them everything they needed, gone on lovely holdays, Disneyland, all the things we would if they were ours full-time.

But without boring you with detail, ex has been total utter nightmare from day one. She once told me H went to her place often for sex, going into crude detail. A year later she admitted she lied.

The odd occasion we had to change time H picked the girls up - say sat morning instead of friday night (it happened maybe 3 times in five years) she would phone me or H and yell abuse.

She has never worked. Both me and DH were holding down full-time jobs.

She has hit him in front of me and girls. She has screamed abuse outside our front door, and called the police several times - once, they went back to her house to give HER a caution. She used to make me tremble with fear.

There are many many other things I could add here.

In the end I put house on market and we moved 80 miles away from her. DH drove the distance every other weekend to pick up the girls. Then I fell pregnant. Incredible, since I had had fertility problems. Since the moment she found out her behaviour worsened. Half-way through pregnancy H asked her to start sharing the drive - even to do just 10 miles of it, but she has point blank refused.

Relations slowly got worse and finally, in last month of pregnancy I put my foot down and said either she drove part of the way or H should just go and see them on a sat, and that after DS arrived we should have four weeks to ourselves and not have the girls for a full weekend til I got the hang of the baby. Ex then refused to talk to H at all and stopped the girls ringing him. Relations went to nil.

Xmas was a nightmare - we had agreed the weekend we would have them, then she tried to alter arrangements saying we should get them on Boxing day or not have them at all. An hour later she said she was dropping them off that afternoon, we waited and nothing happened. She then demanded everything in writing from him (refusing to speak to him).

In all of this we had new baby, I am older mother and found it very hard!

DH did try writing but her new tack was "the girls are not available that weekend...".

Finally we had a letter saying she is moving with new boyfriend 130 miles away from us. She still insists that DH does all the driving to get the girls when they move, that she knows nobody among her circle of friends who shares the driving with an ex.

At this point, for the first time, D saw a solicitor who wrote to her. She has written back lying about us and saying she won't be "intimidated", insisting DH does the driving once she has moved and that anyway the girls may not be available once they have begun their "new lives". As a result of all of this (her not talking to DH mostly which made making arrangements impossible, and then saying the girls are unavailable) we have seen the girls twice since December.

My whole point is, it has brought relations with my husband to breaking point. I love my DS to bits and feel I can't enjoy being a mum because of the gnawing rage and uset her behaviour causes. Our hands are tied and we cant afford solicitors fees. We could get a Specific Issue Order over the driving but she can just ignore it I guess.

I no longer want anything to do with the girls really, though it's not their fault, and I have asked my husband for a separation. I look at my lovely son and don't want him involved with any of it.

I have always had to tell my H what to do over the ex - prompted him to see solicitor etc. He would have walked away from it all much more willingly. And maybe he was right, because this poisonous woman has brought our marriage to its knees and I want out. I can't face more years of this shite.

The oldest girl is coming here this weekend (first time we'll have seen her since Feb) and here I am at 2am awake and actually wishing she wasn't.

I want to take my DS away and start a new life. The way the ex has treated us and DH has made me lose resect for him and has totally brought me down. Any advice or help would be huge as neither of us has any family to support us.

sorry just put some paragraphs in so that it can be read easily

It sounds to me like you are starting to behave like his ex. I feel very sorry for everyone involved and It sounds to me like there is something fundamentally wrong with your relationship that you are blaming on the problems with the rex

My advice is that you get into some therapy for yourself. By yourself. You can't see the forest for the trees right now and (based on what you're saying here) you are not thinking straight.

Breaking up your family will not fix anything that is currently happening, it will just cause ten times the pain and suffering with new problems. Running away is a lovely fantasy but your son will blame you and he'd be right.

Dealing with the ex is hard. Life's a bitch. She's taking the piss. So what? Huntress, it could be so much worse.

Go to therapy and deal with your rage. Do it for your son.