DP'S ex died last year. Prior to that though, we had six years of passive aggressive behaviour.
Firstly, when I came down to see DP (I was living 500 miles away at the time), we had arranged a party with a lot of friends, friends I had known a long time ago from when I was with DP in my teens. We had been apart for 30 years. So I knew all his friends, family already and the only people I didn't know were his DC and vice versa. He had his DC the weekend of the party (deliberately arranged that way so we could meet) and his ex just arrived at the party unannounced. She walked into the house, completely ignoring me sat outside on a bench in the garden (talking to dp's sister) and helped herself to a drink and sat down to chat with everyone. She spent 30 minutes telling everyone about her new boyfriend, how wonderful he was, how much money he has, what a fab pension pot he got from his career and his paid off house. It was so fucking awkward it was unbelievable. She then came out, walked over to me and said 'Oh! So sorry to gatecrash your party!' and walked away.
That kind of set the tone for the next few years. When I moved down with my dc to live with dp she upped the ante and started interfering with absolutely everything. She told dp that I was lazy and a benefit scrounger (I am disabled), that I was only after him for his money (he's never had any money), that he shouldn't have got together with someone with young dc as it wasn't fair on their DD and that she should be the centre of attention. She had purposely picked her bf as his dc were adults.
It was fucking relentless. Every contact visit she went home to her mum and mum would be on the phone within 20 minutes complaining about something. Normally me. I wasn't asking DD to help in the house, she felt left out. I was picking on DD by asking her to do things in the house, I was bullying her. I was hiding DD's things (socks seemed the popular thing for me to hide apparently but that changed to keys and phone chargers as she got older). Normally these things turned up in other people's houses where she had left them or in her own house because they had never got to ours.
His ex came across as very reasonable but she was incredibly difficult. She always emphasised that it was all about their DD (which is fair enough) but she persistently changed contact weekends because DD was busy and then wanted to swap for another weekend but that wasn't always possible for us to do. She would then tell their DD that Dad couldn't be bothered seeing her.
Contact eventually ground to a halt when ex moved in with her boyfriend an hours drive away and refused to share the travelling. She also wanted to reduce contact time considerably and in the end, with us having absolutely no money to pay for fuel AND child maintenance it stopped completely. She had got 75% of the assets in the divorce and DP had to pay for her legal fees out of his share so we ended up very broke and homeless.
DP's relationship with his DD has broken down completely. She lives with her mum's boyfriend now and he is just as difficult to deal with. DP rings every week to see how she is, an agreement reached in mediation. The bf refuses to ask DD to see DP and says that it is my fault for the years of 'bullying' DD, something he said to dp on Friday. I have never bullied his DD, I have never bullied any child!
We have a great relationship with his oldest and she sees us a lot. I feel so sad that things have reached this point.