Irrational and Aggressive
Hey everyone,
This is my first time here - nice to meet you all!
A little background information on my situation: I met my now fiancee shortly before his divorce to his ex was finalized, and as a result, she took it upon herself to blame me for the dissolution of their marriage. She apparently was always of the mindset that he was going to "come home" and decided that it was my fault he wasn't going to so has since directed her anger, hatred, vindictiveness and bitterness towards me.
While I have spent time with his daughter before (who is not yet old enough to talk), this weekend was my first time spending time with his 5 year old son which we were delaying as we didn't want him to have a hard time at his mom's house if she knew we'd spent time together if he talked about it. Alas, last night at 7:30 after my fiancee had dropped them off with their mom, she came by our house and incessantly rang the doorbell and smashed on the windows because she was so furious that I'd spent time with the kids. My fiancee told me to stay upstairs while he went down to deal with it, which resulted in her screaming for a good 10 or 15 minutes (sorry neighbours).
She's threatened me over the internet in the past, and has promised she'd "get me", and last night resorted to ripping my fiancee's shirt and kicking him before he did what he never wanted to have to do by calling the police. The worst part of it is, the kids were in the car watching this the whole time. Needless to say, she's a very unfit parent, and I wonder about her state of mind. She has obsessed about my relationship with her ex since the day we got together, going so far as to Google me for days on end and find out every detail she can about me, make fake Facebook profiles just so she can message and berate me, and would log on to the internet in the wee hours while she should have been tending the little one to publicly harass myself and my fiancee in a forum she knows we both belong to.
How do we deal with women like this? How do we handle it so that the kids don't have to deal with it, and how do I, as a stepparent, distance myself from it enough so that I never start to resent the situation I'm in and, worst of all, the kids?
You are not superhuman and I
You are not superhuman and I dont think any of us can give you advice on how to completely avoid these human emotions e.g. resentment, anger, stress. Sorry to begin on a negative note, however you have to accept that you ARE going to experience these emotions, the level of them will depend upon how YOU and your FDH (fiance) react to situations which his ex create, and she WILL create them.
Your FDH EX (BM) is obsessing with you, about you. Most SM's have experienced *some* element of comeback from the BM.
I will tell you a horrible little story: Mine was engaged with another child (she then married) and this did NOTHING to deter her trying to harass me, use me to hurt DH and ss. Anything I did or didnt do, she would react badly to. So if I popped out to see friends while my DH had ss, I obviously hated ss and I was a "b*tch". If I took an interest it was NOTHING to do with me and I had no rights to have any input regarding ss, including things which affected my home e.g. what time DH picked him up...what we did on weekends...
ALL said in front of my ss, he was 4 at the time and she contiuned to do this up till the point we ceased contact, all because BM and her DH threatened both my DH and I again.
Our downfall was my DH wasnt strict enough with his ex. He hated her but didnt want to prosecute or protect ourselves through changing house numbers because he "didnt want to make it worse for ss..."
Well trouble is, HE wasnt making it worse for ss, the BM was and she wasnt about to stop. That meant that skid had to see one parent abusing the other, along with his stepmother. Those adults who were being abused said nothing back, did nothing back. What my ss saw was behaviour forming, that his father did not command respect or at least wouldnt condone disrespect.
DH gave into her demands. One such day, the BM rang about 20 plus times in the space of a few hours to change arrangements, to keep us dangling. My DH took it, meaning I had to stand back and take it too.
Certainly its likely given my BM's burning desire to self fulfil her own fears, of losing her puppet (DH) and her fears surrounding ss, that the end result would not have changed. I would have liked that shot though, even did at the time.
You and your FDH need to make a stand NOW. Even if BM's behaviour did stablise, considering her complete lack of care/boundaries she will always be some sort of a nutjob.
What did the Police say? Did you have witnesses to the assault?
I think you and FDH need to consult with a lawyer, about restraining order, what things you can do to protect yourself, as deterrants and knowing what information will help to prosecute BM should she continue.
What custody agreements in place?
This is it.
This is it.
Good advice, that is exactly
Good advice, that is exactly what must be done.
With all due respect imaSmom,
With all due respect imaSmom, I was asking about how to deal with his irrational ex, not the morality of my fiancee, which isn't questionable.
Thanks for your advice, everyone.
I'm a BM whose ExH found his
I'm a BM whose ExH found his soulmate (not me) when I was 8 months pregnant. We were divorced and he was remarried within a year. I hated the situation, but I did not stalk them, talk to them, terrorize them, beat them, or really even acknowledge them. There is no excuse for your BM acting this way.
I'm a SM who also began cohabitating with SO before his divorce was final. SO and BM had been emotionally apart for so long that her boyfriend had even moved into their home before he moved out. BM openly stated she hated SO. Still, once she saw him happy with someone else, something snapped in her little brain and she went even crazier. She pulled some of the same stuff on us- death threats, physical violence, continual harassment, blah blah blah.
SO did feed into some of it by not wanting to "rock the boat" and avoiding conflict with her, giving in to her way. This sounded reasonable to me at first. Who wants to poke the grizzly bear?
2 1/2 years later, things are much calmer...but I can see in retrospect that SO should have set firm boundaries from day 1. We shouldn't have lived in fear of her for as long as we did. She got off on it. Once we stopped feeding into it, she eventually must have gotten tired of it or something, because it all tapered off.
In our case, BM happens to have recently bottomed out with her personal problems, so she has been humbled. This probably also has something to do with her becoming more reasonable. I wish I could say it's a given that all these crazy BMs will eventually self-destruct, but the stories of other families on here say otherwise.
Best wishes...my summary is either wait it out for a couple years and see if BM just wears down (not really my recommendation) or FDH set firm boundaries now for normal, healthy interactions. Either suffer with the thorn in your sides or go through the momentary discomfort of pulling it out so that you feel better in the long run.
Thank you so much althea; I'm
Thank you so much althea; I'm sorry for all the trouble and pain you went through as well. You're right, we're trying to set boundaries and not give in to her instability and tantrums. I just hope it works and doesn't turn her into an even bigger psycho!