Alienating baby mum making our lives hell!

[TheLilacViper]

My partner and I have been together 8years and have 2 daughters together, he also has 2 kids 11 and 10 from a previous relationship. She is extremely high conflict, controlling and impossible to compromise with. She moved away 4 years ago around an hour and 30 minute drive away and refuses to do any travel so was forced to cut contact down to every other weekend and half of the holidays. During our weekends we had noticed that contact between baby mum and step children was ALOT it was continuous texting asking what they were eating for every meal telling them what time they should go to bed or making comments that it’s too late or too early if we were out it was asking where we were going. It escalated to a point that the kids were never putting their phones down as they were constantly having to update their mum and if they were pre occupied they would be bombarded with texts telling them that she is worried about them and then my partner would get a text asking them to check their phones and that she needs to have constant communication with them. She is always promising them to give them things when they get home (example, sleepovers with friends, presents ordered from Amazon, surprises, days out) which I feel makes them itch to go back home with their mum I don’t feel it’s fair when we only get the 2 days with them. My OH has had enough and has said the kids are not having their phones so that they can be in the moment when they’re with us and enjoy the 48 hours that they get while they’re here that they can tell her about their time when they get home. She has since blocked all of us from their phones including my 5 year old daughters iPad so she can’t FaceTime with her siblings! And has encouraged SD10 to call OH and tell him she won’t be seeing him anymore due to not being allowed her phone and that it’s her property to do with as she likes. This conversation was super awkward and out of character for my step daughter and she sounded uncomfortable and withdrawn. She absolutely loves coming to visit and hates any kind of confrontation so I’m certain she has been made to make this phonecall to her dad. Any advice on this. There is already a court order in place and this isn’t the only time she has stopped contact it happens every time my partner doesn’t ’do as she says’ we won’t be getting court involved it’s not fair on the kids and she’s already convinced them that it’s all their idea. I’m not sure if contacting their school maybe is the best course of action to get them support?

Leave it to the courts.

But obviously if she is high maintenance and controlling out right removal of the phones was stupid and never going to go well. Denying her contact when they're separated is pretty poor form anyway. Scheduled phone time would make more sense.

Also your DH should make the effort to seem them more. 90 mins isn't so far when it's the difference between seeing your kids or not. That said leave any changes to schedule to court.

Why is the fact that she buys stuff for them from Amazon relevant?

Just like you would with the children you jointly share If they were sat on their phones all weekend, you implement timings and rules for when they can be used.

It's because it's an incredibly disrespectful term, and it kind of sets the tone for the post, which is a shame when she is a nightmare.
All you can realistically do is support your step children and keep records and evidence of anything concerning.

Do you also call yourself "Baby Mum" @TheLilacViper?

Yep, it's the equivalent of your partners ex coming on and saying 'so my kids wicked stepmother' same with 'bio/birth mum' to describe a separated family when this terminology is from adoption, like the mum had the kids then had them removed and their dads new girlfriend is their 'real' mum.
Not sure why people can't just write 'ex partner/wife and stay factual without snidey names.

Because women never leave men? Or perhaps men should stay with abusive women, and just put up with it? Do you even hear yourself fgs?

Some of these responses are batshit. Siding with the mother just because she’s a mother and cannot possibly have done anything wrong. Of course it must be the man’s fault, how dare he leave a woman with young kids, he should stay and tolerate her abuse. Of course it would be a different response if the genders were reversed. I’m really not sure why these posters troll the step parents board.

and no, a woman doesn’t deserve respect if she’s an abuser, regardless of whether she popped kids out or not.

OP my partner has a similar nightmare ex. He did the right thing in checking messages from the mother if he suspected they were toxic, and removing their phones.

However, there is no way of fixing this without court. Offer mediation then back to court. She’s alienating and you need to catch it now. My partner’s loony ex tried to withhold custody because he wouldn’t let her talk to child all hours of the day, and the court took a very dim view of her behaviour.

@Oqqq couldn’t have put this better myself. Some posters can’t face reality that some mothers are abusive, they defend them at all costs, making some huge assumptions in the process. I mean, get off the step parents board!

Does your OH contact his kids by phone while they are with their mum? If so, would he be happy if his ex-partner removed their phones so he couldn't contact them?

Irrespective of her behaviour, 'baby mum' is a disrespectful term. Why not say 'OH's ex', or 'stepchildren's mum'?

reading the op, I didn’t like the tone and feel it’s likely there’s a very different other side to the story. Happy to be wrong, just how I read the op.

We have practically the same situation with dss's 10 and 12. With added, booking for them to do things on our time then winding them up to the nth degree about it when we say we can't accommodate it. Grilling the boys about everything that has been done or said to them about anything at all over our weekends. Etc etc.

Having tried to find solutions ad finitum we have found there aren't any. The more we try and talk to the kids about it the more she twists it. She has well and truly got to them now and I don't see a way to reverse it.
We are going back to court but it's already too late I think. Whatever the court say the boys will reject.

It's making both of us but especially dh obviously, very unwell.

I had a similar response on here when I posted about our issues op.
In our case dh's ex wife had an affair which ended the marriage and was physically abusive to him twice. The police were involved. She then told everyone they knew that dh had hit her. No one of their mutual acquaintance believed her and she fell out with everyone in their small town over it, so two years later she moved the kids 50 miles away and started telling everyone there, including the kids, that dh's 'abuse' was what ended their marriage, (and there was no one there that knew dh to challenge it). She tried and failed to create a narrative which was thrown out in family court and the only people that know dh, except his kids, know it to be absolute fabrication. She has lied about things that allegedly happened when there were loads of witnesses etc etc. And then the constant messaging, Control, abusive messages, withholding the kids, etc etc. constantly.

And yet on here it MUST have all been dh's fault somehow, because he is a man and she is a mum, and I must be naive to believe him.

Going to leave another comment yo adress some of the questions popping up..
I called her baby mum as a quick way of referring to OH’s ex partner not as a deep thing as being disrespectful, although I have literally ZERO respect for her as a mother or as a person, she is a narcissist an abuser and has gone out of her way to put her kids mental health on the line to continue to control my OH.
They weren’t ever married and the relationship didn’t last long due to her cheating multiple times and physically assaulting my OH infront of their then toddler children. He then left and we eventually got together we did everything respectfully and I stayed out of the picture for 5 months before meeting the children AND their mother and was friendly for a period of time untill she then met her current partner when things (on her end) turned VERY sour I think due to her new partner hating my OH as he is one of the men she cheated on my OH with which he also was married with a family and it also broke that family up aswell. OH spent every weekend and every Wednesday evening with his kids before the move and she was the one that said he can no longer have them that often because of school and the fact that she wanted to spend a weekend with them aswell. Not long after the move the kids decided amongst themselves that they want to live here with OH so at around 9pm she decided to drop the kids off on the doorstep shouting at them that they have caused an arguement between her and her new partner and that she’s pregnant (this was how she revealed her pregnancy to them) and is now going to be made homeless then looked at OH and said now go live with your dad since you think the sun shines out of his ass. The kids were in tears, we were in complete shock as this was completely out of the blue! A week or so later my OH had a solicitor on the phone saying that he had abducted the children and had an emergency court hearing and then a court order was then put in place the arrangements that are now in place and that we do all the travel, cafcass didn’t take the children’s views into account as they weren’t able to speak their views after their mother had coached them into saying what she wanted and guilt tripping them by telling them they would never see her again if they tell them they wanted to live with us. We were completely supportive throughout the court battle and OH kept the kids best interest at heart while she lied through her teeth and they acknowledged he was a great dad but things would be kept the same in terms of living arrangement, travel and visits.
we could limit the use of their phones but we have tried that plenty of times. The rules are that they don’t get limited atall. The screen time is not to be limited or the phones be taken away as punishment. Although OH is not allowed to speak to his kids on the phone while they’re at his house atall and are only allowed to text with them at certain times of the day but he does see this as completely reasonable. The reason for taking their phones away is for the emotional pressure she is putting them under by promising them trips, sleepovers, presents (most of which never actually happen) all to make them excited to get home. She tells them how sad she is that they are not there with her and how much she’s missing them. Ontop of all that she is constantly badgering them and telling them off if they don’t respond to her within 20 minutes. She is asking them if everything is okay 15 minutes after picking them up from her house this isn’t healthy boundaries this is also while we’re out on family days out OH has tried to explain to her that we are out and their phones are in the bag she then asks for pictures of them. OH has tried to explain to her that it is 48hours they are here every fortnight and we are just trying to enjoy the time without any distractions she says she agrees and then goes straight back to it she says it has to be a constant line of communication open with them which is fucking ridiculous.
id like to thank everyone for the support who gets it.
to the others who accused me of taking away the man of 2 young kids with no evidence of that whatsoever and sees no wrong in what this woman has done I would worry about your kids if you see nothing wrong with it!

Mum is jealous with huge FOMO.

Your DH left her when her babies were tiny and is now living the life she planned with you. You get to play happy families with her children and her (ex) husband.

It’s a shame. She needs help to move on from the trauma of being left with two babies and learn to enjoy the life she has now.

Tell him to go to court for a contact order.

And stop referring to her as "baby mum". They aren't babies and it's not an American talk show.

So if the relationship was abusive and there was infidelity, he was just meant to stay and suck it up? If a woman said her partner had cheated on her and assaulted her, we'd all rightly be saying LTB. But a man can't leave a relationship because of those things or he's abandoning the mother of his children and can expect never to be forgiven?

Ridiculous.

What are you talking about? I think you’ve read more into my post than is actually there.

You seem to be implying that the OP's DH abandoned her with two babies and she's traumatised and that's why she's behaving like she is. But the OP says he left the relationship because of infidelity and abuse. It sounds like you're saying that by quite reasonably leaving a toxic relationship he traumatised her.

There is no way on this planet we would say this about a man who had been left by a woman after infidelity and abuse. He would get zero sympathy.

@StormingNorman if she genuinely was abusive and unfaithful in the relationship then her former partner going on and finding a happy family with someone else is the consequences of her own actions, not "trauma" because she was left, FFS

It’s relevant because she wouldn’t buy it then wait for them to come home and have a nice surprise she buys it then purposely tells them to make them want to come home to play with a ‘new toy’ or she arranges sleepovers with their friends and says when you come home your having a sleepover again instead of waiting and just letting them enjoy the 2 days they get here!

The added details in your update are horrendous and it she were a man everyone would be agreeing that he's a piece of shit. Unfaithful, abusive, controlling and now damaging her own children's MH.

I have no idea why people are defending her behaviour and having a pop at you. Even if you had been the OW (which you weren't) it would still be completely wrong of her to be treating her dc this way.

People defending it clearly have a very strange sense of morals and parenting.

This must be a limited pool of men!!!! 😃

She's not a "baby mum" or "bio mum" she's the mum/mother of your step kids.

She’s a piece of shit is what she is👍 I’m sure if you read my post you would agree no decent mother would do that to their kids baby mum bio mum whatever you want to call her she’s an abuser