When you say 'as they get older' - how old ARE your stepchildren? They sound like adults? If there is friction between the two of you and he was angry that you did not go on the holiday, it sounds like he has made the major error of venting to his grown children via a few disparaging remarks. It amazes me the way these men can be in a hole and dig themselves in deeper. Refusing to accept the fact that he is letting his ex and children drive a wedge between you, and are the cause of you feeling you have to self exclude, he then lets off steam to the very people who are causing the problem. You can't be certain whether he's done it before, I guess it depends if things are worse between you than they have ever been before, in which this might be a one off thing. Can your informant give you any idea on whether he has behaved like that before?

Recently my husband and I were going through a bad patch (also caused by a huge backlog of issues relating to his mostly grown up children and ex wife) and he went out with his eldest for lunch and decided to confide in her that we were in trouble. Just the knowledge that he had said ANYTHING to her put my hackles up. I actually like OSD and have a fairly good relationship with her but she was the mother hen of her 4 siblings and definitely competed with me for authority in our household for years. Part of me understood that he was very stressed and upset about the conflict between us and didn't have anyone else to turn to and she happened to be there at the right moment, but ultimately I felt he had exposed me to criticism by a member of the first family, who together had mostly created the conflict in the first place. On top of that he immediately became defensive when I asked what exactly he had said to her, and initially refused to tell me! Adding more fuel to the flames.

No matter which way you look at it, sharing private information, and/or bitching about your partner to your children, creates a little circle of trust between Dad and children which excludes the stepmum. Given that it is a feeling of exclusion and division which is often the root of marital and family problems in a second marriage, that is really adding insult to injury.

It's hard to know how to approach it effectively. Your DH may well get defensive as mine did when questioned. I was furious, and very focussed on explaining exactly why it was disloyal and negative to talk about me or our marriage in a negative way to any of his children, using some of the points I made above. It turned out that he had said very little but I told him if he really needs someone to confide in he needs to find someone other than his children to talk to and that if it happens again there will hell to pay.

I'm with Dtzy - except that I want something even WORSE than castration for him.

He not only went camping with his ex - but trash talked about you while spending time with her. Because you know she was at the camp site non-stop.

I do not think that I could forgive someone who did that to me. I hope I would not go postal on him but I literally might never speak to him again. And I can do things like that. I spent 15 years with a man and when he crossed me that last time I never spoke to him again and it's now been about 20 years.