My DH's Stepmom is still friends with BM. I don't understand it. Stepmom tells me how much she hates BM and wishes she would die and then she has BM over for Christmas. (the entire family was pissed about this).

She says it to stay current about the kids but BM does NOTHING with her kids and has NEVER taken them to any extras. I double don't get it because the woman is stepmom. She should understand the dynamic.

I think she just loves the drama. I stopped talking to her and going to her house for about a year. Not because she is friends with BM. I don't care. I did it because she never stopped talking about BM when I was around. It was all bad but I didn't want to hear it every time we visited the inlaws. FIL must have said something to her because she hasn't mentioned BM since I started going back over there around Aug.

DH was also mad about her being friends with BM because of the way she cheated on him and has made the kids lives shitty. I just tell him that she can be friends with whomever she likes but at least now he knows what kind of person she is.

Ah... sounds familiar!! lol
My DH's ex cheated on him and left him for his best friend (who was like family and with them several times a week bowling, weekends at the lake, etc.). Now my husband says he misses HIM and is sad that friendship had to end but definitely doesn't miss his ex.

Anyway, yes, she's a little snake charmer so everyone loves her still. They were married 17 years. She gushes over all of his nieces and nephews and grand nieces and nephews. His mom finally took a picture that she was in off the fridge (my dh's arm around her.. gag). I was SO glad to see that picture finally go into storage. Now the side of her fridge is all of our wedding pictures.

He asked his family early on to write her off but they had the response, "Well, we can't just do that after 17 years.." Now he kinda gets it because his sister is divorcing after their 30 year marriage and we actually go visit his ex-bil quite a bit. We like him. It has nothing to do with his sister at all or anyone new she may end up with. We don't talk about his sister while with him, though and he doesn't ask so that's good. We are happy to see him doing well no matter what went down between them (it wasn't abuse, adultry or addiction).

BUT... whether we "get" why it happens, why she sticks around or not doesn't take away from the fact it can SUCK. lol So, how do I deal?

Well, my DH makes it easy as he makes it very clear that I am THE wife. Not "second" wife, but THE wife, whenever we are in the same room as her. Seeing her all over his family, etc. no longer bothers me because I know my place in the family and it's good. I heard from all his family that I am better for him than she was. Note, they aren't saying I am "better" but I am better FOR HIM. It's really not a "competition" and sometimes I think we turn it into one more than anyone if we play that useless comparison game.

I have come to a weird state of acceptance when it comes to her presence in our life as it is right now. I haven't had to deal with her much at all since the wedding in June, though, so that is helpful. I will see her this Saturday at 6 year old SGD's birthday party, though, so maybe I should answer after that. I am sure she will be at my DH's nephew's wedding in the fall as well. Course, I am feeling ROCKING good about myself these days having lost 30 pounds and still going... lol. When I feel horrible about myself I tend to hate her more so there is definitely a correlation there.

My inlaws will still see both their son's EX's (though thankfully they haven't been invited to family gatherings). My MIL says she has known them forever and that they are the mother's of her grandchildren.

I try to point out to her that her younger son's wife cheated on him and torpedoed the whole family with her shenanigans. (I'm married to the older brother just for disclosure purposes). She still says, she has known the woman for more than 30 years and that she will always love her for giving her grandchildren...ugh!

She just doesn't understand how disloyal this is to her son.. and how insulting it is to his wife.

The MIL has relatively less contact with my DH's EX. When the kids were younger, she had to in order to gain access to grandkids, but now both are adults, so it's not the same any more.

I'm on the other side of this.
I'm great friends with my exHs brother and his wife. I'm still Auntie to their daughter.

We get together for games nights about once a month. It includes my family and some of SILs family, who I'm still in contact with and ExH isn't.
ExH and his GF see them maybe once twice a year?

We try to see each other over the holidays, not the actual day and not at the same time that ExH is there but we make time for each other's family.

His parents live far away, his mother is a HC narcissis who has mellowed greatly with age. SIL and I have had many conversations about her and her drama over the years.
His father and stepmother are nice people, but we've never been close. After we split I didn't talk to them for years. I only got involved with them again because BIL told me exH wasn't telling them anything about our kids, it was all coming from BIL. So I started sending pictures and email updates on school, sports and things like that.

ExH had a GF but he didn't introduce her to anyone, not our kids, not his family, not any mutual friends we had.
I have no idea how she dealt with that or why she put up with it.
His GF now is very nice and while we are not friends I do like her very much.
It's odd but we've been to dinner and have had some nice evenings with them.

My motto is, anyone can be anyone's friend but the moment that friendship intrudes into MY life, I'll cut you out like a gangrenous thumb. BIL and his wife totally understand that--they're friendly with BM but nothing about our lives makes it to BM and vice versa through them. MIL on the other hand, did not understand that concept and constantly tried to stir up drama about BM in our life. Well, I used to be quite nice (read: doormat) and would go out of my way to let her spend time with DD1 and DD2 and do things for her (like weed her garden because she asked me to when I was 4 months pregnant) and now unless it's a big holiday, I refuse to spend any amount of time in her presence. Once I had enough, I had enough.

DH handles the DDs relationship with his mom now and he completely understands why I disengaged from her. DH backs me up 100% so I don't even have to say anything. My life has gotten a bajillion times better since doing so.

My family has nothing to do with my XW. Interestingly my XIL clan was of the mind that I fell into the "once family always family" category.

I did not engage with them after the divorce other than to be pleasant on the rare occasions I ran into them and once when I did go for coffee at their home when I ran into them when I was dealing with some legacy banking issues at the bank my XW and I used to use. Of course that was also my IL's bank and they were there when I went in to do business.

I received birthday cards from my XILs for many years after the divorce. That ended when my XMIL went to prison for embezzlement.

I think it all depends on the situation.

Is it an authentic, healthy relationship? Or is it strictly for BM's benefit to stir up drama, remain relevant as "first wife".

In our case, it's for the drama. BM never cared for her ex in-laws, and my in-laws are suckers that thrive off of being needed and liked, so they gobble that BS right up.

How I deal with it? I told DH I wasn't in a 3-way marriage with BM when it came to how his parents treat me. I won't stoop to "second wife" status like BM wants me to. In turn DH addressed his parents and told them to knock it off because it was chipping away at our marriage and that's exactly BM's intention here. In my opinion, no matter the excuse ones parents gives, it's extremely disloyal to their child and their current relationship status.

I'm mostly disengaged with MIL, for this very reason. Like another poster stated, I used to be a doormat, but now I don't go out of my way to have a relationship with her and the rest of my in-laws. There's nothing to be benefited from it but heartache.

On the flip side, after my divorce, my mom basically severed all ties with my exH. If anything, my mom was relieved for me to be out of that whole mess. She knew where her loyalties were - with her own child, me. Not appeasing my ex, and I'm pretty sure she was just plain tired of playing nice with him. I don't go out of my way to stay in contact with his parents. My exH also hasn't remarried. And if he had, I'd have no desire to engage in a first wife, second wife pissing match. I'm finished with him. I can only imagine engaging with my ex-inlaws if I wanted to enrage my exH or something.

My SO is the youngest of 10 (living) siblings. They all despise BM, who cheated, and who still insisted on attending their (large and fun and food-filled) family gatherings, because, well you know, children's mothers are forever linked to the family!

Well, at these gatherings (Before CLove) she would drink, become obnoxious and badmouth SO to his OWN family, at these family gatherings. Talk badly of his parenting, his personality, how he deals with life, whatever. They wondered how she ever was invited to their parties in the first place. I guess he felt sorry for her because she had no friends and no where to go on holidays. This was right after they separated, and he had gotten her a place and basically thrown her out.

Well, I came along and she was never invited ever again - except for her daughters sweet 16, and she stayed for an hour, and then her and boyfriend left with some lame excuse. After her texting some inappropriate things to SO and being a b!tch to both of us several times over the past three years, she is NEVER invited and the relatives do NOT mind at all!!!

Upshot, there is absolutely no current relationship with SO's 95-year old mother or any of the siblings, nieces or nephews. She is Facebook friends with some of them still and makes comments. But I think she really burned so many bridges that there is no coming back from that, no matter that she gave birth to his children.