Husband’s ex seems to go out of her way to make EVERYTHING difficult

[MismatchedStripySocks]

I mean everything. It’s so frustrating and wearing when all we want is to enjoy time with his kids but simple requests are met with a flat out NO!

Take for example DH offering to pay for DSS haircuts. This is after her continually sending him to us looking like he’s wearing a toupee with one side shaved at least 1.5 inches higher than the other at the sides. We have gone ahead and taken him to the barbers twice for a tidy up only to be met with abuse. If she’s cutting it herself for financial reasons, we are paying so what’s the problem?

We are taking the kids on holiday this summer but the holiday is on a Tuesday. Our weekend is the previous weekend. When we asked if we could just keep them til the Tuesday, we were told firmly they had to come home (230 round trip) They have no plans and will be sat at home yet it will cost us about £60 in fuel.

The woman is a nightmare and drives me nuts

I agree, i have one friend in the same position and it's great to have someone to speak to. Everyone elses advice is ignore it.

How can i ignore it when it affects my life, my finances, my child.

i think as well people feel sorry for the ex because dp "just walked out" on her.

He did leave, however he took nothing but his clothes and continued paying her mortgage for 2 years plus child support and child support ever since. He also never forced her to sell the house though technically he could have, took much less money than it was worth and still hasn't had all of that but oh poor ex, she's all on her own with 3 kids.

Boohoo. So are a lot of people and most of them get on with it instead of crying about how badly done to they are.

She even asked for my wage to be considered in maintenance! Errrrrrrrrrm nope!!!!!!

haha northern that's funny actually as ex has also complained about us taking dss on holiday and said she would "never go there"

well considering she has never ever once paid for a holiday for her kids, i am not surprised!!!!

when her and dp were together her mother always paid for her and the kids to go without dp! But you know she's a single mother who does it all on her own yeno!

@repeal & Magda it makes me feel a lot less alone reading these posts. I find my friends start to recoil as soon as I’ve mentioned EW so I just kept my feelings to myself. It’s just too taboo I think. I don’t think they get just how much a troublesome EW can stress a new relationship.

The added factor is that their views directly come through the step children too.

I also, like many of us had a DP who also tried to minimize it, as to face up to her influence would be to admit he wasn’t as in charge of his life as he thought he was.

Wow she sounds like a nightmare! As an ex myself I can honestly say that I hope she wakes up and starts putting the kids first. Practically all I can add is commiserations and a suggestion you try to keep talking and being civil and hope that one day she’ll work through her bitterness.

@northern that holiday thing sounds like micromanaging! Very controlling.

@Bananainpyjamas11 - it all stems from a fateful event 3 years ago. My OH asked if he could take the children to see his mother (the children’s DGM) for her 70th birthday. His parents live in France. He wrote to her and she wrote back and said yes. He gave her the flight details and bought them new passports. It was to their home in France - a place she had been to many times over 10 years.

The night before my OH phoned the kids and they had packed theither cases and were excited to be going. He was due to collect them at 6am the next morning to go to the airport.

At 10pm the night before she emailed and said that she had changed her mind and the children won’t be going. He round round the next morning at 5:45 and she had gone away and wasn’t there.

My OH was devastated as were his parents (the EW won’t let the grandparents ring her house to speak to them).

When he got back he took her to court and a judge said that she should start putting her children’s needs over her feelings first. He warned her that if she breached the contact order again he would take the children off her and they would live with the dad. The judge ordered she was investigated by social services and he ordered that she pay for the cost of the children’s holiday (which she complained about - at that point she was receiving £1,400 a month from my OH and his ‘pathetic contribution).

In court her defence was that she had cancelled the children’s holiday as she didn’t have the grandparents address or phone number. My OH proved she had visited over 10 times and had both landline and mobile numbers.

So the judge wrote it into the contact order that my OH has to provide all details. It’s a small price to pay for her bat shit crazy actions.

You can't believe that ex's are like this but it is nice reading your messages so you don't feel alone in the situation.

Ex wives are always made out to be the victim and the one who is suffering but really, the only people suffering are the children in the middle of all of this! It's horrible to talk about to friends/family because they just comment on how unfair it is on the kids but you cant do anything about the EW behaviour.. you just have to do your best for them. It's so tricky!!

Sometimes I look at my OH and think why the hell did you pick to marry a looney haha

What rubbish. As an ex wife who has gone above and beyond to be totally reasonable and always put the children first I can honestly say that ex wives are not portrayed as the victim.

In fact there is a total presumption by pretty much everyone that they are bitter and vindictive. If you say one thing against your ex it’s oresumed that you only do it because your an ex no matter how true it is or how reasonable you have been. It’s the one thing that has left me really angry about the whole getting divorced thing. Not the ex. We’ve-parent fine and that’s great but the prejuduce from other people

Wow she changed her mind? The night before? That’s terrible.

I’m glad your OH took action. You’d have thought a judge telling you to stop being selfish would have had an impact. And she had a consequence. It’s such a shame she didn’t act with her kids best interests in the first place, as a big family holiday was ruined.

I wish those consequences would happen about the smaller stuff! Like constant texts and guilt tripping DP!

Oh by rubbish I mean the bit about the ex being the victim the rest I agree with. It is the children who are the real victims.

@Karigan1 - in my case the EW does portray being a victim. That way she justifies her appalling behaviour and has to take no responsibility for her actions. Her children (in her mind) aren’t victims - she regularly tells us what a wounderful mother she is.

If you read many of these posts it’s the same - the ‘poor’ EW gets away with it as the bad husband dared to leave her. My OH / her EX is the villain for leaving her. Almost 6 years down the line my OH is still told that he has ruined her life. She was 35 when they split up and still says it. Sadly I don’t think she will realise that only you can make yourself happy.

@Karigan1 I have to say that has most definitely not been my experience in that while there are many non bitter & self sufficient ex wives out there (you and I included) the general assumption I've experienced is that the man left the poor ex & kids & she's to be pitied & helped.
My dp & his ex mutually split & she CHOSE to be the rp for various reasons. She now plays the victim card to the nth degree, tells everyone dp left her when he didn't & regularly has her sisters traveling to cook her dinners for the week because she "can't cope" .

So far it’s been my experience. I still have no idea what my ex told our mutual friends from back then but none of them speak to me now despite absolutely bending over backwards to play nice. I get a grand total of £100 a month for child payments, I give lifts as needs, I agree random contact because they want to take the kids somewhere. Everything theyask for they get. Yet I had what wasmutual friends messaging me saying I was a bitch and needed to move on. To this day I have no idea why.

I think most of us are exes ourselves. I am, and my Ex is selfish and his wife is annoying. Even so, I don’t interfere with their lives at all. I don’t constantly text, I don’t call him over every week to ‘fix’ stuff in the house, I don’t tell our child he’s useless and I don’t screw him for every penny.

I am careful to never put his new wife down to my son. Sometimes it has felt lonely, as they jet off somewhere exotic and take my son who adores it. However that’s his life now and it’s not a competition. It’s my responsibility now to make my own life.

Well I can only speak for my own situation and that is one where she wants to be portrayed as the victim. If you think about it, there’s two sides to every story and a reason for splitting up whether mutual or not. I do just think, talking from my situation that a lot of emphasis is on the mother and how they’re feeling when the fathers are usually left with seeing their child every weekend or every other weekend (or even not at all in some cases)

I genuinely feel terrible for the fathers that are ripped from contact with their children, who have left because they are unhappy or even because they want to be in another relationship. A woman should not be able to dictate whether or not a man sees his children. They are half the father and half of the mother.

@Ellemae - here here..... totally agree with you.

It’s disgusting how some mothers think that they are the decision makers and they are more important. My OH draws up their contacr schedule in December for the year ahead. This year he has the kids Christmas Day and the way the contact weekends fall he’ll have them for 10 days over Christmas. His EW threw her toys out of the pram - says she can’t be apart from them for more than a week. What about this last Christmas when my OH didn’t see them for 14 days or the fact he sees them for less than 48 hours every 14 days. Oh that’s ok, because men and dads don’t have feelings.

I never realised until i met my OH that this went on. By the time I had met him he had a court ordered contact order. For 2 years she dictated when he saw the children as he had left. He tells me for 2 years he had told her how unhappy he was and he was told that she wouldn’t discuss it. When he did pluck up the courage to leave she told him that as a punishment he wouldn’t see the kids again. She broke him. How can women in this day and age be allowed to do that? You hear of so many stories of dads who can’t be bothered, my OH was desperate to see his children and a judge had to get involved to make it happen.

karigan I absolutely didn't think my dps ex was bitter in the beginning. She wasn't, he saw the kids when he wanted and she never kicked up a fuss. Was all very amicable and she seemed like normal, nice woman and a good mother.

Then she found out he was seeing me and the sympathy card of "he left me with nothing" came out and now she is the most bitter and twisted woman I have ever met. Its her choice to act the way she does.

Northern "How can women in this day and age be allowed to do that?" this is what I keep asking myself. The INJUSTICE of it, and it feels like it's a secret, no one with any authority knows so it will never be put right. DH had ew smirking at him when he protested about hardly seeing them. It's abuse, but there's no proof and once they are teenagers it's too late to go to court.

@Whatalovekypair - totally agree. I don’t think dads will ever be teated equally. These woman think they are so special. You don’t know how many times we’ve heard ‘I deserve.... because i’m the mother of your children’. She seriously thinks she has some sort of golden vagina.

My OH’s EW has emotionally abused her EX (my OH) and her own children. We NEVER bad mouth her in front of the children (despite some of the nasty things she’s done). The same can’t be said about her.

The kids think she’s wounderful. She texted her 12 year old daughter when when she was with us recently ‘to remember that mummy loves you more than daddy’. Why would you say that to your own children? I used to think that the kids would realise one day some of the things that’s gone on, but I think you’re right.... we’ve been vilified so much and she’s so much the victim that the truth will never come out.

Also to see that it takes many forms. The main commonalities seem to be manipulation and keeping control.

My DPs EW had no problem with him having the kids as much as he wanted. She often tells DP how wonderful he is. She obviously loves her kids. However as far as she is concerned, DP is still her husband and she only has the kids on her terms. So she bursts into tears if she cannot have the children over Xmas. However she wanted every weekend to herself so we had them all every weekend except Xmas for years.

She didn’t want to cope with the oldest child who had a lot of problems. So she sent her to live with us, saying how wonderful DP and how much better he’d be with her. Except of course she kept the maintenance and DP works long hours so I was left with older DSD. But she wanted to keep control of her role as Mum so told DSD never to listen to me, that I wasn’t her parent etc etc. DSD suffered greatly I believe. She totally rejected me, became depressed, started projecting all her anger onto me and yet if she needed someone it was me she contacted. She was very conflicted and missed vital parenting. At age 21 she is back at her mums and does nothing. Her Mum became very angry with me that her daughter decided to move back, and basically turned all the kids against me and now they rarely visit at all. She tells DP constantly that I’ve come between him and his daughters. Such a lot of unnecessary trauma and conflict. Especially as in effect I really was the girls mother role for over 5 years and on top of two other kids it was not easy! How can a mother not only ignore that another woman, me the SM, has done their job, but also hate them for it?!

@NorthernSpirit - yup, we constantly hear "well I'm the mother of your children & that's my job so why should I work?" AND "I deserve x,y or z because I'm the mother of your children!"
In one way it's very sad as imagine having your whole identity hanging on being the mother of your exh's children? I mean not once have I heard her call them "my children" or "our children" - they're always "your children".
As to how some women get away with it? I just don't know. My dp is self employed in a business that also supports an older disabled family member (on his side). The reason he pays such huge maintenance is that exw told him if he didn't cede to her demands she'd go after his business (thus also affecting the income of the disabled family member). Dp didn't think she'd get away with it but didn't feel he could run the risk.
It's just a complete lack of personal responsibility on the part of women such as this. Dp's ex is very like that of yours @Bananasinpyjamas11 - she takes no responsibility for the kids bar the day to day stuff & if two of them are fighting (as siblings do) she's on to dp saying she can't cope; if one of them has to go somewhere more than 10 miles from her house she's on to dp to do it as she doesn't like driving; if one of them has a falling out with a friend she's on to dp telling him his kids are being bullied (they're not) & telling him to do something about it! She tells the kids awful stuff about me but then expects me to drive them back to her on a Sunday if dp can't for some reason & has even told me to get a seven seater so I can do this!
Honestly it just goes on & on & on.

@magda72 @northernspirit

I can see exactly where you're coming from here. In all of the day to day tasks like homework, swimming lessons, having him "normal" weekends, buying clothes, general advise etc she couldn't be less interested. Yet - if it is DS birthday or Christmas then she has to see him. What happens to all of the other weekends? It seems like myself as SM and my OH put all of the back work in and then she only wants him for the 'fun stuff' like birthdays. But then she doesn't understand why he has got a better bond with us? All because she wants to go out every weekend and blow all the money on drinking

We drop him off everywhere, pick him up because 'she doesn't like driving' yet often drops DS straight at her mum's. x

Hi all,

Just a little sadness leak on this topic from this morning. My OH's DS asked at breakfast this morning: 'How much money do you have, daddy? Mummy doesn't have any money- she says you took it all'.

He is 5

@sothisisnew ohh that is awful! we have had this before and it is heartbreaking.How you could ever say that in front of a 5 year old i'll never know :( Also - this shouldn't be anything that a 5 year old worries about which is so sad

@Magda I totally get it. DP picks them up every morning from her house, she only works weekends, she’s just having a lie in! Yet apparently my DP has ‘no interest’ in the kids (as she frequently calls to tell him and also tells the kids often).
@EllMae same here too! Every Christmas she’s gone mad if she can’t have the kids. And yet hasn’t gone to one parent/teacher meeting, never takes the kids to school, I used to oversee homework, buy their underwear, shampoo, look after them when they were sick, DP oversaw homework, school applications, counseling or other needs.