Meet with BM Alone?? .... and how to handle public "bump into"
Has anyone else here been asked to meet with BM alone??? Should I have done this differently?
I’m asking because when I moved in with FDH, BM started requesting that she and I sit down and talk about “our issues”. LIKE WTF??? Hey Lady!! I don’t have issues with you!!! When I refused (via FDH, I don’t have any contact with her), she at first ignored it and kept asking him when we were going to get together to “settle all of this” and that there were “many things she (I) needed to understand and know”. Then, when she realized I wasn’t falling into her trap, or following her demands, she let us know that I was no longer allowed to be on her property. I could not be in the car when we were picking up or dropping off the kids, and that she would call the police if I showed up. (For the record…I’d only been with FDH a few times when we dropped off/picked up...and never got out of the car and she never even comes outside).
As is obvious, she has some serious control issues. I refused to give in to her bullying and the last thing I’m gonna do is spend one-on-one time with her letting me know how horrible FDH was to her, etc. I know he was a crappy husband, and they had bad problems. He has told me how bad he was and how bad they were...kinda the reason they got divorced…DUH!! The way I see it, if there are issues that involve the kids, then the THREE of us can sit together and discuss if she chooses. I have a relationship with the kids…but none with her, and that’s how I’m going to leave it. I believe that unless it directly involves me, most stuff about kids should be handled be FDH and BM alone.
The AUDACITY of this woman amazes me. After she realized she couldn’t control what I did, and said I couldn’t be on her property, then she makes a nasty comment to FDH, dropped my parents names, etc. and mentioned how she could, “make trouble for me and my family”. A month or so later, she is FURIOUS that the next few times we were in public together I didn’t speak!!! Is she INSANE??? Why in the hell would I speak to someone who treats me this way…threatens my family? Grrrrrrr
The truth is, it was awkward for kids and me to not say anything, so I decided to make an effort. I am polite in public: “How are you BM?” and that type of bullshit, just so the kids don’t feel awkward (when she quickly HOVERS around wherever I am if kids come to me to say Hi/Bye/Whatever).
So here’s my questions: Have any of you had this request? Did you do it and if so what happened? Do you think I made a mistake by refusing to meet alone with her? She says I’m being impossible and disrespectful….I think I’m being sane and practical. ALSO I could use any advice on how to handle the occassional "bump into" situation. How have you ladies handled things and what worked best for you?
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I used to bump into BM at the
I used to bump into BM at the after school care when I was picking up my kids and it was her day with the skids. She typically keeps her back to me and refuses to face me. I always say, Hi! but its never fun.
She hates me - I really could care less about her - but her hatred makes it bad for everyone.
Now, although I work from home, I contract to the company she is an employee at - how lucky - once and awhile I have to go into the office - once, the elevator opened and I almost stepped right on top of her!! What were the chances 2:15 in the afternoon - 2 elevators - how lucky is that?!?!
She almost tripped herself and the look of horror on her face!!! It was really really hard not to laugh out loud.
Good for you, 3fams, for
Good for you, 3fams, for being able to see the humor in it! Seriously, people get divorced every day, it's not the end of the world to run into your ex's new girlfriend/wifeng. I'm willing to do the civilized thing and say hello, but BM is not there yet.
I think humor is the best way to get thru it -- although I do always take that extra time to look good when I know there's a chance of running into her. Hey, I'm only human!
Would love to send a letter
Would love to send a letter as such, but ANY input from either me or FDH just turns into a wad of crapola. This woman can talk about her being a Queen of the Martyrs for like...decades. One of the reasons their marriage broke up was her controlling and NEVER being responsible for anything. Since she does NOTHING wrong, and figure there is no point in discussing it.....LOL Rule-dictating and control are serious buzz words when it comes to BM, so I just choose to ignore, pisses her off, but works for us...LOL
OH YEAH... a letter. I
OH YEAH... a letter. I actually did this first. Before I met with BM. It was very well written and not at all accusatory (as much as I wanted to). It helped break the ice, but again... I surely don't think it is for everyone.
BM has taken every possible
BM has taken every possible opportunity to "warn" me about DH too. She always tells me he never let her have friends & he never let her work & he was very abusive.
Funny thing though...I saw paperwork from her jobs. I saw her resignation letters stating that because of confrontations with a fellow employee she was quitting. Not to mention, the fact that in the 11 years I've known her she hasn't worked. I don't imagine it's because DH has any hold on her, but more that she's just a POS who feels entitled to handouts & support without doing work for it. DH tells me about how pissed he was that she quit a job working in a funeral home putting makeup on bodies. She was making almost $17/hour & she quit because DH caught her screwing another employee. If he put any stipulations on her having a job, it was likely only that she not sleep with her co-workers.
In cleaning out her shit, I came across court paperwork in her friends' names. There are countless pictures of her out whoring with her girlfriends with other men, & there are a number of pictures of her & DH with their friends at parties etc. And then there's the fact that every time she'd leave DH & the kids she left with friends. If DH was putting his foot down, he wasn't doing very well.
And the abuse...I have been in 2 physically abusive relationships & I left my exH because he was emotionally abusive. I have a pretty good idea of an abuser's characteristics/behavior, & in my 11 years with DH I've not seen one. However, in her 4 years with him by her account he beat her & "blacked her eye" one day when they were out looking for a new place for her to live. Yep...they packed up the kids & made a day of looking for a new place for mommy to live (isn't that what families do?), & then all of a sudden DH got mad & punched her in her face & blacked her eye. LOL!
She is relentless with the warnings.
I actually requested a
I actually requested a meeting with BM many years ago. But our situation was quite a bit different. She was very insecure about my relationship with SS. He was young maybe 2 or 3 years old when we met the first time alone. And she was afraid that he was confused about WHO his mom is. She wasn't AS controlling as BM in your situation sounds. She TRIED to be, but DH never stood for it. It made her very angry. Finally after dealing with SS being afraid of me, crying every time he came from BM's house and many many other issues, we sat down and talked.
I was able to tell her that being a Stepmom is the hardest thing I have ever done. It isn't easy to balance the affection to make sure this little 2 year old boy KNOWS that I love him, and will do anything to protect him, without making his MOM jealous, or distancing myself from him and making him feel uncomfortable in his own home. So I errored on the side of making mom uncomfortable, because SHE is the adult in the situation. She should be grateful that I do love and care for him because there are a lot of MEAN stepmom's out there. I am not one of them. She actually ended up thanking me for explaining that to her, that she had never thought about it that way.
In your situation I think if you do ever meet with BM, it should be the 3 of you. She sounds a bit more crazy and controlling. Although BM did make similar threats about calling the cops, and don't bring her to my property blah blah blah. She was all talk though.
One time, DH and I were visiting his brother... who happened to live RIGHT NEXT DOOR to BM, like, they shared a wall. When we went to leave DH's phone rang and it was BM. He thought maybe SS saw him through the window (it wasn't his day and SS was only 1 year old) so Bm was calling to tell him to come say hi to SS... NOPE, she was calling to tell him to get me off of her property. It was pretty funny. They shared a driveway, there was no way for us to go to his brother house WITHOUT being on "her property". Crazy people.
yes Mazzy....I think you hit
yes Mazzy....I think you hit the Narcissist right on the head. Love your signature line btw
If that was Date 1 how did
If that was Date 1 how did you ever get to date 2?
Never agree to a meet-alone
Never agree to a meet-alone request. The "alone" is an effort to separate the step from the parent, more than likely to intimidate & to spew shit-stirring trash to weaken the unity you have with your FDH. There's no reason she needs to have a "meet-alone" with you, or IMO with your FDH. If she feels the need to discuss something with him one-on-one they can do it by phone.
We live far enough away from BM that we don't have the "bump into's". We have had one "she tracked me down & confronted me alone". I was very new to all this step-stuff & she was very intimidating. At that time I still onto the certainty that I could make her like me because I'm nice & she had no reason to hate me. I've since learned I don't have to give her reason to hate me. She's just determined to.
If there are occassional bump into's...I don't know what I'd do. Probably just try to walk the other way.
You do not have to meet this
You do not have to meet this crazy woman at all - ignore her and don't let her know she is getting under your skin - just like you would not indulge a childish brat or mean person into meeting privately why would you let this woman meet you privately - there is no need and ignore her requests - if you do not stand up to her and show her that you are the boss of your life and will not do what she says she will make your life miserable for years to come. Tell her you do not negotiate with terrorists and anyone who threatens you or your family is considered one!!
Anytime my DH has to deal with out BM he adds my name to the answer and this is for 2 reasons - one he knows I will kick her ass figuratively and take no BS from her and it shows we are a united front -
And as anyone can tell you on here - face to face meetings do not end well!!
Are you the one that gets
Are you the one that gets dropped off down the road when DH picks up the skids? Maybe I have you confused with someone else, but this is absurd. Why is your DH not sticking up for you? Wouldn't the police just laugh at her if she called to report that you were in a vehicle in her driveway? That is ridiculous.
It would be a cold day in hell before I would play nicey and have a cutsie little coffee hour with this terrorist. There is no purpose other than BM trying to be the puppet master.
BM#2 and I started out fine, then she got obnoxious with me a couple of times for no reason (other than she is a bitch) and I got obnoxious right back and then refused to speak with her. This bothered her and she suggested to DH that she and I should meet for coffee. I told DH NO FUCKING WAY was I going to sit and have coffee with that woman, not going to happen for many reasons,
A. she is not a person that I would like/befriend even if I never met DH.
B. I know her well enough to know that she is NOT sincere, it is a control ploy by her
C. I know her well enough to know that she would without a doubt say something about her and DH past relationship that would contradict something he said or what have you and I would get pissed and it would cause problems with DH and I.
D. I would most likely barf up by coffee having to look at her beady eyed, snaggletoothed face for more than 5 seconds and would rather eat glass than listen to her annoying voice.
I actually ran into her at the Dr.'s office when I was about 8 months preggo with BS2 and she actually stopped me and apologized for being "offensive" and said she wished us the best with the baby etc and just wanted SS to be happy and for me to not be uncomfortable when she has to call.. blah blah blah. I just told her I appreciated the gesture and haven't spoken to her since. Nothing changed, she has still been offensive and been disrespectful to me on numerous occasions.
Having coffee with BM is not going to cure her from whatever syndrome she suffers from that causes her to act like a freaking lunatic bitch.
Dear lord NO on the "dropped
Dear lord NO on the "dropped off down the street thing" I would NOT let that happen. We only life 5 minutes away, so it's been pretty easy to not be there, but there have been a few times that it would have been handier to be there. Here's a good one, when my FDH went to pick up SS for his birthday dinner (I was gonna let them go alone if they wanted) he immediately asked where I was and FDH texted cause SS wanted to come pick me up to go with. HaHa!! We may even push the "her property thing" soon, as she has asked if FDH can take SS on for a school thing in a few weekends while she's at work. We are thinking that I'll go, since he will probably want me to and she won't even be there to bitch, and then we can go about out day after dropping him off. We'll see.
I am LOLing at all of the
I am LOLing at all of the acronyms in this response. That's funny stuff.
Sure enough do... that made
Sure enough do... that made it all the more funny.
Do not do it...I made the
Do not do it...I made the mistake of suggesting it recently after some ugly emails. She said fine. So I contact a therapist that didn't know us and met with her to get a mediator. The therapist after hearing the whole history, told me that I was not to do this, nothing good would come of it and she was almost out of our lives when SS turns 14....
I emailed her back that I met with a third party that didn't know any of this and explained it to her and she said that it would solve nothing. Never heard from BM again....
Look at my recent blogs....Lots of great advice from STalkers on not to do it.
A BM who know she is losing
A BM who know she is losing control is what that is all about.
The BM wanted to talk to me so bad and I knew she wanted to let me know either how bad my DH was to her or How much they loved each other and what he did for her. The pendulum would swing far east or far west with her.
(Roll eyes)
I would refuse to be alone with her I did not want to hear her brain washing. When she could not get the alone time She put up an old friend to come by and chat with my DH and just so wanted to meet the new bride (me) I had no idea who she was all except that her husband was real good friends with my husband but apparently she was good friends of the Ex.
She started to quizing me how my DH treated me. She wanted to know did he had to stay in touch with every move I made, did he get jealous if a guy was near me and when I would answer the question she could come back on every one of them and say . Yea yea he did that with the "ex-name" too.
She tried to tell me she needed to tell me some things but I could not ever go back to my DH and tell him. I found it quite odd. I told her we don't keep secrets from each other and anything that is spoken will be freely shared with my DH.
I found out at the end she was pumping for answers for the ex. The ex wanted to know if he was treating me better then he ever treat her and when she felt like he was treating me better then her she would go off mad and start filing stuff at the court house over the children. She really lost it when she found out he was buying me jewelry. Apparently if he had any money regardless it was suppose to all go to her. Anyway her way of trying to stop his courtmenship with me.
I had finely told that message carrying b*itch to get the eff'n off my property and don't ever come back. She walked off mad screaming I ruin a perfectly good friendship she had with my DH and I pretty much told her she never had a frindship with my DH.
amazing how far a lunatic BM will go
Thanks for the adice and
Thanks for the adice and support, I think I'm doing good, but sometimes dealing with her and the kids, I start to question everything I've done.
I have really only had 2 conversations with her (and FDH). We met the first time when she requested it, because I was going to be watching the kids while he was at work. I understood wanting to meet someone who would be spending time with her kids and I wanted to make it clear that I was not an idiot and that my concern was just to keep the kids safe. I'm a teacher, so I figured that should help. She kept wanting to drag the convo to problems with FDH, etc. and I kept guiding it back to keeping kids safe and happy. Thankfully it didn't last too long.
The only other time we have had words was when FDH's son was too heavy to make weight and had to sit out of a sports game. He had just gotten back from vacation (with her!!) and was going to be with us for a few weeks straight. Well, she felt it necessary to come up and give us a lecture on what should and should NOT be done for him to loose the weight, with a few digs about what I had cooked for supper the night before. (in front of other people) She was being lectury and confrontational, and being a teacher, I know if you don't stand up to parents the first time they will think they can bully you forever. In this instance, I told her calmly that I didn't like feeling attacked. I also said that we knew how to get his weight down since we had done it at the beginning of the season when he was too heavy then. She kept lecturing and bitching about what I fed him the night before and I finally said. "Listen, I get that your upset because your baby is upset, and that's fine. But don't attack me about what I'm feeding him. The fact is that he didn't gain almost 10 lbs from one meal last night, he gained it because he was on vacation." When her eyes got all big and she started to freak out I added, "I'm not blaming you...It's not your fault, it's not my fault, it's not anybodies fault. If we had taken him on vacation it could have happened. The fact is that he's upset and you and FDH are upset and that we need to help him loose some, and that I am more than willing and able to help him do so. But I am not willing to be attacked, PERIOD and I'm done with this conversation."
She talked a bit more to FDH in order to have the last word and finally went on (probably shocked that I stood up to her and didn't leave). The couples around us were kinda looking funny, so I turned and apologized that they had to see the whole thing. One said it's no biggie...we're divorced, and another said, "wow, you did good, I could never have been so calm" Of course, it got to one of the kids that I had "yelled at their mom" so FDH had to clarify. In all truth, I'm not proud that I got sucked in, but I'm glad I held my own ground.
Within days after that is when she started trying to meet with me one on one, about our "issues" LOL so timing kinda told me it was a bad idea.
Thanks again for your input. I still have to figure out the not being allowed on her property thing, as there are lots of times when it would be TONS easier if I could just be in the car during pick up/drop off...but like everything else, I guess it'll work itself out.
Yeah, Mazzy, it's one thing
Yeah, Mazzy, it's one thing to not want you in her home, I get that, but on her property? Pshaw. Have him just pull up in front on the curb -- that's the city's property, not hers.
We're still doing the driveway thing, and when she's not home, I go in the backyard so they can let the dog out for playing with me. She'll have a conniption when she realizes it, but I don't much care.
Yep. I love her dog, and her
Yep. I love her dog, and her dog loves me.
Laughing now too...that
Laughing now too...that really is good. You've become bosom buddies with her dog....SNEAKY!! LOL
HAHA!!! That's a great
HAHA!!! That's a great signature line:
You knocked her up....YOU deal with it!!
Early on in mine and FDH's
Early on in mine and FDH's relationship she requested to meet with me before I was 'allowed to meet HER son'. She told FDH that she needed to explain to me the rules of being around her son - that there would be no drinking, no drugs, and no sex when he was around. And let me add, it's not like she doesn't know who I am...we went to the same high school together, in a town of about 2,000 people. So she already knew that I absolutely don't touch any drugs, I was pretty much a goody-goody all through high school..I even waited til the age of 21 before I started drinking, and I still don't do that very often. While she, on the other hand was a well know coke dealer in high school and ends up leaving their son with us most of her weekends so she can go drinking; in fact, nearly every time we dropped FSS off last summer, BM had a drink in her hand.
I told FDH there was no way in hell I was meeting with her. I knew what she really wanted. She's a control freak and since she had no control over me and FDH's relationship, she wanted a chance to intimidate me and try to dictate to me what we were allowed/ not allowed to do on FDH's time with his son. It was hard for me to say no, though. This all happened before they went to court for custody, so she wasn't letting FDH see his son at all...In about 3 months time he got to see his son only 2 or 3 times, as punishment for getting a new girlfriend, being happy, and not letting her control him anymore. She said if I agreed to meet with her, she MIGHT let him see his son a little more. My response to that was until the custody stuff gets settled in court, she's going to keep playing all the games she wants because she can, so it's pointless.
If she hadn't been so crazy from the beginning it probably wouldn't have been a big deal to me. I can generally get along with anybody and I always want people to like me. But from the moment she found out FDH and I were seeing each other, she would text me telling me she was going to find me and kick my ass, that I was nothing but a skank, etc. She even waited by my car one night and tried to physically attack me. She has assault charges on her record. She's been kicked out of both parents houses for physically attacking them and her own sisters. There's NO WAY I was meeting alone with someone that unstable.
As for awkward run ins, thankfully I haven't experienced that yet without FDH there. I think I would probably just try to pretend like I hadn't seen her...it's pretty hard for me to be fake nice to someone I dislike so much. I sometimes used to get out of the car on drop offs if FSS asked me to but I don't anymore since she finds a way to make snide comments that piss me off and I'm to the point where I'm not going to be able to bite my tongue any longer...and for as much as I've been holding back, it ain't gonna be pretty
I tried to be friends with
I tried to be friends with bm.....even helped her pick up her other daughter...not my sd but the other one by the other babies daddy.....lol i also took her and the kids shopping once.......never.... NEVER again! She kept telling sd that i was a b-i- bad word and that i was the reason mommy and daddy weren't together......HELLO?!?!?!?!?!?!?! YOU WERE D-I-V-O-R-C-E-D 4...COUNT THEM 1-2-3-4 YEARS BEFORE I EVEN MET DH!