I am newly married my DH has two children and one stepchild. My issues since we were dating have been with my feelings being overlooked in regards to the children while my help was expected. I have recently decided to remove myself from any co-parenting or assisting roles and await the results of that decision.

Backstory: My DH ex-wife had an affair and left him for her current husband. Despite this they were able to maintain a friendship and co-parent smoothly even through his previous relationship. Which made me excited to meet her. I have been entrusted with watching and providing for the children since the beginning of the relationship. However all of that came to a halt when she texted him and suggested he dump me due to us having a car karoake video that her friends went digging for and since they couldn't find anything made a fuss about that. She told him I was ruining his reputation! I still wanted to meet her despite this to maybe show her I was relatable and no bad influence and dispell all of this. However, following that text we had no communication until I reached out to her 2 years later. During that time she still continue to offer negative commentary about my social media presence.

I forgot to mention I have watched her friends children and we are all on good terms. I also forgot to mention that she felt it was imperative my DH befriend her DH who she had an affair with! I decided to reach out to her and we began a co-parenting journey. She dubbed me a bonus mom. However, that went south. Anything minor occurence she would fly off the handle and use to insult me. Example: the children arrived with their clothes unfolded to her home and she made snide remarks about how I was raised. These insults came in group text to my DH and me, the half-ass apologies in personal text. Finally, I'd had enough. I told her that she could no longer contact me unless she could show me the same respect that I extended to her. She made one more snide remark and all contact ceased. However, she was not finished. She started to build a case that I was abusing her youngest son. I am anti-physical and mental abuse as well as bullying due to my own experiences as a child. So this upset me. She then discredited my contribution to co-parenting. I called her frustrated and warned her never to mention me again. I then left a voicemail repeating this. (I was fed up).

I told my husband that I no longer wanted the children to live with us, because I didn't feel comfortable being disrespected in the name of the children. He appeared to agree so I thought we had a mutual understanding that if she didn't sign an agreement that I wasn't abusing them they would live with her. I drew up a document for her to sign stating that allowing the kids to live with us was her acknowledging they were in no harm or danger. We met with her to sign it she refused and said that if she thought they were being abused she wouldn't leave them in our care. She then said that she felt that I was mistreating her youngest because an incident occurred where he took a sample of food and stuffed the entire thing in his mouth carried it around in there and began being drooling and being dramatic and I told him to eat it because there was no where to spit it. This lady calls him dumb and threatens to beat his ass (and does) and is building a case that I am abusing him because I made him eat a cracker? She also told me that she let her sons listen to the voicemail I left for her. (She let children listen to an adult conversation involving a person she was leaving them with the following week? Yes. You read that right.) So when confronted she became irate she told me to go hell and that we were taking one son and she would take the other. I told her she should take both since I am abusive and she would not sign papers to the contrary. Verbally during this meeting my DH was supportive, but him eventually taking them and prolonging the meeting past her refusal (she wouldn't even read it) proved otherwise. She called me young dumb and ignorant (I'm 30) and put her hands in my face during this exchange(She is 42). I responded calmly I was prettier than her and I was smarter and she burst into tears. This is the reason for all of this I've known it the entire time. But I had to stick up for myself. Her husband has 5 kids and a grandchild living with them (READ:HIGH STRESS!!) I knew we were doing her a favor but she felt it was owed due to her being miserable and suffering buyers remorse. I felt the best thing to do was to let the court handle it or have things documented because she is highly irrational. However, my DH feels that after telling her to no longer contact us that that's good enough(he's 40). When the children got in the car the youngest apologized for lying about the incident (he embellished the story, but he's only 9 she's old enough to know better) I still don't want to interact with them at any capacity because I feel that this proved to her that she can disrespect me continually and get what she needs because she can used fatherhood to get to my DH and excuse her behavior.