Sounds awful but…

[TwoDots]

…sometimes, like right in this moment, I feel like leaving my relationship because I can no longer stand all the constant drama with ivory he ex. Like, we just can’t lead a peaceful life and I question what the f I’m doing.

Does anyone else feel like walking away because of your partners toxic ex?

My dp just ignored her unless it was genuinely something he needed to answer. And she'd text, text more getting angrier and angrier, start ringing etc. Just ignored her. Still does.

It reminds me of this pic ...

@Getyourarseofffthequattro this has actually made me crack up 😂😂😂 may send this to DH when we are dealing with another temper tantrum !

@candlelightsatdawn I think it was more of an acknowledgement that her opinion/ego was not to be tolerated any more. No more emergency pick-ups or cancelling our plans because she'd simply decided to swap things at an hours notice, or not bothered to arrange a babysitter - a few cancelled nights out for her soon meant she was much more organised. She forgot to return shoes, she made a trip to go back and pick them up. It was also not making excuses to the kids either - they were 8/10 at this point - and old enough to be told the consequences (age appropriately), Making her accountable to them iyswim.

For me, it was a revelation that I could absolutely do my own thing at a moment's notice if things went awry with the ex - leaving him to resolve it without me there was enlightening to him.

I mean, I'm not saying he was a perfect dad, and I know he's got his own parenting faults, but none that ever had ANY impact on his ex.

Thank you for helping me to feel a little more sane. I’m quite open with my partner about how I feel and we chatted about it last night. Thankfully he understands but ultimately it’s so hard for it to not affect me.

Yesterday he tried to book a gp appointment for his dd (SD registered at a surgery near our house and her school) to find she was no longer registered there. The ex had moved it to a town 30 mins away where she lives and didn’t tell him. Naturally, DP wants to discuss this with me as it’s something which deeply affects him. I’ve posted other threads about how the ex is trying to move DSD away, how she hates routines etc too and they are going through mediation.

I have a lot of resentment as it took years for DP to stand up to her, he used to allow her to really dictate our lives, put me in my place and just generally be awful. She’s still awful now but at least he’s on the same page as me, but being involved with him has literally ruined my life in some ways. There are good points of course, but I honestly feel (like another poster said) that a water tight court order is the only way to allow us some peace. Her actions affect me due to not sticking to agreements which always alters my plans. Then seeing how stressed DP is too.

For the posters who say see it from another point of view, my god we’ve tried, but she’s a narcissist. Literally no reasoning with her. We don’t play games, SD is the centre of our world, and we try and keep things simple. Hard to do when youve got an ex who literally does not give a damn about her own actions

Naturally, DP wants to discuss this with me as it’s something which deeply affects him.

But there is nothing for him to discuss.

He can mention it though.

All it does is add to his evidence that the ex is trying to move their child away without his permission. He should get that evidence in written form.

You need to tell your DP that he needs to offload on other people for the sake of your mental health and his own.

If he refuses to then you do need to leave.

Btw these other people should be wiser heads - so go for older people - who aren't so closely involved. He will then see whether what she is doing is completely batshit or just annoying. The annoying stuff he can ignore or call out. The batshit stuff he can see whether he can take legal action against now or whether it adds to his evidence for legal action he's in the process of taking.

My DP learnt to do this - he actually found a colleague who he doesn't work with closely very helpful. This is because the colleague went through a divorce and also has a bitter ex.

It's very tiring having a man with an ex like that.

I had a huge temper tantrum and was about to leave before dh put boundaries in place. They're not the greatest boundaries ever and I've had a few more since then. It's very hard if you're like me and unconsciously base your sense of self on interactions with others.

I'd recommend anyone leaving and not being in this dynamic. My dh is finally getting some outside help and support to manage this but I still have one foot out the door tbh.

@TwoDots I think as previous posters have mentioned more eloquently than I ever will.

Even if you ask DP to not tell you, it can ends up you effecting you almost by proxy.

As redwings mentioned you have to shift through the it's annoying and details you can live without from the this shit will actively effect me either directly or indirectly. The annoying stuff needs to just not be said. The other stuff should be said as a discussion rather than a explanation.

For your example the ex moving the child away, may in some cases "help" you under why he acts like a Disney dad and gives the illusion that he has a reason to be scared of his ex so therefore let her dictate the terms as to not rock contact. Obviously that doesn't sound like the case with you but often these tip bits are meant to pull at heartstring and make you lower your boundaries so he doesn't have to alter his (or build any) !

Honestly though you have my sympathies if this board is anything to go by unreasonable ex's or just people who have no idea what it's like to deal with this shit can really give some downright crackers advice.

I used to think nasty or really unreasonable ex's where not that common and common sense was just that common.

Good old mumsnet has disposable of this naive notion

kylie I wasn't trying to do 'whataboutery' that drives me up the wall too, usually on threads about cms!! I think I was offering an alternative perspective other than 'the ex causes all the drama'. If thats true, the only thing the op can do is consider how she'd like her dp to handle it. However, if, as is possible, some of the drama is being caused by her dp overreacting to something the ex has said or done that wasn't actually unreasonable, but us being seen as such due to hostility around the split, then that is a different problem. I'm not defensive at all, I specifically said I wasn't challenging the veracity of anyone's experiences and I'm not suggesting the ex isn't a nightmare. She may well be. I just raised a possible alternative interpretation, as has one other pp who talked about projected guilt making her ex cast her as the devil in all things.

OP we've been through the shitstorm, to hell and back and we're still together.

Had I known what I was in for in the early years would I have bailed? In a heartbeat.

Am I pleased we've weathered the storm? Hell yes. My husband is my partner in every way and although I've had to come on here to find a lot of coping strategies over the years I would be anywhere else.

I say this with a big BUT. Both SC are now over the age of 18 and we are now able to silence the noise of the ex. If you can get to that point everything will look like a different world.

But please heed the advice of @sassbott and others who have hit the wall on this. Our situation was probably a lot different in that we had the ability in a sense to step back when it mattered. That's not saying we're experts here, eventually the ex weaponised one of the children to the point that she had a very outing set to with me. I was just incredibly lucky that the timing of this meant that I could Nacho it with no guilt or pressure.

It's like climbing Mount Everest on no sleep with no kit, drunk, blindfolded and with nobody to help you. Add to that you're dealing with inhumane obstacles who try and sabotage your climb all the way and you're about how this feels. You have my sympathy but it's not as straightforward as bailing because you know that you and your partner would be brilliant under different circumstances

"Wouldn't be anywhere else" damn phone

@tripletsohgod of course you can suggest it. But to be really clear on something here.

This verbiage of ‘victim blaming’ is the exact BS that some of these men wheel out time and again as a hospital pass and it is nothing other than BS. It’s what they use to (bluntly) manipulate partners into putting up with sub standard relationships.

At some point in life. Suck it up. Sorry but it’s that simple. Accept your lot in life. And if you’re going to be so utterly miserable and drag others through your miserable excuse of a life then do the half decent thing and don’t be in a relationship.

Oh no sorry. I forgot. These men can’t do that either. Heaven forbid they stay single and accept that their core dysfunction means they are not truely available for another adult intimate relationship.

I don’t buy ‘victim blaming’ for one second. Look at the threads on here. They are full of (in the main) women pulling their hair in absolute despair. Who do you think the true victims are in these situations?

Let me tell you something. It’s not my selfish arsehole of an ex.

@Magda72 thank you.
I did what I needed to do. Gave it another chance so as to have no regrets. I did that, it was my choice.

His behaviours? Not my concern. That’s on him.

My life will thrive and grow, with love and happiness and peace.

While he keeps his dysfunction, all of that is impossible. His life. No longer my concern.

It’s tough being in a relationship when the ex is such a negative and there are constant battles. I remember those days! But they do come to an end as the child gets older and makes their own decisions.
(My husband’s ex put their child into a new school twice without bothering to tell him. The child was distraught but she didn’t care, it suited her new life.

@sassbott

Who do you think the true victims are in these situations?

I would say the children and the new partner. They have no control over the dynamic and are not the ones who have chosen to separate yet are baring the brunt of the consequences of an unhealthy dynamic.

@HugeAckmansWife you know what it took me a absolute age but were you referencing me as ? "has one other pp who talked about projected guilt making her ex cast her as the devil in all things."

To my comment of "I also have a breaking point and I'm not the devil for admitting that."

Totally willing to have gotten that completely muddled up, however if was me I want to answer a point you raised -

"some of the drama is being caused by her dp overreacting to something the ex has said or done that wasn't actually unreasonable,"

My DP as lovely as he is has only just grown a spine and it's been a fairly painful process for him. This comment I think is directed at my sharing his ex's reaction to me being pregnant. When we told ex I was pregnant we were nervous for many reasons the main one baby wasn't looking like it would be viable (or live long much after birth) and I worried she was going kick off at the news she didn't. She happily accepted the news and seemed supportive. Until we shared a happy update and we were going to be hopefully live (admittedly poorly on birth) baby and made a rather awful comment and kicked off. Her explanation to my understanding was that it previously didn't seem like baby would make it and now baby would it's now the time to say DSD is at risk of being excluded and threaten contact.

That wasn't DP overreacting. The ex wasn't being reasonable in this case but I have always said she has been up until this point.

It's ok to fear your child will be pushed out on birth of a sibling, but there has been 0 evidence of that in our house ever . Its not ok to project your feelings of wanting to keep DSD a only child and thinking you can say this to the ex like some binding contract upon the news there going to be somewhat healthy baby being born.

Anyway sorry about the formatting issues - I just wanted to answer that point (if you were even referencing me) because that was one of my most darkest periods of my marriage and for once my partner didn't underreact and the ex in my case was just really unkind.

Hi candlelight I'm sorry to hear about all that. I'm not sure if it was you I referencing. Someone mentioned their ex projecting his guilt at leaving in a horrible way onto the ex and demonising them as it made them feel better. That's certainly what mine did and causes ongoing issues in our coparenting relationship because he always puts the worst possible interpretation onto anything I say. However, as I said before, I don't want anyone on here to think I'm negating their experiences or denying that exs can be awful and cause problems. Just that the dynamics are usually pretty complex and r the drama isn't always all on one side.

@HugeAckmansWife ahhh no problem, I got a bit confused thought I should respond just incase :)

Alternative perspectives are always good, the problem being is so often hard to see from the outside the true bones of the issue and if I'm honest most of these situations it's more death by100000 paper cuts.

If I had known though the things I would face I'm not gonna lie, I would have run screaming into the woods.

I also think step parenting is a million times harder if you haven't worked out your own shit. I thought I had worked out my childhood issues but my attachments are all over the place. When dhs boundaries and guilt went up shits creak in the beginning I took it so personal. Being very honest here - everytime he overcompensated it took my feelings back to being a teenager and my dad leaving me. I felt abandoned time and time again. Learning (and I'm still on my learning journey and it's very recent) that his relationship with his son doesn't take anything away from our relationship and learning that it's not personal has helped me a lot. His need to feel like he's important and needed to his son does not mean I'm not important and needed to my husband.

Dh does have some fucked up shit going on, because of his childhood and the abuse from his ex. I can see how I started to feel like I was in a competition with his son. We didn't have our own relationship rituals, things dh did to show me he loved me he also did with dss. Things I did for dh that showed love he then took that and did that for his son. A memorable one is how dry Dhs hands get, on our first holiday he annoyed me but I noticed how dry his hands were and rubbed cream into them. After our holiday (before we knew each others dc) he did the exact same thing to dss. I felt weird about it but pushed the feeling aside as I was so in love ect but now when I look back I can see little things like this that triggered my own insecurities. We have now started making our own relationship rituals (Gottman) that are just for us. Dh recognises that over compensating isn't good for dss or for our relationship, I recognise that dh needs to feel like a good dad and am trying to support him with it. I'm also recognising that dh is not my dad and is not abandoning me.

I'll happily admit there were times I had to be scrape my DH off the ceiling as he was completely over reacting to his ex and in danger of really escalating the situation when actually ex hadn't done anything wrong or asked for anything unreasonable.
The problem is that after 10 times of the ex being way out of line by the time she got to the Reasonable request he just couldn't see it as his emotions were all over the place and he was at breaking point.

Op, I could have written your post if I'm honest. Only this week I've had a discussion around leaving dp as I can no longer mentally deal with the waging war. Dp doesn't even have contact with dsd at this moment and it's already too much. The early days she played a game with dp whereby she told him dsd was ill and she was not returning from a foreign country where her mother lived so he bombarded her with calls and texts to get to the bottom of it.... She reported his behaviour to the police. So now there's a non mol in place for them. She somehow got it in the cao that she had to meet me and then was abusive to me, mil had to do handovers and got so worn down by the constant abuse via text and in person she had to step back from it all and went no contact with my and dp, ex then had to liaise with mils dp she then had fed him so much bullshit it's caused such a family fall out dp and I are now no contact with him, dsd who was 4/5 at the time has been fed so much evil and poison to hurt both dp and me, the phone contact stopped pretty quickly but would never come at the right time so he'd miss it or she would shout abuse in the background and have him on speaker phone (would massively impact his moods) she won't reply to letters from solicitors for their divorce she put a hold on the house (it's dps solely owned house and she lived in it for all of 14 months and they were married for around the same) his had to push for it to go to court and then had to postpone it twice as she isn't ready at a cost of around 10k so far to him, we're stuck with one car between us due to him paying back marital debt and paying for her car (which he had to sign over to her as we would just just get weekly parking enforcement through the post) since our ds was born she's just withheld contact to make my DP as miserable as possible. I've had fake phone calls claiming to be social services acting on a concern and prying into my mental health the baby's health and my relationship. I have links with social care due to my job so have managed to check the calls out and know they are malicious. With the divorce looming for court again in the new year I don't think she thought he would do an enforcement order and try to have the current order changed. Within 48 hrs of her having the court papers served I had a Stanley blade put through the car tyres. I have lost my actual shit. I had to make other arrangements for my older children had to wait roadside with the baby the whole thing is terrifying and ridiculous. Dps reaction? Ah well at least it's getting to her. Not what was needed. I've had to tell him 4 times since that incident last week I need to feel protected by him and finally we have cctv and a house alarm being fitted this weekend. He did say he wouldn't go ahead with the enforcement but then said he wouldn't dream of doing that then when I asked why he said it he accused me of making him pick between his children not the ex but me. I hadn't said don't go ahead or cancel it he had done that all by himself. He draws me in and wants help with things and guidence then when it bothers me he says we'll it's nothing to do with you don't get involved. They can't have it all ways. I've told him now I'm close to walking I can't be put bottom of the chain and nor can our ds I can't tolerate much more. I'm now not involved in any of it. We will see how long it lasts. I'm hoping for our ds sake I can play the long game however I can't see her ever getting better especially given the amendment to the cao will be for him to do handovers. With hindsight I should have walked a long time ago instead of entering this battle it's far far more shit then I have ever encountered with my own ex husband and over our children together.

@PeaceInMyLife that's really interesting I had - and still do - a really shit relationship with my own df which I've not processed and wonder if my issues around dps 'Disney dadding' stems from them and feeling the same as you. I've actually made some enquiries for counselling this week so will raise this view point as have never thought like that. I struggle with dsd and always thought it was because of the Disney dad and the crap she spouts from her mother okay well they definately don't make it easier but having my own unresolved issues around my own father will not help matters either.

@Vie8126 PM me anytime. I honestly made my DH to be such a monster in my head and to family. I took anything he did or didn't do so personally and made it about me. I'm not saying he was perfect but I can see my own part in it all now. I was lashing out by withdrawing or getting into arguments because of my hurt. My hurt, not anything he had done personally to me, he was wrapped up in his own feelings around dss and I took that as a rejection of me and our relationship. Nothing he said or did could convince me that he secretly didn't love me and I put all of that on to his relationship with his son. Dh has actually treated me with so much love and kindness, he has done so much for me, but nothing got through to my head that he did love me. I used his Disney dadding as proof that he didn't love me and built it up more in my head. I then got validation that I was right and he was wrong by talking to family, friends and threads on MN. He was wrong to overcompensate - but it wasn't personal to me. I took all that validation and made it proof that I wasn't loved properly by him - ie feeling that ky dad doesn't love me and doing things for attention like I used to do as a teenager for my dads attention and approval.

I expect you feel so hurt that you don't have your own car and his ex did. I would have also felt like that, but it's not personal unless he can afford it. If he genuinely can't afford it then it's not personal it's just your circumstances atm and it won't be that way forever. It doesn't mean he doesn't love you, it doesn't mean that he loved his ex more, it doesn't mean anything other then his financial circumstances are shit atm.

I've realised I've got so many dad shaped holes in me, dh filled all those holes when we first got together. I then wanted more and more holes filled as I wanted to feel safe. I didn't realise that I had to mend my holes, I was putting dh in the position of making him fill my never ending and always leaking holes. I have started grieving for myself and the dad I always wished I had had. I have started letting go of putting my shit on anyone else. Dh doesn't have dad holes to fill in me, he has husband duties not dad duties. I've felt a LOT better about step parenting since I realised this. I took myself out of the competition. I'm not competing to get my dh attention, approval, protection or anything. I have my husbands love but more importantly I've finally managed to get how to start mending my holes.

@PeaceInMyLife it's funny you touch on the car thing as this was a major issue when ds was around 4 weeks old I was up with the baby and taking dp to the station at 5am ish coming back feeding baby taking my DC to school (have to drive) then getting ready and trying to get out the house with ds then being on call for everyone to come home again. With a small baby that hated the car and knowing they had two cars and he bought her her car so they didn't have this experience wjtb their dd made me feel so second best to them and made me feel like ds didn't matter as much. We did have two cars but they wasn't used my oldest ds needed a car I didn't need mine so I gave him mine then covid hit I got made redundant got a new local job which meant we needed a car each. We're just not in a position wjtb maternity leave etc to get it. But I wound myself up over that for weeks and then it was the most awful screaming row about how we were second best.

DP has pushed for me to return to work etc but I know she never worked and when she did only did an evening job a few days a week and he paid for her to retrain. This was another bug bear like why should our ds have to to nursery and be without me when she didn't. I have such a comparison all the time. Really what he means is we have a better life with me working and better prospects I'm lucky I work term time only and would be ridiculous to give that up given the time I will have with ds.

I fly off the handle feeling second best which will be routed to childhood issues I'm sure. I'll drop you a PM 😊

@Vie8126 yes you've got it, it's nothing to do with the ex about you returning to work. Term time hours, extra income, better quality of life. It might feel that he won't look after you but it's not that. Then if you have attachment challenges you could feel like it's your dad not looking after you all over again.

I really do think step parenting when you have had a disrupted childhood brings out so many feelings of abandonment in us step parents (especially mums). You can end up reliving all of your childhood trauma again in the form of your dp and dsc. We need to be kind to ourselves, we matter, we are here and their relationship is not taking away anything from you. It feels like it is when you're so caught up in your feelings but it's not.

@Vie8126 I'm so glad you have gotten on a good path and started to sow up the holes in the fabric of your relationship as it were. I hope your DH does you proud, sounds like you have done a lot of work internally which must have been incredibly painful

I just want to be really careful around the way we speak about internalising dealing with external pressures from others and looking to turn those external pressures into something is internally wrong with people instead of making sure we hold people accountable (ourselves included).
You are accountable but so was your dad, you were a little girl and didn't do anything wrong. We all have our issues, childhood trauma and it's absolutely spot on your doing shadow work to help you cope with what sounds like a nightmare situation and I really feel for you 💐

However everyone no matter how much shadow work everyone has to their lines and boundaries or they will be taken advantage of - the blended family lends itself to taking advantage of SMs much more than most. Much like @Youseethethingis I have also scrapped DP off the ceiling when I think he's been unfair to DM in the past. The problem is when your in a abuse cycle, if 9 times out of 10 you get whacked with a bat the 10th time you respond out of reflex. Sometimes you do need to support your partner and get the husband scrapper out and pull him down off the chandelier but other times, the only thing I can do is validate his feelings and also mine. My feelings are also important and I personally don't think it's healthy for me to think ah it's because of all my childhood trauma I will have less boundaries. SM are often silenced (this board goes to show how much raising your head above the parapet can ruffle many many feathers) and it's damaging.

All parties need to be accountable for their actions and I would be concerned to hear anyone blame themselves in their entirety for situations they find themselves in with little to zero control over the outcome on their childhood alone. They maybe in their current situations because of their childhood and may have made different choices if their childhoods had been different but that doesn't change the fact that everyone is entitled to their feelings and should be able to enforce boundaries to protect their own mental health.

I have walked away from my ex because he was starting to damage my MH but mostly for my daughter who I feared would repeat the cycle I had already lived. I didn't really do it for me. I know better now (gulp I hope) and won't sacrifice myself and my MH at the will of someone else's alter. That's what I hope to model for my daughter. That is breaking the cycle, the diffraction between what is actually your monkey and what is someone else's and that is the key.