My ex husbands fiancee is being a problem!

lemon1

Please could I have your thoughts on what you would do in this situation?

My ex husband of nearly 4 years has a girlfriend (now recently made fiancee) who I feel, is mentally disturbing my 8 year old son.

Some background, I have a boyfriend of 4 years who I have a 9 month old son with, my partner and ex husband get on well (they are civil at least!) when they see each other (usually when the 8 year old is being dropped off), my ex husband and I get on well (he has a few issues around the break up of our marriage, I fell out of love with him and wanted more, he thought our relationship was perfect, I met my new partner very quickly and fell in love, ex thinks I was cheating on him.. I digress, we have stayed on friendly terms for the sake of our son), he is a loving father to our son and my son loves him very much. I have not nor ever will want to come between their relationship, a son needs their dad.

I do feel my ex husbands fiancee does not consider her actions around my son, who is a sensitive, very loving, caring and kind little boy. Today he told me that whilst his dad was out of the room she told him I was "selfish, rude and ungrateful", when I asked him what he said in reply to this he said "nothing, it's best I don't because she shouts", I asked him if he told his dad, his dad told him to "stop telling stories". There have been numerous occasions where she has shown her true colours and then denied or played them down to my ex husband. She has ignored my son in the street when he's excitedly run up to her to say hello, she's poked him hard in the chest whilst telling him off and then denied doing it when my son told his dad, she has shouted, swore and pushed me in front of my son bruising my arms (I am sorry to say I didn't report this to the police at the time thinking it was the peak of her frustrations and I would not have to have contact with her again), my son quite often says she has said mean things about me (a coward, liar, loser etc), she has sent abusive messages on facebook to myself and now my partner (I blocked her long ago) and she would park her car near our house in the mornings.

My ex husband stands by her, he says she is lovely and does a lot with him, that they get on well, that she is quite a lot like me personality wise and thinks that's why we are clashing. I was so pleased for my ex when he found love again, he was caring, easy going and hard working during our 11 year relationship, I have never hated him I have only wanted him to be happy (but also selfishly it helped ease the guilt I felt for ending our marriage too). I love my new partner with all my heart, he makes me so happy and is a wonderful friend to my 8 year old and a doting dad to our 9 month old. I say all this because each time a new drama unfolds, I am desperately upset, angry and hurt for the situation she puts my son in or the trouble and awkwardness it causes between my ex and I. I absolutely hate speaking to my exasperated ex husband about new goings on that either I or my son (or both!) have been involved in, I really don't want to get involved in their relationship in any way but my hand is forced when she does such awful things that I think affect my son.

My phone call this evening to my ex consisted of telling him " I don't care what is said about me to anyone else but I will not be bad mouthed to my son and it must stop" He said he would "talk to her and see what she says but our son couldn't be telling the truth because they were never left alone!".

I'm sick of having upsetting conversations with my confused son, sick of my ex not standing up for his son and tackling her abusive, damaging behaviour.

I don't know how to deal with all this without looking like an interferring ex wife, do I have any legal rights if needs be? Our divorce was agreed upon joint custody of our son, contact according to our work commitments, my address was listed as our sons main home.

Do any of you have any advice on what I should do or be doing please?

FBaby

Have you just asked your ex why he thinks your son would be making this up suddenly? Can you ask him to try to be objective that if he doesn't want to believe his fiancee could be acting this way at least he could try to understand where your son is coming from. I would tell you're son to continue to tell his dad even if he gets cross. Maybe after a while three penny will drop. I've been there as a kid with a step mum who wanted me out of the way it's not nice. My dad though took the position of being stuck in the middle better than making me feel I was making things up but still painful. I always had to some how understand her...

paddedjohn

Ask your son if he wants to have a break from going there for a little while, it might make his dad sit up and take notice.

Seanymph

I can't say anything uyseful but you are not alone.

My exes g'f is nastiness personified - and her dislike of my youngest and resentment of them both has devastated the children again and again...... whilst their father fails to see the damage she has done.

They are now older, see him rarely, never initiate contact, hate her passionately and are waiting for that relationship to break down before they spend time with him.

If anyone else has the answer I'd be pleased to hear it.

The only thing that I think helped them was that I always believed them, and tried to help them deal with it. I gave up phoning him and trying to discuss it because the repercussions for them on the next visit were so vile from her.

But I also always allowed them not to go if they didn't want to.

martinthebandit

........... although 8 year old boys are not the most reliable of people. Its not that they don't tell the truth but they see the world through 8 year old eyes and process what they see through an 8 year old brain.

With his Dad having a new fiancee and you and your partner having a child he may be feeling worried and jealous, I don't mean that he is right to feel that way.

I would be tempted to just give him tea and sympathy and let him decide for himself if he goes and stops at Dads.

The more you stress though, the more stressed he is going to feel.

clearingout

I went through this with my ex - it only stopped when the relationship ended and he found someone else (he did go back to the nasty one more than once though). In the end, my ex forced the issue by putting 300 miles between us and not phoning the children for 6 months. At that point, when he did get in contact, I felt justified in using a solicitor and refused contact until I knew where the children would be staying and who they would be staying with. In the same letter, I outlined concerns regarding the girlfriend's behaviour which had included smacking our children (our eldest describes being slapped across the face 'every day' - although I am aware he exaggerates, even once across the face is once too many) and problems in their relationship which had lead the children to witnessing 'daddy breaking ex's fingers' (role played as fingers being bent back, rather than broken) and police involvement (I only know this 'cos the police contacted me once to see if I knew where he was!). Letters went back and forth for a while but contact was only resumed when he reappeared 15 months from first disappearing with another woman on his arm! She, so far (fingers crossed) is perfectly reasonable and his behaviour is a lot calmer so I'm guessing she's a positive influence. Not making him pay maintenance, however, but that's a whole other story!

There is a very fine line between stopping contact for reasons of protecting your son and causing bigger problems by making mountains out of molehills and I appreciate you're stuck between a rock and a hard place - I too put up with the bad behaviour until I felt I no longer had a choice. Far too many people (both men and women) just can't seem to reconicle themselves to the fact their partner has a past and literally take on any hurt or upset or arguments as their own. I would suggest keeping a detailed diary of anything your son tells you and of informing your ex what your son has said via e-mail in a calm and matter of fact way. The 'I won't have my son hear things like that about me' over the phone is incredibly emotive, puts him on the spot and will inevitably make him come out fighting. Give him chance to mull things over. Don't pester him, don't demand answers - just tell him what has been said. As long as your son is happy to go to dads, I would let him, and I would take great care that I didn't interrogate him on his return about what might have happened. At the end of the day, it is your ex that is responsible for his relationship with his children and your son will know just what he did/didn't do. If he begins to show overt signs of stress and/or is asking not to go, crying when going/returning, his school work dips, that kind of thing, then it would probably be time to involve a solicitor and consider your options - but you can only do that with a detailed diary and evidence you have tried to tackle what is going on in as calm a way as possible.

Sooner or later it'll either settle down, or she'll slip up in front of your ex and he'll be forced to choose.

weepingtree

I have this but its the other way round my Oh's ex ( their mum ) is according to his kids mistreating them on a regular basis I will not go into much detail only to say that they continually tell him and they also tell my dd.

I to be honest am at my wits end with it all, they have told dad that they would rather not live with her anymore but he does nothing, this has been going on for months and yet he refuses to mention it to her and just says it'll sort its self out !

Last week the older one said that mum had not been so mean to him the previous week but had apparently been really nasty to the younger one. He told my dd that when he told his dad this his dad apparently said and I quote " I don't care you said she had been better to you " then he apparently told my dd, how does he know he dosn't live there.

My dd told me this, so I questioned my oh on this and he said thats not what happened.

Its hard to watch little ones struggling through this but my hands are tied, u see if I say anything then I would immediately become the evil ex making problems in her eyes ! Its hard to be the new female on the block where kids are concerned.

If I say anything to my oh he gets angry with me and says he's thinking about how to handle things, all the while the kids are still going through bad stuff at home. He just dosn't seem to have the strength to deal with this.

pawsies

Could you not arrange to meet them in public? So all visits are public and cannot result in kids ever being left with her? For example go to beach and then have a meal with dad and oh. You could then supervise them to ease your mind?

Fosterdog

I've been in the flip side of this situation, my OH's children kept telling us about how "nasty" their mums new boyfriend was. We were told of him being generally short tempered most of the time but also of specific incidents. We kept asking their mum and she would defend her boyfriend on every allegation and wouldn't accept that there was a problem.

We eventually went to social services (we were more concerned because he had moved in with them by this time) but because we didn't have a diary of specific events and their mum had told them that if they said anything bad about the boyfriend they would be put into foster care, the kids were too scared to tell SS the truth and then their mum stopped us having any contact at all for months.

As long as your son is not in any actual danger could you start keeping a diary of what he tells you, give it say a month and then ask your ex to come to your house and sit down just you, him and your son and get your son to talk to his dad about the things in the diary with you there to support him. Having the diary will help your son jog his memory after a month and if your ex refuses to admit there's a problem you have evidence to go to social services with.

It sounds like your ex and son a very close so you won't want to stop contact, and from being on the side of a OH who has had contact with his kids stopped I am completely against it for petty reasons but if your son is at risk from this woman you have to put him first and so does your ex.

working

she has shouted, swore and pushed me in front of my son bruising my arms (I am sorry to say I didn't report this to the police at the time thinking it was the peak of her frustrations and I would not have to have contact with her again), my son quite often says she has said mean things about me (a coward, liar, loser etc), she has sent abusive messages on facebook to myself and now my partner (I blocked her long ago) and she would park her car near our house in the mornings.

You had two opportunities for collecting evidence there? Did you show you ex a copy of the FB abuse? If not, why not?

shellsuit

Why don't you ask your ex to meet you and your son somewhere (just the 3 of you) so you can ask your son about those situations with nobody else there.

Surely your ex can't ignore him if she's not there breathing down his neck??

His OH can't get annoyed with that, as your OH wouldn't be there either.




I had my ex's GF slag me off in front of our 2 children years ago. Ex didn't have a problem with it.

I told him I did and the kids did (they were upset) and that if it happened again, the kids wouldn't be going to stay with them.

If I thought one of my children were being upset by someone, I wouldn't allow them to go there unless the matter was sorted.