I hate this OTHER WOMAN stealing MY baby?

[loopsylou]

Ok, so ExH and I broke up 5 years ago. We had lovely DD, who is 6. She's gorgeous and lovely, and my DH adores her, so all good there. But ExH married again 8 months ago. Lets call her Sarah.

I don't particularly like her, she's a bit too primp and proper for my liking and I always feel like she's sticking her nose up at me when we meet. Have tried to be civil and nice because I figured, we're not together anymore, so he can marry who he wants right? Fine, except this woman is unfortunately unable to have children, and I know she really wants some. So here is the problem. She adores DD as well. :(

DD goes to their house every weekend and spends the first 3 days of half term there. Last week DD comes home wearing a brand new pink top and miniskirt that she claims Sarah bought her. Apparently they went to the cinema and then shopping as dad felt they should have some bonding time :( I felt crap and managed a very forced smile, and "Oh that's lovely isn't it?"

But then when giving her a bath I noticed her toe nails were all nicely painted and beautiful. I asked when she'd had that done and she said "MummySarah took me to get them done at a posh spa building" That just about stabbed me in the heart. MUMMY-SARAH. :( :( :( ALSO, I WANTED TO TAKE HER FOR HER FIRST PEDICURE! And even then i was going to wait untill she was older, maybe 10 or 11! I feel like this woman is stealing my daughter, I don't particularly want her to go to their house tonight, I keep fretting that she will take more of these moments from me. Any advice?

MrsWobble Fri 20-Jan-12 18:06:18

Most unexpected for me, but yours was about of the most wise and inspirational advice I read on this forum.
Many Thanks for sharing xxx

OP if you are still reading and are open to really awesome advice, take a peek at MrsWobble's post.

Brightnessfalls, it is a great shame (and my DD feels it too - she adores her big sis). DSD mum is very bitter, no rhyme or reason for it. She won't talk to me, DSD gets ignored if she mentions me. It hurts her and she is 'planning her escape' as she puts it. But what can we do? It doesn't help when people assume the worst, or assume I was the OW because of the way DSD mum is. Thankfully those that matter know the truth.

My friend is the same. Im sure when she meets someone it will be a different story.

Don't count on it Brightness. DSD mum has had a few relationships (one for almost 2 years) but nothing has ever changed. Although saying that DSD did come for Xmas this year (and actually turn up!), so here's hoping...

This thread is seriously hilarious.

OP is going to drive her child away and the daughter is likely to want to live with dad and stepmum. That's what happened to us. DP's ex was and STILL IS - after 10 years - incredibly bitter about the fact that her ex remarried and is happy and stable. She took her bitterness out on the two children and one of them decided to up sticks and come and live with us because he simply couldnt stand her constant spreading of lies about us and slagging us off all the time and trying to ruin their visits to us and holidays with us (I never was OW, she left him, but that's been conveniently missed out of her version of history).

are there any stepmums on MN who actually get on with the mother of their stepchildren?

Aitch - Or mothers who get on with their DC's step-mum?
Its a two-way process - and probably harder for mums to accept step-mums than the other way around, as the OP demonstrates

Oh, and while I'd love to 'get on' with my DDs step-mum, my exH has forbidden her from talking to me !

so in that case then you would have to advise a person in the OP's position NOT to post in step-parenting then? as she is not herself a step-parent? because this all seems crazily one-sided to me, that the OP has to suck up whatever the step mum wants to do because the alternative is to lose her child forever (as per the latest 'advice')?

and just to be clear, i'm in no way wanting to pick a fight, i actually just would like to see the OP getting some decent advice and support herself. this seems like a board gone a bit out of control to me, tbh. if you are all on here bitching about how awful the real mothers of your step-children are, then surely you recognise that you aren't actually in a good position to help her?

btw i often think the same of the relationships board as well... often lots of angry and formerly abused women on there giving really bad advice imo because they can't separate out what happened to them from what the OP needs help with.

notadisneymum, i think that's what i mean. if you are looking for mothers who get on with their childrens' step-parents then step-parenting might not be the place to find them, as they are not by definition step-parents themselves unless they are also blending a family with a new partner.

Actually aitch that is a really interesting post - too much projection you mean. I can see how that would happen but I also think it can be useful to get the other side of the coin - we know where mistakes occured, and what has stopped a good relationship forming in our cases - all we can advise on is the experience we had and the op wanted to know what a step parents take on it was. I think the honest simple answer is that it takes two. Noone is saying "do everything the step wants or lose the child" that simply isnt the case and most of the time it actually goes the other way, but certainly, please dont put your pain and resentment at this very difficult situation onto your child because we see the very real damage it causes from eyes different to those of an upset and betrayed parent and it isnt pretty - is valid advice no matter what side of the coin you fall.

Aitch, I would LOVE to get on with DSDs mum, I really would. Life would be so much easier if we did. There is truthfully absolutely NO reason for her to resent me. OK, happy (read don't care) if she didn't want anything to do with DH - I am sure there are a million reasons why they split up, and I only hear one side of it (and I'm sure, certain in fact, that it was as much his fault as hers).

But the only thing I have ever done wrong is exist (hmm) (Much like the OP and her issues I suppose, I mean nowhere does the OP give a reason to hate the new wife). How sad is it that the OP is unhappy because her DD is happy?

A few years prior to DH I was in a relationship with another chap with kids. Never had an issue with his Ex, in fact when he deployed I used to still go round and see the kids, plus babysat for her a couple of times. We were all adults and all got on. My relationship fizzled out, but I stayed in touch with them all for a while.

if that was the tone of advice that the OP was getting, prettyfly, then i would totally agree with you. i just don't think it is, though. look at the way that the real mothers are being characterised on the thread, i can't think of a single example of good, open-hearted co-operation (which is obviously what would be aspired to) so you may find that the child is being damaged from both sides in fact. no matter how much those people who think the real mum is a crazy bitch think they are concealing that from their stepkids, they might be wrong. likewise the real mum might think that she is behaving perfectly well, but the step-mums hear and see a different story. would be interesting to see what a board marked 'for unattached mothers who have to deal with stepmums' advice would be.

of course, as an observer i would persist in my suggestion that the best thing the OP could do would be to try enormously hard to sincerely befriend Sarah.

tsk, lteve... to characterise that OP as 'how sad is it that she is unhappy because her dd is happy' is really appallingly simplistic. actually quite nasty, to my reading of it.

i hear you that life would be easier if you got on with the ex. how have you gone about making that at all likely? do you ask her for coffee, etc? am curious, to be clear, not in any way attacking or cross. you would think that two women would be able to be smart and get along for the children, regardless of what the man had done.

Aitch I agree with your sentiments but in the same way you think lteve is being simplistic I think you are. Its never so cut and dried, particularly when maternal instinct and potentially messy splits are involved. Look at the OP - Sarah hasnt really done anything wrong at all and yet OP is openly jealous. That is how it starts. Those feelings can be so overwhelming with both sides saying that they are right. It IS sad that OP is jealous of her child enjoying time with another woman, lteve is correct. Its also really quite understandable, I would feel much the same. Its the same in a lot of mother in law/DIL issues. I genuinly believe that women are supremely territorial hence the conflict. And FWIW I DID invite her in. I let her see where her son slept, talked through behavioural issues and offered to babysit on numerous occasions. The rift occured when she split with her partner and developed depression and I became pregnant with my second child and since then honest to god I cannot do right for doing wrong. Its just one of those areas that can be a total mare. In some cases it seems to get easier as the children get older but often it doesnt.

oh i probably am being simplistic, because i do find it pretty depressing that it's the women who are set against each other. if my dh only saw our kids at the weekend i'd be fizzing that he wasn't spending his precious time with them and instead was 'encouraging' his wife to 'bond' by taking her to a spa and shopping at the age of 6. i would also think that the other woman would be a bit dubious because she should imo see that it was insensitive. there would be no argument to be had if both of them had taken the girl to a park.
if the OP had posted on the feminism board, or even on relationships, she would have got very different answers i think. here it seems to me that the stepmums feel that they and the dad are victims of evil real mothers, and tbh i just don't find that particularly credible.
is there a board for mothers who have to deal with stepmothers, btw?

And "Mummy Sarah" has done plenty wrong if, as seems likely, she gas put emotional pressure on a 6 year old, through age-inappropriate bonding, to call her Mummy Sarah.

Not everything a stepmother does is wrong. But that doesn't imply that everything she does must be right.

The child's mother is entitled to be concerned, and to voice those concerns and have them listened to by her co-parent.

A child should not lose out on having two parents who raise her together because a step-parent comes into the picture.

If the OP thinks her DD is too young for pedicures, then she and the child's father need to talk about that, as they would if they were together.

The idea that the OP must put up and shut up because stepmothers must be allowed to do whatever they like is clearly biased and not in a child's best interests, but in a stepmother's.

Yes its called lone parents - I was one so I see it from both sides and have spent considerable time on both boards. Aitch I kind of get what you are saying but I really think unless you are walking in the shoes of the people on this board (I have to be honest I have no idea if you are or not) then its incredibly difficult to understand and there isnt an easy way to explain it. I suppose the only way I could try and make sense myself was likening it to when I first became a parent. I had all sorts of ideas about what I would and wouldnt do and when the reality hit it all changed. I dont agree that Sarah was insensitive. I think she was trying and for this op she overstepped the mark. Another op might have been fine with it. For you a trip to the park with the dad might be ok, but another woman might absolutely fizz with rage at the idea of another woman getting to play happy families with her child. Noone hands you a book on how to get it right, there are no "rules" and everyone's situation is very different.

The only thing I do know is that becoming part of a blended family is incredibly hard and when it is difficult people doing it on all sides of the equation, mum, stepmum, stepdad, dad etc should have somewhere safe to discuss the ins and outs safely - it then gives room to go back to the situation with fresh eyes. At the end of the day noone forced the OP to go onto a board of stepmums and put a title like "I hate the other woman trying to steal my child" - of course people in the situation will react to that, its utterly ludicrous to attempt to say anything else.

i do agree, athinginyourlife. i really do think that mummysarah is not being in the slightest bit sensitive... and i say that operating on the basis that she hasn't actually asked the girl to call her that because that would be the act of an absolute madwoman.

you're right, of course, the OP has posted this on entirely the wrong board.

and yes, that's right, Lone Parents, i forgot. imo another board gone out of control, i hid it after my friend (single mum) was kinda hounded off there for getting out of step with the massive.

Yes aitch - it is called mumsnet. I have some sympathy with your position. When I met my DP he had been separated for 5 years and his ex was in another relationship. They split up as she has had an affair. My DP has always had his kids 50% of the time and financially supported them. So, counting myself as a reasonably woman-friendly woman, it never occurred to me that his ex would consistently and persistently make our lives so difficult. So I agree with you that it is depressing but question you right to judge our situations as not credible. I think the end of your earlier post sums it up.

We should be able to get on "regardless of what the man had done". Well women also dump kids when there is a new man in their lives, don't pick them up when they should etc etc. My stepchildren met their mum's new boyfriend in her bed one Sunday morning. I can imagine the reaction here if their dad had done this. Its a different sort of equality you might want to try and get your head around.

sorry, don't get you.

oh i do get you... so she IS evil and you are right not to like her? that's what everyone's been saying, isn't it? i mean that's certainly what i've been reading on here.