Met a pretty wonderful guy and married him. He had a son. I had a daughter. Both from previous marriages. We don't have kids together. We do have custody of both kids and dh has full legal and physical custody of his son.

I have not been in court with my ex in 7 years. We have a pretty normal divorce. My dh can not say the same about him and his ex. They have been in court every year since they split.

They split because she had multiple affairs and was a raging alcoholic. She used to claim it was my dh who had the affairs and is an alcoholic, but that's changed. Now she say they both did it but she's in recovery where dh continues to be an active alcoholic. Of all the things she has said and done over the years, that's pretty mild.

I don't believe she loves the kid the same way other moms do. It's as if he is a trophy to her and she desperately needs to have the trophy in her possession. The minute it looks like she'll have more time with the trophy she shoots herself in the foot. Forever the victim. Nothing is ever her fault. She can't admit to the smallest of errors.

We're guessing she is either borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder or a combination. Needless to say, she's a toxic person. She sucks people in by being over the top nice to them. At some point these folks wise up and move on, especially when she is looking for a payback for her niceness. To most she appears meek, scared ... a shrinking violet (she even rolls her shoulders forward and curl into to herself to appear weak. Sometimes stutters for effect. I've seen her do it). To us, she mean, nasty, demanding, demeaning, manipulative, sarcastic. She saves her best behavior for us. We're her favorite target when life is not going her way (basically all the time). She has no one in her life except for the kid. She stopped stalking us but appears to be stalking the kid instead. When he goes off to college I have no doubt she will follow him. She can't bear to go without seeing the kid for more than a week. Seriously.

She attempted to alienate the kid from our family. She's had limited success at this point. The kid trusts no one thanks to his mother. He's in counseling. Has been for as long as I have known him. He finally started to really participate but still is very enmeshed with his mother.

We are nearing the end to the threat of court ... 2 more years to go ... I don't know if I really need support at this time. More a place to vent and maintain my records of events.

EdgeOfReason