Do I message my ex husbands new girlfriend or not

fluffnutter

Mumoffourkids wrote: »

Hi, I have a dilemma. Myself and my ex husband split last year and although it wasn't a shock to us I think it was to the kids. My 12 year old daughter was ok at first but it seems to be affecting her more than the other kids.


My ex has had a new girlfriend since just before Christmas and she met the kids at the beginning of January. Ever since then my relationship with my daughter seems to have gone downhill rapidly. This could be a coincidence though which is why I have a dilemma.


Whilst I am happy that my daughter seems to be getting on with my ex husbands girlfriend, I think the girlfriend is coming on a bit strong and my daughter seems to prefer her to me. I get all the strops, attitude and rudeness whereas she gets all the nice bits.


I think the girlfriend isn't helping with me trying to rebuild my relationship with my daughter. I have been known to get very stressed and fly off the handle and I know this isn't right, so I am trying to control my temper.


I spoke to a couple of my friends and they say I should message the girlfriend and tell her to back off a little bit but I have a feeling this will make things worse.


What should I do?

Oh dear, OP. Who's the grown up here? She's your daughter, nothing will change that. This sounds like something 10 year old girls say to each other in the playground.

I don't doubt it's difficult but you know what? This isn't about your daughter, this is about your jealousy of a new relationship that's important to people you care about. You're afraid of being usurped, but that's about YOU, not your daughter. Don't lumber her with your insecurities. It's selfish, it's childish and it's counter-productive.

You should be doing everything you can to encourage a good relationship between your daughter and your ex's girlfriend because that's what will make your daughter happy. Do you want a miserable child? Bear in mind, also, her age. She should be branching out, she's nearly a teenager. She'd probably be rejecting you anyway, with or without new relationships in her life; it's normal.

You acknowledge you have a temper, get stressed easily and fly off the handle yet rather than accept that these may be factors in your difficult relationship with your daughter, you blame someone else! Someone who's just trying to be kind and build a friendship in difficult circumstances. I would love to be more sympathetic - I appreciate that these are difficult times but really, you must realise how you come across?

Your friends gave you terrible advice, borne of nothing but spite, pettiness and jealousy. I wouldn't listen to them again.

tea_lover

This might be the worst advice from 'friends' I've ever heard of.

tyllwyd

I think you have to turn it around and look at it the other way - your daughter's world has been turned upside down and she's at an age when she's likely to find life difficult. You are her mum, so you are the person she's familiar with, the person she trusts not to disappear off no matter what, so you are the person she feels safe enough to be bad tempered and moody with. You need to weather the storm, don't put up with bad behaviour but equally don't take out your problems on her. Is there anything that you enjoy doing together - listening to a particular radio show, watching tv or a film - anything you can do that you can laugh together and have fun helps get past the teenage strops.

SandC

There will be a novelty factor with the new GF which will calm down in time, meanwhile she's doing no harm - how would you feel if she was demanding your ex spend time with her and not his children?

As others have said, focus on yourself and your relationship with your kids. Find some other friends and socialise with them, not whinge about what your ex is doing, start living your own new life for you and your family.

Jagraf

Very often when parents split they think every behaviour of the child is to do with the break up, when very often its just normal growing pains.

When you split you have so much well intended advice on what you should and shouldn't do, it's as though because its gone wrong everyone is entitled to tell you how to rear your kids.

To me based on what you say, she's 12. A nightmare age in my experience. Children sometimes are just interested in their own lives, own friends, and not really that interested in their parents (in the same way as those from a home with both mum and dad in it).

There are well and I'll intentioned step parents, just like anyone else. I dont even text my DD stepmother, even after 14 years :eek:. I never criticise nor thank her for her actions, its up to my ex and her how to sort out their relationship with DD. I certainly wouldn't want my ex texting my husband.

Just concentrate on your relationship with your daughter. The relationship with the stepmom may or may not be a great one, but yours needs to be stable.

clarryd

Do not contact the ex's GF, she has nothing to do with this, she is just being as nice as she can because she wants her BF's children to like her as this makes life easier for her.

If you have a problem with your daughter speak to her, ask her what the problem is. She is 12 things are changing in her body. she is nearly a teenager and it may be nothing more than stroppy teenager syndrome.
I think mostly all children go through that period in their lives when they are not a child any more but not quite a young adult.

snowleopard61

"You would need to be a saint not to want to lash out. You get four kids and he gets a new girlfriend, whom your daughter adores?

Unfortunately, a saint is what you need to be. Kids are button-pushing experts, and can be curiously insensitive to how much stress you must be under.

Good luck."


and


"she's at an age when she's likely to find life difficult. You are her mum, so you are the person she's familiar with, the person she trusts not to disappear off no matter what, so you are the person she feels safe enough to be bad tempered and moody with."


Apologies for not knowing how to multi-quote properly - but I very much agree with both these quotes. I remember fearing that my children, then aged 9 and 11, would find their new stepmother much more fun - she's flamboyant and volatile and, well, just completely different from me. They're in their twenties now, and are quite fond of her (they tend to find her comical more than anything else, because she says and does things that none of us would dream of doing), but there has never been any question of their feeling closer to her than to me. They have a much younger half-sibling whom they love to bits, and on the whole I think their lives have been enriched by their stepmother's being part of it, but as it's turned out I don't feel in any way supplanted by her.


Don't text the new girlfriend - be nice to her instead and be patient with your daughter. She'll come to realise you only get one mum.

Jagraf

Snowleopard61, what excellent realistic advice.

It is very easy for people to say, correctly so, that she has a right to develop a relationship with stepmom, but to the biological mum (or dad) they are strangers and we are putting our precious children in the hands of someone we don't know, hoping that our exes, who we don't necessarily see eye to eye with, have made a good decision. Not something that would normally happen with none break up parents.

That's why it's best to keep a distance. My DD was only 3 but I don't think I ever criticised or even made a comment.

bouicca21

I think tyllwyd is spot on. Kids play up when they feel safe, so take the difficult behaviour on the chin. It's a sort of compliment. The time to worry is when the bad behaviour is at school and not at home.

Tropez

Sure, it's a great idea to do it if you want to look like a jealous bunny boiler who isn't over your ex-husband.

See, that's what your message will be taken as. It won't be taken as having anything to do with your daughter. Both the new girlfriend and your ex-husband (because she'll tell him, you know?) will see it as you unable to move on and trying to drive a wedge in his future relationships and if you word it just right, it might also come off as threatening ("back off" is one of those ambiguous phrases).

And if you did do something to hurt his relationship by coming across as an angry nut, you couldn't really blame the guy if he told your daughter what you'd done. I mean, you'd hope he wouldn't because he probably want you and your daughter to have a good relationship, but sadly when people are angry they don't tend to think straight, which I assume is why you thought messaging this new girlfriend of his was a good idea, right?