We often talk about stepmoms overdoing it and needing to step back from all their responsibilities; needing to take a break from taking care of everything and everyone.
But sometimes it’s not the stepchildren they need to back off from.
Sometimes it’s the ex-wife.
Stepmoms usually start out innocently communicating with mom around things like schedules and logistics. If that goes well, she starts thinking “Great, mom is receptive to me. She’s accepting of me.”
She then takes mom’s receptiveness as an invitation to move into position and start taking the reigns around other aspects of co-parenting.
She also starts to think she can heal the relationship between her husband and his ex. Oops…
What starts out with good intentions on the stepmom’s part, often turns into an ugly power struggle or war between mom and stepmom.
Before she knows it, she’s crossed a boundary she couldn’t see and mom is up in arms accusing her of overstepping and trying to take over. (Cue the barrage of nasty text messages from mom)
The stepmom is often an easy scapegoat. We’re the new kid on the block (even if we’ve been around for years). And it’s so much easier to point the finger at someone else and tell them what they’re doing wrong, than trying to see how their presence could benefit the family and wanting to find solutions.
Stepmoms, when you start getting frustrated about this, remember these four words: YOU CAN’T FIX IT.
It was broken long before you showed up. And as much as you might love your husband and want to make things better for him, you can only do that in your household. When it comes to his ex, it’s HIS job to handle her.
There are some moms who do communicate better with their child’s stepmom and choose to deal with her rather than her ex. For those of you who can make that work, I commend you!
But for all the others…
Your husband has a choice. He either chooses to lay down some ground rules with her or he chooses to continue letting the dynamic be as it is.
Either way it’s his choice.
So what do you get for “getting out of the way”? You get to improve your marriage. What your husband wants is to feel supported by you. By letting him deal with his ex and NOT harassing him about his decisions, or hers, you allow the space to simply support him.
And you get to go about your business focusing on all the things that bring you joy, knowing that whatever stress she brings, you’re more protected from it than you would be if you were right in the line of fire.
This will be a challenge for those of you who define yourselves as control freaks. You might feel like bursting at the seam every time something happens, but eventually you learn to enjoy not having the pressure of needing to know every gory detail of the interaction.
And you might need to fake it ’till you make it. Put notes around the house reminding you to bite your tongue.
Your husband is a big boy, let him handle things in his own way (which I guarantee will be different than the way YOU would handle them).
If it’s something that affects you, then have that conversation with him. Otherwise, learn to let go.
You’re making room for more peace in your life and at the same time showing your husband “ I trust you, I believe in you.” And more than anything, that’s what our husbands want to feel from us.
So stepmoms, do your best to remove yourself from fights that aren’t yours.
Your marriage will thank you for it!
© 2012 Jenna Korf All Rights Reserved
(Photo credit: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot)
Bravo! I stepped in this pile of crap years ago, and learned this lesson the hard way. It’s taken years to repair the damage of being helpful! Also, for some reason in my case it’s the opposite for the stepfather. The more involved he gets the better things work out (and the more marginalized I get, my husband gets, and the worse the exwife looks). Hope you can save others!
Thanks for the comment, Lara. Most of us learn this lesson the hard way.
Jm, that’s great if you can diffuse the situation and not get pulled into the drama yourself. I think that’s where most women have difficulties. Sounds like your family has found a way to make it work!
It’s the opposite for me. My husband seeks out my assistance. He is at a loss with how to deal with BM. I often defuse the situation, as over the years of bad treatment he is quick to get upset. I would say it is more of a mentoring role I play. He is feeling more confident now, but it sometimes slips.
Same here… My husband gets frustrated and needs someone to talk to and find out what he could possibly do…
“YOU CAN’T FIX IT” – no should she try.
The step-parent dynamic is precarious to say the least. Especially for the step mom. Primarily due to the sensitivity that the ex wife feels regardless of her personal relationship status. Her insecurity is blamed squarely on the step mom and directed towards the father…which impacts the step mom and her marriage.
It’s a very fine balance between being involved and going too far and that looks different depending on the couples involved.
It’s been my experience that lines of communication need to be clearly defined and understood. Egos are like kindle and tempers far too quick to ignite and miscommunication is a ready-made match.
You’re right Kyle, each couple is different and needs to find what they’re comfortable with.
our situation is sort of a lost cause all around. basically, BM is only happy if we are doing what she wants, when she wants it. if my husband says no, she flips out. if i try to do or say ANYTHING related to my stepdaughter, she flips out. she has said multiple times now that she will not discuss anything related to *her* daughter with me, yet when her fiance contacts us to make arrangements for schedules and such we are expected to work with him. if i think about it too much i get frustrated, so i try to just ignore it…
Amichelle, you’d be surprised how common that is; that you guys just can’t win. It’s important to have healthy boundaries around her and make a sort of bubble so she doesn’t invade your marriage. Thanks for commenting
This honestly blows me away. Ive been with my husband for 4 years and I have 2 step daughters and 3 of my own. The BM is always texting him trashing my name. Its so annoying but I have learned to stay out of it. I myself have an ex husband which is remarried and I never would treat her with so much disrespect.
Jenna, I agree with so much of this including the fact that I definitely tried to fix TM and DH, with all my social work and communications and human resources and mediation training. I finally realized it wasn’t my place!!!!
That said, I have developed a nice, separate relationship with TM and we collaborate on behalf of her kid. And I get along great with my son’s stepmom as well; by agreement with my ex, SM and I have often coordinated logistics for holidays because we could do so with less emotion.
Jenna, I could be way off base here but I believe that some stepmoms become over-involved in the TM relationship because they want to monitor their husband’s interactions with her (or hers with them). In other words, a little bit of jealousy and insecurity going on. Just a theory.
Hi Krista, I love that you found a way to make it work with your counterpart. That means that she was also willing to be open and adjust as necessary.
I wish that could be the case more often than it is.
As far as jealousy and insecurity being the driving force, I agree that in some cases that plays a part, but I would venture to say those cases are in the minority, at least from I’ve seen. I think that more often stepmoms innocently and perhaps ignorantly (with the best of intentions) think they can fix something that isn’t theirs to fix. Thanks for reading and contributing!
I can relate to “becom(ing) over-involved in the TM relationship because they want to monitor their husband’s interactions with her (or hers with them)”. This fits me to a tee. But I believe I know why.
You see, my DH is a strong man and is also a smart man, but he spent 14 years with his ex and she is a master manipulator. It’s her way or… well, there is no other option. It’s always her way. She was my DH’s first relationship and he gave everything he had to it, and she took everything she could from him. But he got so tired of trying to assert his opinions and thoughts into a situation in which compromise was never allowed, that he just got used to letting her run everything.
Well, that was okay when they were married, and even after they divorced. But now that we are married, she has tried to run our household and that doesn’t work for me, my DH or our five kids (his two and my three). So I feel like I need to protect my family from her trying to control everything. My husband will stand up to her and I do trust him. But she is soooo good at twisting EVERYTHING and manipulating, that it wears him out. She does not know how to step back and see anyone else’s side if it is different than her own.
I don’t have contact with her after she verbally attacked me on my property and came beating on my front door last summer. Yet she still says horrible things about me to my DH. She tries her best to drive a wedge between us, to include trying to get him to keep secrets from me (which he has told her he refuses to do).
I wish she would just stop being so narcissistic and actually think about the kids. All her trash talking and lies about my DH and me are going to end up being exposed to the kids and SHE will have to face the consequences of destroying the relationship with the kids, much like she did with her marriage.
But until then (which I doubt will ever happen), I have to figure out how to deal with the stress and craziness she brings in with her antics.
I can totally understand what you are talking about!
I am entering a marriage with a wonderful man. We have 3 children between us. He has a daughter & son and I have a 3 year old daughter. My Husband’s ex wife tries to fill the kids’ head with alot of foulness. Sometimes I feel like maybe I am competing secretly with the almost 13-year-old for time with her father, because as I know we cannot see them often, I want to spend time with my step children too. I’m so terrified of the day that she starts the “playing parents against one another game,” because I’m really laid back & I have my dignity, so I would never bad mouth the BM in front of the children. However, the children admit that the BM talks ill of us and it really upsets me. She has gone as far as to bash me verbally on a social network & disrespect my husband. I defended him & was told “mind your own F—ing business, you poor stupid girl.” My husband was married to this woman for 12 years & she is hateful, money hungry & spiteful. He almost hates* her to the point he will not speak to her if he doesn’t have to. She is remarried and puts her non working lazy husband on a pedestal and the kids live in a messy home in which they share a 2 bedroom duplex, and they take turns sleeping on a couch in the livingroom because noone “has time” to put their beds together.. I tried to call & get their clothing sizes so I could do Christmas shopping last year, and got my husband chewed out for it. I was just trying to be good to these kids because I love them like I love my own child. She completely avoids me whenever possible, and my husband tells me everything she says or does that is ugly, because he wants me fully involved not only in our lives at home, but the kids’ lives as well, because he loves his children of course. Sometimes I dread going to get them because I have to hear all about the BM but I smile & keep quiet or my husband changes the subject. I’d love to be on a level plane with this woman but I fear it’s never going to get better.
This is exactly what’s going on with us. I’ve been with my boyfriend for over 4 years now. I don’t have any children, and he has a 10 years old son. I love my stepson very much and I do anything to help him and his dad. If I be to nice, the ex bashes me out and turns everything upside down. She has called my cel phone often after I pick up her son at school (I picked him up almost every friday, since he doesn’t see his dad in the week) just to say hi and ask how his day went, which I’m fine with that. But last week, I picked him up, and she wasn’t notified of it, she was expecting him to be back at her place…there was a misunderstanding between the boy and his dad). Anyways, the boy never told me I wasn’t suppose to pick him up…then she calls my cel over 45 mins after he was supposed to be at her place, telling me she had no clue where he was and that he was missing, and that she almost called the cops to find his son. But, she never called me before to ask if I picked him up! And she never called his grandma either that lives 2 minutes from the school. She kind of knew I picked him up, but she just wanted everything to look really bad on us! She bashed me on the phone, and told me I was never to pick him up again (even though I had nothing to do with the misunderstanding). She left 2 nasty messages at our home, swearing and telling us she’s f..ing tired of this bullshit and that its going to stop! But really, this is the first time it happens. She has no other reason besides jealousy to tell us that I’m never to pick him up. Jealousy took over her and she hates my guts! But all this time, her son loves me. I have a really hard time do deal with that stress…
Hi Josee, as I’m sure you know, her response isn’t really about you, it’s about her. There’s likely nothing you can do to help the situation, so as the article says, best to stay away from her and let your husband handle it. At 10 years old, can’t your stepson call her or can’t *he* pick up the phone when she calls for him? If I were you, I wouldn’t be communicating with her. I’d be keeping my distance.
Ding, ding, ding! After 10 years of marriage and 12 of being together, I’m finally starting to see the light on this issue. Your post is excellent and just what I needed to hear. Thanks!
This is fine if the bio-mom has custody, which seems to be the assumption. What if the stepkids live with the stepmom and her husband? And what if in that dynamic, the bio-mom is nearly uninvolved and provides no contributions? How does this advice help the stepmom in that particular situation?
Jamie, if the mom isn’t in the picture, then this article isn’t really relevant because mom isn’t there for the stepmom to avoid. This article refers to situations where mom IS present and the relationship is contentious.
My situation is like “jamie’s” we had custody of my step son but the BM was always dictating what we do, controlling our house. Yet she paid no CS nor provided any other financial support. Somehow this summer she has manipulated stepson to move back with her and now the stepson is telling her lies about me, DH and even DH father (a preacher). My DH has yet to stand up to her about anything. in fact stepson even traded in a Christmas present BM bought him and now he want dad to go buy it back because mom doesnt know he he traded it.
This has cause so much stress on me and continuous arguement btw me and DH.
This is an area that is really tricky in our situation. Five years ago, BM would contact me regularly, mostly to yell and rant and rave–DH believes that she has been diagnosed as borderline and/or narcissistic personality disordered (based on info from her current boyfriend, who is in touch with DH). On the one hand, that was really hard and I set some pretty firm boundaries with her (I am happy to talk with you as long as you are willing to not yell at me and to not call me names or say insulting things, because I want to keep my heart open to you), so she stopped calling. On the other hand, by the end of the conversation I could usually help diffuse the hatred and intensity–we had a pretty good rapport.
I did not try to deal with any planning or logistics at that time; the contact was always initiated by her. Now, I have very little contact with her. We recently went through a custody evaluation, and one of the things the evaluator recommended be required is a form of coparenting counseling where I would be present….this did not go well, but it is now over.
So my present plan is to have as little contact with mom as possible.
The issue for me comes up as two difficult things with DH. First, he is a really scattered planner. So he will make agreements with his ex without really looking at his calendar, and will make plans with me without looking at his parenting plan. As a result, I have come to be a bit more overbearing with him, asking to be cc’d on emails to his ex or to review them before he sends them. I would love to be out of the loop, but because the past effects were having to cancel OUR vacations last minute, or having to cancel my meetings or work stuff, I would rather deal with looking at planning emails than deal with radical last minute changes.
Second, he has a hard time sticking to boundaries. BM goes through periods where she regularly leaves abusive and angry messages on our machine, or more typically calls dozens of times until one of the kids picks up, then demands to talk to DH, and yells and rages to him, sometimes for hours at a time, calling back if he hangs up. Very overwhelming. Last year, DH decided to communicate only in written communication, and that worked much better; this is included as the form of communication in their parenting plan. But recent co-parenting counselors tried hard to get there to be more phone calls, which has resulted in BM calling much more often, and again with rage and anger (and not at all goal oriented).
So here is where I come into the picture. I am not directly involved in these communications, but we live in a small house and hearing DH on the phone for an hour and hearing her yelling on the other end of the line, or dealing with his being really sad and upset after the calls (not to mention the specific threats she issues and both of our concern about how that may impact us) is REALLY STRESSFUL.
I have addressed that by talking with dH about my needs and his, and making agreements that work for him…right now, it is that we do not pick up the phone when she calls. This is not a normal step-parenting situation, and I really believe in DH and his ex having the best relationship they can–I am not threatened by BM being in our lives (except to the degree that she is ACTUALLY threatening me, like saying she will kill me), and even with her instability, I think it is important for the kids to get to communicate with her when they want, while they are with us, etc. I am not jealous about her at all, do not want to be a mom, am more of a worker and community oriented person than home oriented, so I am not really into being the dominant female here. So it feels bad to me to not want the mom of my step kids calling our home regularly, but I also really do not want to listen to rage and anger and blame as a regular part of my life. It feels painful, makes it easy for me to do the same. We live in a rural area, so using his personal cell phone is not really an option, due to bad reception.
So I am often torn between wanting to create some buffer between how this woman impacts me, or the impact on DH of interacting with her and the effects on his actions and feelings, and my desire to not be involved in or controlling DH’s relationship with her. I chose to stop attending co-parenting counseling sessions that the court suggested (custody evaluator’s recommendation) I attend, because it is totally overwhelming for me to listen to her anger and rage and blame for more than an hour at a time. And I am a person with pretty high tolerance for listening to intense feelings of others. But hearing her often makes it harder for me to say to my 8 year old SD when she misses mommy, “Of course you miss mommy. You love your mommy and she loves you. Do you want to draw her a picture?” It makes it harder for me to celebrate the kids’ love for their mom and the harder to feel the gratitude I do have for the fact that the kids have a mom, that I do not need to be one, and that the kids feel mostly loved by their mom.
So I have come to being willing to sit down with DH and ask him what he thinks, etc., but really suggesting boundaries like not picking up a call. I know it is his relationship with her, but the effect of talking to her is that he is absent when the kids are here for an hour or more, and that when he returns he is really upset, insecure, and has a really hard time for hours. She does things like threaten to call CPS about made up stuff, threaten to kill us, and most impactful are her efforts to push dH’s buttons and paint him as a terrible father and someone who is unlovable and who the kids hate. That is the real impact of talking to her–that there is a little part of him that starts to believe that his kids hate him. That really affects his parenting.
On one hand, it is his choice to be involved in that kind of communication. On the other hand, I want to be a stepmom, not a primary parent. I want to live in a home where people rarely yell, and where we express love and not primarily hate and fear. These things are really important to me, and when BM calls in a terrible rage, it affects all of us. So is it legit to make the request that DH not pick up the phone? He agrees this is a good idea. I think he just has a hard time dealing with the exceptions–SD12 handing him the phone, etc.
For those of you with “normal” moms, I am sure this seems really extreme–when I started down this road 5 years ago, I was absolutely confident that I could be fine with whatever DH’s and his ex’s relationship looked like. I just had no idea the level of persecution and distortion that she would employ. And I did not know that it would not stop. I assumed that she would “get over him” and the anger would die down, but it has ramped up. I work with some pretty crazy people–have volunteered in homeless shelters, worked with mentally ill people, so usually I have no problem dealing with someone who has different ways of communicating, and am not easily offended or territorial. But this past 5 years, I have felt under siege, and am finding that my tolerance for the drama has waned. The result is that I am asking DH to have boundaries and to stick to them. Ethically, I believe that is his job; but practically, my stress level has gone through the roof, and I need more peace. And the reality is that I do not want to have to leave my husband and stepkids to get it.
This is a fairly intense first post! Just to get the rest of the picture, I should say that DH is really the love of my life, a great friend and lover and husband for me. So I really do not want to leave him ever. The kids are great, too, and I am lucky to enjoy two very different but equally wonderful relationships with each of them. So there is lots that is great, and no real clear way to protect myself from the really painful and hard stuff. I am 43, and have had a number of long-term relationships that just did not feel quite right, and now am so glad I waited to marry such a great man! So I am conscious of how valuable this relationship and family are to me. The hard part about being a step-parent is that the only real power I have is to leave when it is too much; there is little power I have to work things out along the way.
Ditto everything Erin says. I felt lke her post was written by me. Every paragraph in her post I can relate to 100%. I thought that over time things would get better but in reality, it’s gotten worse. If only the BM knew how her actions will ultimately affect the kids………
I think Erin brings up a really good point. There comes a time when it really is up to your husband to create healthy boundaries that protect the rest of his family. Usually some big event has to occur for them to come to this conclusion on their own. They can’t be forced into it. Luckily, in my experience, I’ve seen that most men do eventually get there!
I have nearly the exact same experiences as you describe. I agree with you that you sometimes just want to turn and run. Sometimes I feel like the only relief I can get with my anxiety is to leave, and walk away from all of it. But my husband and I are on our second marriage each and don’t believe in divorce and I could never leave my kids. I don’t like to call them my step kids, they are my kids! But my stress level and anxiety are through the roof from dealing with the raging ha’re filled ex-wife that lives to make trouble. I understand you.
I feel your pain… I have the same situation, and it sucks. She threatens to send me to jail for things that I didn’t even do, we haven’t seen the kids in over 2 years. But in the end, in her eyes, we’re the bad ones. Always have been, always will be.
I am married to a wonderful man. We have custody of his son, because the son’s mom is schizophrenic. She constantly attacks me verbally and tried to physically (that is why we have him now). She constantly tries to run our home, she calls whenever she wants and if we dont answer she continues to call. My husband kind of takes up for her because of her illness, but I find that it is driving a wedge between us. I try really hard to put up with her because of my stepson, but when she gets away with so much, it is hard. I sometimes want to ask my husband if he would rather be with her. But, deep down I know he got out of that relationship because she was literally crazy. How do I deal with her? Even when I am not directly involved, her calling all hours of the day and night, affects me.
I made the mistake of listening to my partner’s long list of grievance about his ex for the first couple years of our relationship. Now he’s unburdened and moving past it, and I’m left hating her. Even now, if he makes sideways comments about her after a phone call or in-person interaction when they exchange their kids, I can hardly stand to hear about her. If I could go back in time, I would have established boundaries in this area long ago and told him, “I think it is better for me and for us if I don’t know all the dirty details about your ex and how she wronged you. We don’t need a third person in this partnership.”
I’m on the other end. I’m the birth mom. I came here by searching for ways to work with my children’s step mom. My ex and I had a good relationship and problems were always easily resolved without friction. In fact, while they dated and lived together for a year, no problems. The MINUTE they got married everything changed. She turned on the kids and me. We share joint custody. She began to demand any communication about the kids be between her and I. I put my foot down and said no. Now, he wont even respond to my communication for days on end and many times not at all. I don’t know what to do. I have offered to have lunch with her and discuss issues between us (she’s the other woman, turned wife). I have offered the four adult have parenting counseling together. Nothing. I am at a loss. I don’t know how to joint parent when they refuse to participate. I have tried so hard to be nice, yet I am the one constantly being attacked. I so commend those of you who have shown grace and respect to the mothers. I am so sorry they have treated you the way you all have stated. Our divorce was amicable. We did so well in the beginning and I really felt like things would be hunky dory. I don’t even know what to do anymore. It’s getting very hard not to take the attacks personally. My counselor says to just ignore her comments and such. Which I do, but we still all have to work together. Our kids share equal time at both houses. My son was recently diagnosed with ADD and now we have to come to a decision on how to proceed with his treatment. I’m really nervous about it because it just seems that she does things to try to bother me. How do I handle this?
Hi Emily, that sounds like an extremely frustrating situation. I have heard this before, where the stepmom insists communication occur between her and mom. Legally, she can’t do that. She has no legal rights over her stepchild and you have no legal requirement to co-parent with her. She can’t force you to do that. So, my advice to you is to seek legal council to find out your options. If dad is refusing contact with you, that’s probably in violation of the custody agreement. Although legal action is expensive and nasty, it may be your only option. I hope you get this resolved.
Hi Emily.
Much the same circumstances for me as well. The good news was using a mediator who advised my exhusband that communication should only be between me and him. Seriously recommend getting a third party involved to try and settle things down.
Cheers, sonja
I have learned so much from reading these – thank you. But I need to tell you what it feels like to be the “ex wife”. I have called him and cried, and yelled, and called her names. Why ? 14 months ago my husband walked in and stated that my age and appearence were not what he wanted, that he was leaving me for a younger woman. He walked out and moved in with her the next day. She went around town telling people that I am crazy – and mean, and abusive, and was unable to satisfy my husband. In a small town this is horrid. My daughter lives there half time and is happy in both places. For Christmas, he gave her a big diamond ring. He has never bothered to divorce me. The two of them just pretend that I don’t exist, and when she sees me downtown she makes disgusted noises and sticks her nose in the air.
I am sure that she would write a letter here saying the same as you – that his “ex” wife calls and yells or cries and it upsets him. That I am crazy or a bad person. Because it does upset him – he feels bad for having destroyed me, and wants to at least talk to me when I am so overwhelmed with pain I can’t stand it. But I wish that you could see how much it hurts to have another woman do everything in her power to destroy your life – taking your husband, children, and then say that you are crazy because you feel devastated my her actions.
Try to have some compassion – write her a note saying that you respect her, and that you see what am amazing Mom she was through her children. Tell her that you will do your best to be just as good to them when they are in your home. She’s not crazy. She has just had her life destroyed by the man she loved and trusted – and if you came along while she was still married to him, then you played a part in her destruction as well. Have some compassion.
My parents divorced when I was 10. My dad wasn’t a very nice person to my mom or to us kids. He remarried my “step-mom.” Though his verbal abuse continued with her, she has been dumb enough all of these years to put up with it, but that what her choice. When I was 19, I married a man who had a young daughter. I became the “step-moM” He did nothing but downgrade the child’s mother, tried to buck paying child support, even at times would say “I am not sure she is even my kid!” He would call her lazy and vengeful and some pretty awful things. In my naivete, I believed and hung on his every word. Then, in about 10 years, we separate. Ha! Go figure! He was cheating and got a woman pregnant. By then I had realized how much of a cad he was and deliberately sought out my step daughter’s mother to apologize for my role in making her life miserable when she was already devastated. I just had no idea he was lying about her (even though my own father lied about my mom like that). Fast forward another 6 years, I marry a childless man (but I question that now) and we had two children. He turned out to be extremely manipulative and abusive but it didn’t show untill the 2nd pregnancy when it turned violent. I left him with two small babies still in diapers. He then went on to marry a female minister….she hangs on his every word. I am supposedly this and I am supposedly that when nothing could be further from the truth. The poor thing believes him! I can relate. I can’t hold it against her because she is just naive and I think she is thrilled that someone 13 years younger than her married her. I have been on all three side of this equation and the bitter pill I have had to swallow is that being the BM is by far, the most painful thing I have even been through in my life. It rips me apart every day that my children have to be raised in a broken home and it’s incredulous to me how as a mother, I am jsut expected to be “okay” with my child being court ordered to go to someone’s house that I fear. Even animal moms are treated better.
My husband’s ex wife is really something else. I can’t even put my name here, because she internet stalks me….I made a lot of these mistakes. The ex and I used to get together once a month to go over schedules and discuss anything school things, or new rules, trying to keep consistent from once house to the other. It worked really well for a few years and then I began getting concerned that she was becoming too involved in our lives. What started out as offering a cup of coffee when she would drop off or pick up my step daughter would turn into her staying for several hours to chat. Then offering to babysit my husband and my two children. These things were little things that I found odd behavior but it didn’t upset me. My husband works in the travel field, and occasionally takes my step daughter on short trips with him. I got a big red flag when she asked to go with he and my step daughter on one of these trips. I felt like I needed to make it very clear that while I was please we all got along, and were united in our endeavors to raise a girl into a lovely adult, we needed to have some boundaries, and I was not OK with this. Since she couldn’t get a free vacation with my husband she began excluding me from school functions, saying it was inappropriate for me to attend Parent’s Night’s or school programs because I was not the biological mother. (Even though I help her with a lot of her school projects, and home work, pick her up and take her to school, and help her practice her musical instruments) She and my husband needed to go alone together to show our daughter they are still united when it comes to her. I’m all for unity and I’m not trying to take over her role as a parent, and I’m perfectly willing to back off if she is feeling uncomfortable with my relationship with our daughter, but not when she is clearly trying to get closer to me to get closer with my husband. When the system began to fall apart, she had my husband over for a meeting and explained to him that she felt it was important that they still appear as a MARRIED COUPLE when it came to their daughters schooling. She wanted him to attend all school functions with her and said she was prepared to go to court to make sure I didn’t go to any of her concerts and parents night. When my husband told her no, she began to cry, and blame me for her being alone! (I met my husband almost two years after they split!) Now we rarely see my step daughter, I feel like she is the one really losing here, I feel uncomfortable around my in laws because I don’t know if they blame me for them not being able to see her much anymore, and I’m left feeling like it’s all my fault but don’t know what I could have done to stop it! How do I back off from the ex wife without backing off from my step daughter, and if I have to back off from my step daughter, how do I assure her that I love her even if we don’t spend time together anymore?
What you did wrong is you put too much on your step daughter. I’ve been trying to avoid putting too much feeling on them. Remind myself: never be a free baby sitter! The blood is something hard to be replaced. No matter how crazy the mom is!
Hello,
After searching for a site I could relate to, here it is. I thank you.
After reading, I must say, that I almost feel the reserse. For years, I bit my tongue, I did not get involved in argument not scheduling of my stepdaughters. We had a system to share all of our schedules and we would do our parenting for all of our children, without the ex’s input into how we ran our family. In the past 3 years, my husband has basically become unemployed due to the lack of his ex helping the girls schedules, to the point he became a stay-at-home Dad for all of us. The unfortunate part to this, is that she would take advantage of this, to the point that my husband and I no longer have time to spend alone let alone with friends, as she would say that she wants her own time, which she has always had more than we ever have had. Her CLH takes her travelling more than anyone I know, and of course without the children. There has always been fights, struggles in her family amongst her and her daughters, about many things, I could go into detail, how I feel that it is just the way that they were taught tihngs by Mom, but I won’t go down that road, we all parent in our different ways. Recently, my husband chose to take his ex back to family court, after she told us that she wanted us to have the girls half of the time, (which we have the youngest 95% of the time anyhow), and we noticed that with the increases in living expenses, we no longer could afford to be paying the child supports my husband had been paying her, even when being primarliy unemployed, so the other factor in the court hearings, was to reevaluate the child support based on his current income, which in fact would be something, as we were told, that if the custody agreement was split, there was not payments to be provided to either parent, however, we were willing to still provide just not to the extent we do currently. My husband and his ex chose to talk, to come to an agreement before heading to court, she pulled out her expenses and began to cry asking why he is doing this to her, which made me so angry. My husband not only drives to her home to get the girls ready for school, to school but we also prepare their lunches at home for them. His ex doesn’t have to do anything but get ready to go to work, which I might add is a p/t job, which she could apply for f/t and help not only herself out but everyone else in this situation. Her CLH is more than capable of supporting her currenlty but she refuses to have him pay for certain things, instead she wants my husband to. The hard part, was my husband fell for her crying and put the court on hold, as she requested, so that she could get her affairs in order, as my husband left their meeting very upset and said that the Judge can then figure this out…a few days later, her lawyer contacted my husband.
I am doing my best to not get too involved, but as much as this is their fight, this includes me and our family.
In the past, we would be friendly and do family dinners together, if nothing more than the kids, at one point it did feel almost like a friend type bond but at an arms length.
Now I do not want to have her in my home, as I feel she is being unreasonable. She has no idea how difficult this can be on everyone.
I do not want to go to my husband just yet to ask how things are coming along, I would like to give some breathing room, as I support him going through this.
However, I will not brush this off like it is just the way things are, I find it too uncomfortable to see her dressed all up and being able to get her nails etc. done while I cringe at the thought of buying the one pair of shoes I would love to have for the summer.
What can I do? How can I get through this, without putting more pressure on my husband and the situation?
Sorry for any grammatical errors in my previous post.
I would like to just add, that even when my husband’s ex does decides she can take the girls to school etc., my husband will get the calls, that they do not have lunch and have to go and deal with this anyhow, and when he gets mad at her, she barks back. We tend to put our children ahead and take the time we can together, where as his ex, for the most part of what you would see, she does the opposite.
I have found that after 10 years of anger and jealously I decided that i was tired of feeling that way all the time when I knew I had to be around her. So I contacted her and apologized for all the negative things I had said and done in the past and and she and I quickly became friends. It’s been almost a year and we are more like sisters now we have slumber parties with the kids and hang out together. I am very glad i let go of the negativity and learned she is not the person she once was and she is a really wonderful person that i have come to love.