My BF's X is a piece of work I'll tell you. I can totally relate to what is going on with you. It is hard to be "nice" when someone treats you like Shit, but I have to say your fiancee is right in remaining civil to her. There have been times I would have loved to knock my skids BM's teeth right down her throat, instead I had to refrain and walk away the bigger person.

It is better for the kids if you are all civil to one another--but... and this is a big BUT--LOL--- YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIKE HER. Neither of you do, but it's always good for the kids to keep things civil. Kids love their parents no matter what and will only despise you and anyone else who speaks poorly or treats their parent with badly.

Trust me I know. I never got close to my SM as a child partly because of the nasty remarks and things she did to my BM.

The other thing is you could try my approach. It works for me. My BF's X and I have never liked each other. We just never clicked from the start and this is before me and BF even started dating. BF and I were friends for years before anything happened between us. Anyway so when I moved in and things started firing up for me and BF all hell broke loose on his X's end. It became very apparent from the start that I just could not deal with her. And so I don't. I don't talk to her at school functions, at soccer I ignored her when she would approach me and very nicely said "BF is over there if you need to say something please tell him." I no longer answer when she calls because it just put me in the middle of things.

To be honest in my case-- and maybe yours-- it's all about the drama. Chances are if she doesn't get response out of you that she wants then she will just start leaving you alone. Go to the school program's and soccer etc. and just pretend like she isn't even there. I know my BF's X absolutely loves it when I ignore her! I truly enjoy it myself. LOL

Girl...story of my life! If you read my post from yesterday, it was pretty much the same thing - except my husband let his ex know from the get go that she wasn't going to be rude to me and expect to be buddy buddy with him. The first time she was ugly to me, I had to see her a few days later at a function - I wanted to smack her so hard her head would spin for the way she had talked to me! It was so hard to be in the same room with her! But, I sucked it up and did what was right for the kids - they wanted me there, and that kills her more than anything. If I hadn't shown up, she would have felt satisfaction from that. Like Alisha said, you don't have to like her, just hold your head up high and be the bigger person!

Good luck!

to be disrespectful to her ex. Remember, she has no real ties with you, and probably could care less about you...the person she is after to hurt is her ex. Everytime she is disrespectful to you, she is disrespecting her ex's decision to move on with his life.

The minute you don't place any value in her opinion, is the very same minute all the trash talk she does won't bother you. My in-laws are horrible people, and it use to bother me really badly that they would out right talk trash, and even fabricate lies about me, then call my dh's ex and tell her those same lies! So, yes I do feel this way, but not just with dh's ex, but dh's entire family and his ex!

So, to not let it affect me, since I can't prevent it from occuring, I stopped caring about their opinion all together. I don't do normal family functions with them, except for Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthdays, but family reunions and other stuff, are out the window. When they say something disrespectful about me, I remind myself that they are choosing to blatantly disrespect my dh's choice to be with me. And since they aren't very responsible, functional people, the only people that will actually listen to their trash talk and believe it, are their equivilants...ie. white trash.

My advice for you is to not empower her to hurt your feelings. You do this by not expecting her to be nice, and you don't place value in anything she says (I understand it is difficult in your profession, but just don't place value in her at all). Remind yourself that when she isn't nice to you, it isn't you she is after hurting, it's her ex...

This isn't an overnight process, you need to work at this...since you were raised to be a nice person, it is difficult to learn to deal with mean people. It isn't a natural process for functional people.

My dh's ex exploded when we announced our plans to get married, and had great difficulty dealing with it. When she found a man that she genuinely loved is the day she let go of my dh, and her expectations he would always take her back...so that could be the hold up with his x.

What the hell? What exactly did she mean by that? I ask this because OUR biobitch accused us of watching porno's in front of the kids. Yes. A few months ago she called up and informed us we need to be more careful where we watch our porno's because ss asked her "Why do people smell each other's butts?" Ok, wtf? Why she assumed he got it from our house, I have no clue. We don't even OWN any porno's (much to my fiance's dismay). I mean... it would be ridiculous to think that maybe one of HER nephews had something to do with it. Like maybe one of them called ss a buttsniffer or something? I don't know. It makes me wonder what she's up to though because if my kid asked me why people sniff each others butts (and I wasn't aware that they did btw, news to me)I don't think my first thought would be "OH! Their dad is watching pornos in front of them!". Weird...

That's really the only way to get through it... just pretend for the three seconds you're together making the kid exchange that nothing happened. Then get in the car and drive away, let it go. For longer periods in her presence, I have my old stand-by of imagining her with toilet paper on her shoe, spinach in her teeth, a booger hanging on her nose, whatever happens to pop into my head. While you're watching yet another soccer match or basketball game, let yourself daydream of a lovely, spring Sunday morning, everyone gathered in church wearing their Sunday finest and quietly awaiting the services to begin and there she sits... all regal and perfect and smug, then she lets a really loud, raunchy fart and everyone knows it's her. Yep, it's juvenile, but sometimes you really can take yourself to a better place in your mind, even if just for a few minutes of make-believe fun. (Guess I watched too much Mr. Rogers growing up. And he's a former Marine!)

If she's civil, we're civil, not because we've forgotten everything she's done to try to destroy our happiness, but because it's just so freaking exhausting to be constantly on guard and girded for battle. But never, ever trust her and always keep your "game face" tucked away so that you can whip it out and put it on. Never let her see you sweat and you'll do fine. When she knows she's getting to you, she'll just keep on doing whatever it is that gets a reaction. If you don't give her a reaction, then she doesn't get a pay-off and she loses her power.

We live too far away from my skids to be able to attend anything, but I would definitely go if I could. It can really lead the way to a wonderful friendship with your skids and your hubby will thank you for it, too, but only go if you really WANT to go. If it's forced, they'll know it and it won't be a good a thing. Hang in there, you've got at least another 14 years to go... more if you count college! ;°)

~ Anne ~