Is DP's ex wifes behaviour unreasonable?

[alwaystryingtobeafriend]

I know I am quite highly strung in general so I may be getting annoyed for no reason but DP's ex wife is so infuriating!! (IMHO)

Me and DP have been together for 2.5 years and lived together for 6 months now. We have his 2 kids 7 nights out of 14 (usually) and I think generally the kids are as happy as can be expected.

The problem for me is their mother. She and DP were sepearated for 2 years before I met him but somehow she thinks it is my fault they are not together. When in actual fact she is the one who was playing naughty behind his back. (I digress)

So in the beginning I wasn't allowed to be with the kids on their birthdays or at Christmas and wasn't allowed to be alone with them (eg id DP popped to shop for milk etc). The thing is I had been with DP for 3 months befor ewthe kids knew and it was another 6 months before a birthday. So the kids knew me quite well by this point. butI wasn't to offended by this it was a reasonable request (although rules change when she has a bf) and as far as being left alone to watch them I totally understood and we explained to the kids that this was ok.

Scenarios such as this are still ongoing and it really really annoys me.

Once a week DP has to pick me up from work( I work away once a week and need picked up from bus station- no other way home without spending 3 hours travelling) and usually this works well with picking the kids up for their overnight stay mid week. DP asked her to have kids ready to be picked up for 5:30 but when he arrived they were out. so he said he would come for me and go back for the kids (pretty reasonable you might say) but know she needed to know why he couldnt wait and then proceeded to say he was putting me before the kids?!!

Never, not once have I been put before his children, I would go nuts if he did. and how exactly is this putting me before them??

I know its a bit of a rant over nothing but FFS. Seemed like she was arguing for the sake of it. but its really winds me up something rotten.

Anyhoo rant over. 9is it too early for wine :S)

No crack open the wine!

I would say totally reasonable for OH if he was collecting them they should be there? Surely that's her responsibility? Could she not have phoned/ text and told him they weren't ? If dsd isn't ready or to be seen I would do the same sounds a bit controlling.

Glad it's not just me.

All she had to do was say listen kids won't be there can you get them later. Problem solved. No argument. Sure it's a pain but at least she would have told us.

Things like this happen all the time and I just know for afact when me and dp evenyually have a baby she will tell the kids we are more important than then and all thecraps that goes with it .

Which is so far from the truth it's unreal.

She's a manipulative witch!! Xx

She is being unreasonable and manipulative and ignore her. I bet now she knows she'll always be late or she'll try and change the time. Any chance to use them as weapons due to her silly jealousy! I actually think a lot of her demands like not being alone with them or no special occasions are now extremely outdated considering how long you've been together! I would be saying sorry my time my rules I was your dp.... there's nothing legally to stop either parent having whoever they want alone with the kids.

I agree some rules are out dated but the way she goes about it is horrible and makes the kids feel awkward. They didn't get why they weren't allowed to stay it was never explained by their mum. And I sort of understood her reasons and tried to explain to them.

She is jealous. She thought dune could treat dp like craps when they were together and he is con minced she cheated on him. So he eventually left and she thought the grass was greener etc. She thought she would get a new partner and he would be on his own. But now it has backfired. She is alone and we are happy and planning for a baby.

Do agrees with me and how she is frustrating etc but it's not worth arguing with her. But I feel bad as I have a go at dp because he won't do anything.

It's an endless battle but me and dp are United on it all so it's not too bad. Just pisses me off at times that she gets away with so much. Xx

Beware when you come to actually having the baby that she doesn't ramp it up.. Since I've been pregnant we have had more problems than ever before from lies to dsd to stopped contact u name it. It seems to trigger lovely behaviour at the time u least want to deal with it..

It's a strain on you and your DP that she is evidently quite manipulative. At least he acknowledges it. Sounds like she's bitter about things. She needs to address her own behaviour rather than looking to others. How old are the children? There will come a time when they will be able to make their own arrangements with your DP and additionally, the baby will be their family too so should bring you together and his ex can get on with her own life.

Kids are 10 and 7. I think she is jealous and I genuinely don't think she realises that she is being selfish and she puts herself before the kids then claims to put them 1st. Xx

Sounds familiar! My son is 11 and most of his friends have been getting phones this yr ready for secondary. It helps when the kids are a little older. You are less within her realm of control than if the kids we're say 2 and 5 so try to relax as it sounds like you have a great relationship and your OH's full support. Relax easier said than done but it's what people tell me to do about DSD's mum - ha ha. Good luck.xx

Sounds similar to my DH's ex (they have 2DDs who we have 50% of the time).

My DH get's wound up by here, but I have to keep telling him that that's what she wants so just ignore, ignore, and ignore.
Oh and obviously we never mention the incidents or slag her off in front of the kids. My Mum used to (in fact still does) slag off my Dad in front of me after they split when I was 5, and it's really left a lasting impression on me.

I've had 4 & 1/2 years of this kind of thing. I understand that the individual situations don't sound that bad but when you are living with it day in day out, when nothing you do is ever good enough it's so so so frustrating.

How does your DP respond? Does he give in to her demands?

She needs to realise that now that she's not with him that she can't control him anymore, cos that's what it's all about - control.
She's been used to him doing whatever she wanted for years and she doesn't like that he has moved on and then it's a constant battle for her to prove to herself that her n the kids are still just as important.

For us things got a lot worse once we had a baby and his ex has always had an obsession about the son I have from a previous relationship. She seems very jealous of the fact that DH spends more time with him than her children. But she's the one who left and took the kids!

We found things improved once she got a bf, which to me just proves that she was jealous.

Things still aren't perfect, she's still a total knob! It gets easier when u learn to not give a flying fook what she thinks, says or does.

I've had this since the word go (14 years) and it's a nightmare. Her mum is always calling the shots, adamant I was with DH whilst she was pregnant (I was at uni other end of the country and didn't even meet him until 3 years later) and tells dsd this, plus fact that her dad won't love her as much now we have a daughter together, suddenly can't take her to medical appointments/interviews at last minute and expects DH to drop whatever we are doing and take her. She wants to go to uni next year, dreading that! All of this stirring has not helped the situation between me and dsd. In hindsight if I had known things would have been like this I may not have stuck it out!

Dp sometimes gives in for an easy life. But be usually tells me and I tell him how I feel or what I think but final decision is his.

There's do much going on I just want to cry . I'm seriously frustrated with everything just now. ??

Always, that all sounds so tough. Having been in a similar situation, I absolutely do not tolerate any input from Exw into our house. At the risk of getting a flaming, her influence stops at our front door and comes no further. Now that's perhaps naive in the larger picture but any influence she tries to have on myself and DP is ignored, cheerily and without debate. No woman is telling me how to behave in my house. Luckily she makes it easy by now pretending I don't exist. Long and complicated backstory.

Generally speaking the ex doesn't have a say but I feel Like sometimes she manages to control dp and he doesn't even see it.

For instance when we returned from holiday she was taking kids for 1 day which turned into 3 which was finebut iinstead of actually saying I'll keep kids for 3 days she kept telling us she would bring them the next day then call at tea time saying she wasnt bringing them. It pissed me off because me and dp could have done something but instead were left hanging about. By the time day 3 came I ended up going out myself and told dp to wait in if he can't be bothered finding out when she is dropping the kids off.

It's a never ending saga and he when kids act up they do so because at their mums it's ok to act a certain way. Me and dp both say I don't care what's allowed at mums here we do this or that.

I'm glad it's not just me who had these issues though. Xx

paleninteresting agree absolutely. No one is going to dictate who is in my house. We had this at the beginning, dh exw deciding who could be with her dc , what they did when they were with us etc etc . If we didn't comply she withdrew contact. After a couple of years had enough of her jealous manipulative behaviour non to mention the upset it caused dsc..so put an end to it once and for all by going to court for formal contact order, she made these same demands in court..(I was never to be alone with them, not present -in my own house ffs at birthdays...) Judge told her in no uncertain terms that what her ex husband did with his children on his time was none of her business and would take a very dim view if these reasons were ever to bring her back to court ) best 80 quid we ever spent !!! (this was a long time ago - think it costs a couple of hundred now but still worth EVERY penny to nip the emotional blackmail in the bud !