SC’s mum trying to cause arguments

[SpongebobNoPants]

How do you cope when your SC’s mum seems obsessed with you and what you’re doing, and is forever contacting your husband to complain about things?

Bit of background so you get the full picture…
she and my DH share 2 children (17 & 13), were never married or owned property together have been separated for 12 years. They split up because she had an affair and she has had multiple partners since then so it’s not like she hasn’t moved on or wants him back. If anything she treats my DH with disdain which no one can understand and he’s a very good, involved, caring dad who’s very low conflict in his personality.

I’ve been with DH for 7 years and we married earlier this year so I’m not new on the scene either.

SC’s mum and I were pretty cordial at the start and I have my own 2 children who are a bit younger than my SCs (12 & nearly 8) so I would help her out with childcare in the school holidays and I’m always pleasant both to her and about her with talking to others.

Her previous boyfriend (not who she is with now as they split last year) was coincidentally a very good friend of mine’s ex husband and my friend and him share a child together. He wasn’t a very nice person and my friend and her ex had a very acrimonious split. As soon as SC’s mum started dating him the problems began.

She began picking fault with everything I did. All ridiculous things… examples include accusing me of quizzing the kids about their relationship, accusing me of being selfish when I bought things for my own children or our home and not spending that money on her kids, saying that I’ve upset her kids over things or situations that simply did not happen.

She would scrutinise any purchase I made, where I went or what we did as a family. It was exhausting.

She was also absolutely awful to my friend and her son which I found ironic considering she’d verbally tear me to shreds over any perceived slight against her children. All the while she was being deliberately unkind to her own partner’s son.

She also demanded that I stop being friends with my lovely friend because she didn’t like the link between us. I did point out at that at this stage I had been with my now DH for 5 years and had known my friend for 15 years and had no intention of cutting her off. It was her who had decided to date my friend’s ex husband and create that strange link between us all.

I found it confusing but I let it slide mostly and when she split up with my friend’s ex we all secretly breathed a huge sigh of relief. Things have been relatively calm and friendly again since she began to date someone new towards the end of last year.

The problem is the the new man she’s dating is a good friend of the husband of my best friend since childhood… Let’s call him Steve (not real name).

Steve is not only my best friend’s husband’s friend but his ex wife - let’s call her Kate, is also very good friend’s with their sister in law. So again, a weird link between us all had been created.

We had my SCs here all last weekend, had a lovely weekend and that is all.

Tonight their mum has phoned DH and caused a drama accusing me of quizzing my youngest SC (13) about her relationship with Steve and about Steve’s relationship with his ex wife Kate.

I do not really know Steve or Kate. Nor do I have any interest in the dynamics of any of the relationships at play.

I’m completely baffled! No conversations of that nature took place at all and I’m fortunate in that last weekend I wasn’t even alone with SK at all so DH can fully back me up!

But I feel she is becoming obsessed again by this link between us which I have no control over.

I try to ignore it but I’m concerned that she’s interrogating my youngest SC when she goes home.

It almost feels as if she’s deliberately picking partners that are somehow in my wider social circle to try and exert some control or power. It’s all very odd and I’m not sure how to handle it.

To put it into context we live in a city with a population of 500,000 people and live only 18 miles from the 2nd biggest city in the U.K.

This is not a small town with limited options to date or where everyone knows each other so it seems really bizarre that she keeps picking men who are close to my friends.

@SpongebobNoPants I try to avoid speaking to my ex as its just too unpleasant, but like your DP's ex he pesters our child.. which upsets her so I'd end up speaking to him just to make it stop. It was exhausting & exasperating especially as there's no real substance to any of the discussions, usually just him ranting...

DD has had help from social services to deal her Dad's behaviour & this triangle came up in the work they've done together, they encouraged her to use a stock answer to repeat ad nauseum to him: '' I don't know anything about that, email Mummy.'' It did take a few years for DD to develop the confidence to do consistently (she's 13 now and it's almost 2nd nature). I'm not going to say its 100% successful but she's found it helpful to remove herself when he involves her and reduced how often it happens. Not sure if helpful, but thought I'd share just in case..

I too wouldn't be surprised if she is deliberately dating these men. Or has weirdly set her tinder profile to a radius around your house.

Why are you cross with her? Either you do question indirectly without realising it or your SD is lying to her. Ultimately, it's fair she'd take her DD words seriously rather than assume she is lying and it's normal that she'd be annoyed that you'd be asking questions.

If the 13yo is lying, then it's with her you and her dad needs to take it up with.

Dad needs to talk to the 13 year old ask them why mom thinks she is being questioned

why is it even a topic of conversation in the mum’s house though. I don’t quiz my son about what people have said at his dad’s house. High level ‘did you do anything fun?’ questions obviously but I can’t imagine a situation where I’d be talking to DS about his stepmum or what she says it does.

If DS started reporting back to me like that, I’d shut it down on the basis that he should talk to his dad about anything that happens in that house. I’m not in charge of that and don’t want to hear tales of woe about it. I trust his father to do the right thing for him - and to exercise his own judgement about what that is.

if a SC child is telling tales to their mum, it’s generally because they’ve got an audience.

@FishcakesWithTooMuchCoriander wish more Mum's would take your approach 👍🏼 xx you sound fab. Allows everyone to get on and the child to be just that xx

why is it even a topic of conversation in the mum’s house though
Who says it is? OP is not there to know how it came about. If the 13yo is saying to mum that OP was trying to get information and she doesn't like it, then of course she's going to raise this as a concern.

She raised it with dad which is appropriate. The next step is for dad to talk to his daughter to understand why she is saying things to her mum.

I don’t agree that’s appropriate. Encouraging a child to report issues to you isn’t healthy for them. If my DS were complaining to me about his SM, my response would be to tell him that he needs to talk to his dad about it.

He doesn’t do this at all because he knows I’m not interested in his telling tales about his dad or SM. I’m not the ‘senior parent’. I’m not there and have no idea what’s going on in that house, so I’m not going to stick my oar in and insist their are issues.

@vivainsomnia I agree that if this was an isolated incident then it seems sensible that she spoke to DH about it.

However, I am cross with her because, as I tried to describe in my OP, this isn’t the first time she’s pulled something like this. My SC has also been caught out lying on a few other occasions, the consequences of one lie could have resulted in my friend losing her foster child she was in the process of adopting.

It’s also the way she goes about it, she’ll call and berate us whilst we can hear the kids in the background so she’s making them privy to adult conversations and she also uses very aggressive language. There is no “Can we have a chat about something?” It’s all very shouty and accusatory and done in a way to insinuate we are in the wrong no matter the situation.

She also has no intention of being reasonable from the outset. She doesn’t call for a discussion when she’s in one of her moods, she calls to shout, accuse and not listen to anyone else’s point of view or even the facts.

For example, the fact is that over the entire weekend I was not alone with SC at all so he could vouch for me by saying absolutely no conversations of this nature took place. DH told her this but she refused to listen to him and just began shouting “So you’re calling your daughter a liar???” Over and over again.

I am not sure whether it is SC lying or her mum, all I know is that I am telling the truth and her behaviour even for the perceived crime is completely disproportionate anyway.

To put it into perspective, the child whom I apparently made feel so uncomfortable with these imaginary conversations has been sending me texts all week of funny TikToks and pictures of cute puppies and been normal and chatty.
So it does seem rather odd that her mum is saying I’ve upset her and made her uncomfortable and only decided to bring it up last night.

It’s likely to be that your SD is lying because of how her mum reacts. There are loads of possible ‘reward’ mechanisms at play, but key possibilities would be:

• SD gets loads of attention because her mum makes a huge fuss
• SD recognises that her mum wants to hear bad things about you
• SD feels guilty and disloyal to her mother for having had a nice time with you so she’s invented a scenario that aligns her and her mother against you.

They’re not mutually exclusive.

That is why it’s so unhealthy to in any way encourage your child to tell tales to you about the other parent or anyone else in their life. It so easily creates a situation where the child feels they need to please you by complaining about their dad or SM. And it can spiral.

Much better to trust that the other parent loves the child just as much as you and is making the choices they think are right - and draw boundaries about what is appropriate to talk about. Children do much better with these kind of boundaries.

Do you feel she has got worse since you married OP?

Just wondering if there's some odd drama going on about how she felt you were less important as a partner but are better than her now you're a wife. [though of course most normal people wouldn't think that.]

How do you cope? You ignore her. I got a bit lost half way with the ins and outs and Steve's and kids but it's irelevant. This how she is and will continue to behave, and you can't control her behaviour. She's your partner's ex for good reason. Block her, and move over to a parenting app like 2Houses designed to lower conflict. Zero or as low as poss contact, and don't play and get dragged in to the nonsense.

@IVbumble no we only got married in March and she’s been awful on and off since wayyyyy before then.
Looking back, it may have coincided with us getting engaged?

Apologies but how was I trolling ? In business or espionage circles, sometimes agencies use a static where if they cannot gather information directly about x person, or the chain is a bit long to gain quality intelligence then they shorten the chain, and have people in the field so to speak, that basically integrates themselves with people close to the intended person of interest, to gather information or if it's business intelligence, then the person Could be involved with top secret research and development projects etc

Is it worth you asking SC 13 about this
she is old enough to know what’s happening.
Do you think she does say things like this to her mum .?
Must admit I am suspicious because my SD told unbelievable lies about me to her mum.

Your step children's mother sounds like she's emotionally abusing them.Does she also have mental health issues?;I'm definitely picking up that's she's insecure and has self esteem issues as well as being abit paranoid.

At 17 and 13 your DH doesn't have any need to be in contact with his ex unless he really has to.

Is it not possible for your DH to make his contact plans via the kids on their phones? They can ask their mother and get back to him etc.

When my step daughter was 11 she got her own mobile phone and from then my dh made arrangements directly with her. He would email his ex plans etc if need be.

His ex had tried to cause so much bother for us before then and we found making arrangements directly with sd really helped to stop exs behaviour