My Boundaries Upset BM
This past week my DH crossed a boundary that I had made very clear about not being included in BMs Schedule to take food to ill neighbors. I have a previous post on all of this.
After this happened I sat down and once again wrote out my boundaries so they could visibly be seen by DH. They are as follows:
1. If it is drop off or pick up time you must be present to handle them.
2. Anything that BM chooses to schedule I will not be a part of.
3. Bithdays - We plan ours for SD, BM plans hers. (2 parties is always fun for any kid)
4. If we have plans they will not be changed to accomodate BM.
If they are I will continue on whith what we have made plans to do on my own.
5. Durring our summer visitation BM is not welcome to drop by this house for any reason unless DH is here to deal with BM.
6 I do not and will not accept fussy behavior because BM has emailed, texted or called and made DH mad anymore. I will remove myself from the situation at the time.
7. I do not care to see anymore emails or non-sense from BM. If there is a situation that arises with things
being changed in our schedule DH and I should discuss them first before responding to
BM.
My DH emails BM and tells her that she is no longer welcome to come over to house durring summer to drop off food or visit with SD unless he is here and it must be planned first.
We had issues last summer with her barging into the house on me when SD was sleeping and wanting to visit with her. She would make one of SDs favorite dishes and drop it off for her to eat. She would plan a lunch date for the two of them and come get her without me having prior knowledge and then having to try and rush to get SD moving and dressed.
Anyway......I am rambling now so I will get to the point.
BM sent DH an email back and told him that she did not want me suggesting anything in the raising of Their daughter. I had already told me DH two weeks prior that the raising of this child would be left to him when in our home. So done already.
DH ends up getting mad at me starts asking me questions about why I feel the way I do. I start to inform him of things that he needs to stop letting just happen and take note to what we are dealing with. BM is a very Passive/Aggressive person who parents with many PAS skills. This is just one thing done. SD came over to have Thanksgiving meal with us and always talks about the wonderful smells that come from our home. However for some reason she wont eat my food.....where do you think the smells are coming from. Mom sends over a TV dinner for SD all warm and everything to eat while we are serving our feast. So I asked my DH to think about this logically and try to imagine what was said in the home prior to her being dropped off over here with the TV dinner in hand.
There are so many other signs of PAS going on with SD but I will not get into all of them, thought this was just a good example to share.
I told DH that we can not change what is being done in BMs home however if we are aware then we can begin to do some damage control on our part.
Basicly he told me that I need to let the two of them raise this child together. I asked him why then did they ever get a divorce. They are not parenting this child together...BM is parenting this child in her home and he is (well supposed to be) parenting his child in his.
For most of the weekend my DH has not spoken many words to me and we even had company in town for my BD birthday and Fathers Day. I am frustrated that the BM can control his emotion towards me and feel very betrayed.
Where do I go from here?
I applaud you for sticking to
I applaud you for sticking to your guns and having clear-cut boundaries. I'm actually thinking I might try that! As was once suggested to me, I'd suggest to you to talk to BF about how his actions/inactions make you FEEL and not so much "you need to stop this, you need to do that". I have these same conversations with my BF and as soon as I ask a question regarding his BD, he immediately thinks I'm attacking him. When I can get him to put the shoe on the other foot, so to speak, he seems more agreeable.
How do you start one of those
:? How do you start one of those conversations though? I have the same problem with my fiancee. The minute I tell him that he needs to take a look at the real situation, he thinks that I don't want his kids around or that I don't want him to spend time with them. That is so not the issue. The issue is THE EX WIFE and the fact that she thinks that she can dictate his life by using the kids as her pawns against him. Then he feels guilty cause we live so far away from the kids (three hours). His BD is almost 19, has her own car and can drive herself and her brother HERE to see their dad. But, the EX WIFE wants him back and then uses the kids to her advantage to get HIM!!! We don't have the money to be traveling all the time. He complains about not having the money when my parents want us to come visit (they live 25 miles away) but then when the ex wife has his daughter lay a guilt trip on him he is willing to travel to see her because the ex tells her it will work (they live 180 miles away from us ONE WAY!)HELP ADVICE WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!
Your DH needs to grow a pair
Your DH needs to grow a pair of balls and put his foot down towards BM. He needs to quit attacking YOU when BM decides to be psychotic.
YOU are his wife, not her. If my DH ever said to me " you need to let me and BM raise our child together" id tell him to go then and raise them together, together and not look back. I'm very tired and aggitated by these BM who think they can still run the show when they are not in the picture anymore.
Nothing you wrote seems
Nothing you wrote seems unreasonable to me. Otherwise you are just the third wheel picking up the slack while BM treats your home as an extension of her own. Reframe it as your ex popping in whenever and DH having to jump to. He said they should raise her--well fine then that makes the case even stronger that you are not in the role of slave to them.
The first time they were put
The first time they were put into play was when we were seeing a counselor and it was her suggestion for me.
DH knows how I feel but after a recent fight over them being overstepped once again....and this time by him on our behalf even after I stated I did not wish to take part in a schedule with her. I felt the need to write them down and express that I meant for this to be respected by him. Since I let him communicate with BM he choose to remind her of my boundaries as well.
I do really like your suggestion.....I wish that it had worked that way for me from the start. It was actually what I had tried to do way back then.
Boundries are nice. We put
We put lots of boundries with the ex. It makes life more pleasant, and it pisses her off that we could care less about her sad life.
Thank You I will have to get
Thank You I will have to get that book.
I understand that my boundaries are not going to make everyone happy. I really dont care if BM is happy with me or not. I told my DH I married him and take him and his daughter into my family. BM was not part of the package. It is for him because they share a child and he must put her in her perspective place in his life. I am just feeling as if I am the "other woman" in all of this and should just accept that BM dictates our lives because they share a child. Put on my happy face at all times, be ignored and treated like I dont exist, be a drill sargent to my biokids but overlook all the messes, rudiness and disrespect from his. Not have any ill feelings about any of this....just float through life and be ready when he does decide I exist or am important. It was really weird this weekend because after he took SD home then he flips his switch of not really talking to me to expecting us to be all happy and loving. How can they do this? I am going to be very blunt and just say....he can treat me like shit but then expect me to go into the bedroom and us be intimate and have a wild sex session. I guess I know where my station is in his life.....right! I am just hurt after all these years of mess and dont see that anything I do to try to gain peace is working.
Go ahead and be as blunt as
Go ahead and be as blunt as you want, cuz I have the SAME EXACT problem with my DH! I'm the root of all evil before and during visits, but the minute they're over, I'm the hottest thing since jalapenos! Excuse me, but where do I get one of those switches? Cuz I dont have one!!
I would say your BM is parenting the kid in her home AND in yours?? Your DH seems to be confused about what it means to actually BE a parent (or parent together). I know the usual role is to just play backup to the mom, but in this case, that's not gonna work. He needs to do this with YOU (at least take YOUR feelings into account, not that you need to do any parenting) and he should call the shots. It should not be BM calling the shots and him backing her up, even if her position is Against You! No no no...that's just not gonna fly.
Like others said, your boundaries seem perfectly reasonable to me, and BM can just stay in charge at her house. When the kid is at your house, BM needs to just go be alone (or whatever) until her kid comes back. Her services are not needed. And DH needs to buy a clue. His idea of "parenting together" with his ex does NOT mean his ex gets a vote on what happens in YOUR house. BM making plans with the kid during your visitation is the weirdest thing I've ever heard of! Especially unplanned and unannounced?!?
In my opinion, BM is waaayyyyy too involved in DH's side of things. The problem really has little to do with you, other than the disrespect that DH is showing you. How DH can justify being angry with You is beyond me...but this is one mystery I've yet to solve in my house as well.
Sounds good for me to set
Sounds good for me to set boundaries within my home but they really do not mean anything when the BM repeatedly manipulates court orders, does not follow schedules, etc. The only thing that I can control is my reaction to all of BMs behaviors.
Violet, It has been the
Violet,
It has been the same for us. She has broken every court order to push us to take her back to court so she can see how much it upsets us and to disreput our everyday of living. I choose to just ignore it untill the kids are grown. Then she will be all alone and just a terible , sad person.
How can I do this when she is
How can I do this when she is attacking me! I have 4 biological children who never have had issues or concerns. And this is her argument that I am against her child, not both just one of them. The way that she treats the boys differently makes me sick. She keeps naming me in the orders and continues to pull me in to court. I would love there to be a way for me to deal with the harrassment, we even have an email from her stating that she knows that she can't get the boys away from us by going after BF but she can go after me and then she can keep the boys away because I have no legal rights with the kids or to protect myself from any of the false comments that she makes, all she has to do is claim that they are uncomfortable. My kids can not stand her not because of what we have told them but because of how she talks to them when she calls (the girls are older now and our voices sound a lot alike so she has unleased on all of them)
Take that email to a lawyer
Take that email to a lawyer and see if you can sue her for slander. She would be overstepping that legal boundary in the UK from what you are saying.
That is exactly what I have
That is exactly what I have stated "I" will not. I have not told him "HE" will not. The whole setting of these boundaries is to let him deal with her so that I do not have to.
There have been no limitations restricted on him with seeing his daughter. There are no limitations set on our time....just trying to find some peace in all of this.
As far as BM goes she should have no role in my life, in his she is merely the mother of his child. She should not have a role in his other then that either. I read a really good article written by a man called "Male Emotional Adultry" I will have to find it and post it here as I feel that it will help many to see that some men do see the light.
I did also inform my DH that if I get any of those pop-over visits I will not answer the door....period....If she insists I will call the police. I already document everything just in case it is needed at a later date. That will just add to all the times the decree has been violated.
This sounds so familiar
This sounds so familiar because the same thing Has happened in my home numerous times. The bm that I deal with thinks my home is the place for her 2 sons(differernt dads,only 1 is my stepson) to hang out & visit while she sits on a rock in my driveway texting and not having a freaking clue that she is not welcome & this is totally inappripriate.
So bm has 2 sons my ss-13 and she has a 5 year old with someone else, yes this 5 year old is my stepsons little brother but he is of no relation to anyone else in my family. Of course I'm always nice to the kid and a couple times he has visited his brother (my stepson) at my home like when
he was recovering from surgery and once we let him & his aunt play and sled in the snow.
My house & property is very kid friendly and of course he always wants to get out of his carseat & play when bm is dropping off/picking up my stepson. And bm can not tell her kids no to anythig
so the kids throwing a major fit in the backseat and bm's like
"oh you need to go potty" ? And asks if he can please use our bathroom? What the hell can you say
to that?ok we let big brother take him potty & so the little boy does not want to leave and she's been hanging in driveway for 15 mins and finally she has to go in and get him and of course she makes comments later to dh about how messy she thought our house is & told him he had to change laundry soaps because it was the cheap brand & causing a rash. Etc. Etc. Etc.
So the little boy is in a not so restrictive carseat and if he's at my house he now
just unfastens his seatbelt and hops right on out of the backseat and is running about following big brother around. While bm does nothin but try and make conversation if either me or dh are home (which annoys the hell out of me, I want her to do what she needs to do & get on her way) tell your kid to stay put and get out of my driveway. Since I've been keeping track they are 3 for 3 with
this routine. Once she stayed for 45 mins while her kids played and she played on her phone at my
house.
That will never happen again, dh and I agree that the next time
it happens he will take kid to bm and tell her this is unacceptable and she needs to keep her
kid in the vehicle during drop off/pick up. This is setting up a boundry and even though
he has not done this yet it's going to and I will be so proud of my hubby.
Unfortunately bm will say how cruel & mean we are to a little boy and we do feel bad but come on this is our home and it's not right and it's poor manners and it's gonna be interesting
to see what happens. If she can't abide by this then they will be doing the
drop off/pick up I'm the safeway parking lot.
Um wait I'm confused, bm
Um wait I'm confused, bm comes by while dh has visits with the kids to just see them? Umm no way would that be happening. Bm is NOT ever allowed at our home and nor will we ever stop everything and meet her any where just so she can see the kids. That is interfering with visitation.
Good for you to have boundaries, most bm's have to have it in writing and set very clear before they get it. I know I had to keep at for a very long time b/c she said she had the right just b/c.
I had to file harassment on her several times for calling my phone and not dh's. She left a wonderful mess saying that she had every right to call me when ever she felt like it and she wasn't going to stop. Well lets just say that the next day after the filing she never called again.
I don;t know how long you have been dealing with her but it takes a while of you having to keep letting them know you will not have that to get them to understand they can't do that stuff.
ETA: she sends food over to your house :jawdrop: That would SOOO NOT happen at mine. who does she think she is? I mean come on. that is stupid.