I hear ya! I've been in this for 7.5 years with a BM who has been a complete bitch with too much time on her hands. The court doesn't care if the skids are being alienated by her, they just want the chaos in the courts so they can make their living too.

I personally love my DH and I can't see not being with him. I am trying to deal with the bullshit of BM. I've been disengaging from the skids, the BM and situation's that give me ultimate stress. DH is having a difficult time understanding it all but I am in the state of self preservation.

Now that I have been avoiding BM and trying to make her "invisible" she is now trying to drag me back into her vortex of hell. DH and I talk about things but agree to limit the amount of "air time" the bitch gets because it is no longer about her (even though in our minds it's about the skids)

The decision is yours but are you going to let her win the war?

I've been married 13 yrs, yes I will admit if it wasn't for my dd12 I would have been gone a long time ago.

Sometimes ones happiness is more important than love.

However I am glad I stayed for dd12. She has an awesome relationship with DH, and he needs her to get thru the alienation of his kids.

I hear you! My Hub's ex is completely insane and does her best to turn the skids against us every chance she gets (which, since she has primary custody, is most of the time). She and Hubs cannot stand each other, they can't even get through one phone call civilly, and it gets unbelievably frustrating to know that my life is so affected by someone I've never had an actual conversation with! What's worse, SD12 is picking up all of her mother's bad traits (on top of being at an age when girls tend to be insufferable anyhow). She's becoming very snotty, materialistic and lazy which is driving her father and I insane.

There are a few things that I try to remember when it comes to the skids. First off, they're complete victims in all of this. While their mother plays the victim card to the fullest, they're the ones who have really suffered. SD12 and SS12 (yes, they're twins) have had their lives completely dominated by their parents fighting. And SS6 is young enough that he doesn't remember what it was like when his parents were still together, so all he's really seen of adult relationships is two people who bicker constantly. The kids have been in the middle of their parents fighting for their whole lives and they've had to walk a very thin line - having a parent in each ear has really left them feeling torn and they don't know what they can say or who they can talk to without causing another blow-out fight.

As far as SD12's attitude, I have to remember what's being demonstrated to her. She's at that age anyhow, but her only consistent model for what being an adult woman looks like has been her mother. Is it any wonder that she's picking up her mom's bad habits since that's what has been shown to her all this time? She can hardly be blamed for emulating her mother, since that is the only type of adult feminine behavior she saw until I came on the scene just a year ago, and even them she only sees me on alternate weekends. But I have to remember that I am the positive influence in her life, and that as close as she is to her dad she can't really navigate puberty with him. If anyone is going to show her that a woman can be intelligent, can work hard, can be kind and considerate and care about more than her shoes, it's going to have to be me. When I lose my cool over her attitude and get snippy around her it just reinforces all the negative things she's been taught her whole life. The only way to keep her from turning out just like her mother is to be engaged with her, to talk to her honestly and to be the kind of alternate role model she needs in her life right now.

Once in a while, I have to remind myself that Hub's dedication to his kids was honestly one of the things I found attractive about him. I grew up with an absentee father and it really impacted my life. He won't do that to his kids, and I find that admirable. His sons and daughter will always be the most important thing in his life. I knew that going in and I admire that about him. With how awful his ex is and how hard it's been to be a part of his kids' lives sometimes he could have easily given up. But the fact that he won't abandon his kids shows how seriously he takes parenting, how caring he is and how hard he's willing to fight for the things he loves. If he abandoned his kids to their insane mother I know I wouldn't have so much respect for him, and I don't know if I could trust him as much to do the right thing by me either.

The best advice I can give is that you can't let the BM still control your DH, and you certainly can't give her control over your life. Talk to your husband, tell him that you know he'll always be bound to this woman in some way because they had a child together but that she cannot continue to define your relationship. He has to have someone to talk to about it sometimes, but you can't keep being the sounding board for everything his ex does. That's giving her a prominent role in your marriage, and you already know that a relationship that involves her and your DH isn't going to work. He needs to be able to talk about things with you, but he also needs to understand that letting the BM have so much influence in your relationship is not healthy. As I've told Hubs more than once, when he gets angry and stressed about something his ex does he's just playing into her little game and letting her get the upper hand in manipulating his life.

I hope everything works out for you. It's a tough minefield to work through, I know.