Please tell me this gets better...
Hi everyone! I just found this website a few days ago and have been searching through the forum for some help with my situation. I appreciate any help or advice you can provide! As you can tell from my user name, in the near future I'll be a stepmom. And unfortunately I share commonality with a lot of you in that the BM is a very jealous, selfish and manipulative person. She commonly uses the children as leverage to get what she wants and is always threatening my boyfriend.
Some facts:
1. She has full custody. She got it by filing some abandonment complaint over the summer on my boyfriend because he came to visit me in Manhattan while she was away in Bolivia (all of her family is there) with the children for the entire summer. I guess my boyfriend wasn't allowed to leave the house while she was away for the summer with the children?
2. She and my boyfriend used to live in NC together. Since the divorce was finalized, he has been living with me in Manhattan and commuting down to NC to visit with the boys. Two weeks here and two weeks there.
This woman is constantly contradicting herself and is a poor planner on top of that so as you can imagine, we are always strung along with sh*t hitting the fan constantly. She's never met me and we've never spoken on the phone, texted, emailed..nothing. In fact she used to hang up the phone on the children when they were talking to their dad if she heard my voice in the background. Luckily we've graduated past that. Now she just won't let the children talk to him on the phone for more than 3-5 minutes and always distracts them with video games, TV etc so they don't pay attention to their dad on the phone talking to them. Before I met the children for the first time, she went back and forth with with my boyfriend on whether she wanted to meet me. First she had to meet me and "vet me" that I would be acceptable to bring around the children. Then it was "I just can't go through with meeting her". So...we never met. My boyfriend and I got to spend a few days with the children on that visit (returning them to her each night) and we had a total blast. They're 6 year old twins, very lively and sweet and they took to having me around immediately. Turns out she didn't love hearing from them how much fun they had with us every evening that we dropped them off to her home.
A few months ago she asked my boyfriend why I couldn't just find a job down in NC? Well, I happen to like my job here and it's kind of hard to apply for a mortgage to move into a new home in NC and be jobless, no? Long story short, I recently approached my supervisor about working remotely for the office from NC. My request was fully supported. You think she would be happy? This is what she asked for, after all. Well, now she is threatening that if I move there she will move to Bolivia with the kids. This crushes me because it will tear my boyfriend apart having his children living there and rarely getting to see them.
I know my boyfriend is wanting to propose within the next few months and we have even found a home in SC that we are applying for (it won't be built until December but there is competition on the lots available so we are buying now to secure the lot we want). He is breaking this news to the ex next week in the hopes that she can prepare for it to happen and not be surprised when it does happen. I just wish she would prepare simply by acting her age sometimes (she's 40, acts 13).
I'm just petrified she will stop at no cost to hurt him and break us up. Last week she told him she "doesn't care if he dates any other girl, she just doesn't want him with me." In her eyes, I was the one who took him from her and "broke up the marriage". Mind you they were married for 12 years, he tried leaving her multiple times and was sleeping on the couch for the last 3 years of the marriage. He and I have been together for a year..but I broke the marriage up?
Please tell me it gets even slightly easier? Will she ever get tired of being so miserable and making everyone around her just as miserable? If you've gotten this far and are still with me, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to hear me vent. You are all angels!
I hope in the coming weeks I can update you all with some happier notes!
It's been almost 6-7 years
It's been almost 6-7 years for us and BM is still a jealous manipulative control freak.
Do not be foolish!
You MUST MUST MUST take care of yourself and your interests FIRST! I know you are planning to marry this man, but to answer your question - NO! It may never get any better and it could get much much worse. You need to be fully aware of this sad but true fact before you proceed with changing your whole life around for this man.
First of all, you should not do ANYTHING at all to risk losing your job. While your employer may have agreed to let you telework for now, it may not work out for them in the long-term and they could easily ask you to move back or just cut you loose. And you are wanting to do this so you can appease this unreasonable woman (BM)? What are you thinking!?
Second, I would not be looking at buying any property or building a house in a location close to the kids if the BM is threatening to move with them. That would be your next nightmare. You lose your job and are stuck living in NC, tied to a house and place you have no connection to, and in the meantime the BM takes the kids and moves somewhere else.
Last but not least, the man you are with appears willing to go overboard to placate and appease his former wife. The fact he wants to "break the news" to her about his plans in life is a huge red flag. What BS! What a coward! So if this "unreasonable" woman throws a fit and tells him he can't marry you, or can't build a house - I'd be willing to bet he'd capitulate to her demands.
Really, is this what you want for the rest of your life? If you are living in Manhattan, you are in one of the most vibrant places on the planet. There are literally millions of people within your backyard - many of them without all this baggage. Those two "sweet" girls will quickly be manipulated to HATE you by the BM, and you will be dealing with that hate for the rest of your life. Stepdaughters are notoriously hard on stepmothers - and even moreso when the BM is high-conflict like yours and is stirring the pot.
My advice to you is do not throw away your home, your career and your future happiness on this man and this situation. The answer to your question again - No, most of the time it does not get better, it gets worse.
Some BMs are just jealous...
Some BMs are just jealous... She's called me a wh0re to DH when she found out we were dating (funny, I recall her being the one to spread her legs for anything with a you know what their entire marriage...) Has tried to refer to me as "new wife" To which my only thought is... You mean THE wife. Some woman just suddenly get clingy when they feel like they can't just drop back to things. It's this "if I can't have you, then no one else cna either." Even if they have ZERO feelings for him. They want him simply because they can't.
Don’t Let
Dont let that demanding BM decide where you are going to work, and how you and your BF are going to live your lives. Why put her in the “drivers seat”-she is NOT in charge. I have been married to my DH for 22 years, BM is still a nut case, and still hates me, even though I have bent over backwards for her and skids for 25 years. The BM in my situation from the get-go accused me of “stealing” her guy, even though she had a boyfriend and DH had already filed for divorce!!!! It will not get better in your situation...these situations seem to fester over the years and only get worse.....
Depends on the mental health of BM
Miss,
There are two kinds of ex spouses,
1. Ones that are mature enough and mentally stable to get their head out of their rears within a resonable amount of time post divorce. It is then that They give their precious child permission to love both mom and dad freely AND equally.
2. Ones that are immature and mentally un-stable who will go to the ends of the earth being a "HIT AND RUN" ex. They are the exes who usually meet all criteria for pathogenic parenting .Little by little the child seperates from inherant bond leaving normal range parent baffled. PLUS unreasonable litigation for years on end, lots of lies and kids who no longer want to see non custodial parent. I wont touch on support checks.
You pick, which one do you have? It is very easy to figure it out...
So when she was in Bolivia
So when she was in Bolivia with the kids and your BF was up in Manhattan with you, were they still married (regardless of the state of their relationship)? If so, I think you have tough slogging ahead with those two girls, because she is going to make them hate you; she'll paint you as a homewrecker and she'll have the timetable to convince them of that, whether it is the case or not.
My experience with my SO's ex has not been bad. She's pretty reasonable most of the time and has been for as long as I've known him. However, based on how your BF's ex is already acting, I don't think reasonableness is in her skill set, and things are probably going to get worse. I would tread very carefully, and pay a lot of attention to what 2Tired4Drama said above. I think this could end very badly for you.