I can't say I pity Psycho. She dug her own grave and still has yet to actually have to lie down in it due to enablers.

But I do have some complex feelings about certain people in a similar manner. People I both really really hate, and yet have a bit of pity for, yet also don't have pity for because they made some dumb a$$ choices... Vague I know.  Which turns confusing for me. In fact you now have me overthinking things a little bit. LOL

I dont feel sorry at all for BM. I might have a little more empathy for her in the situation you described but I wouldnt waste too much time feeling sorry for her. She has the option to work through her issues and find a normal relationship if she wants.

Sure, I do to a certain extent.  My DH's EX is a pretty nasty person to people.. and for that reason, she really has a tough row to hoe with work and friends.. always losing jobs etc. 

She has been living with an older guy for almost 15 years.. he will never marry her as he has adult kids and won't allow her to inherit any of his wealth.. so she is the girlfriend.. with no real plan for the future.  She doesn't even own a car in her name.. just drives one he bought her.

While her hell is of her own making.. I do feel a little bad that in the end she is now past her "good looks" and won't have a pot to pee in if her 10 plus year older BF kicks the can.

I feel a bit sorry for BM.

She's incapable of love and I don't think she likes herself because of it. 

She really wanted a child and pushed until DH agreed (they were both young early 20s) then couldn't handle it when she realized she felt no connection whatsoever but had all this responsibility. I feel bad for my stepdaughter, but I also feel for BM because I can't imagine getting into this situation only to find you can't love someone else the way you thought you would. I think having a child was her last try at feeling something for someone else.

I'm not too sure what's wrong with her mentally, but there is definitely something. I know she feels some amount of guilt about it based on comments she's made it the past, and I know she knows everyone thinks badly of her because she's not very involved and doesn't care much. I feel most sorry for SD of course, but I do feel some pity for her. I think she really wants to be a normal person with normal feelings but it's just not there.

After she had SD, she gained a lot of weight and really went down hill. She hasn't had a boyfriend since DH and her broke up - 8 years ago. She lives with her mom because she isn't capable of holding down a job or apartment of her own. She struggles with most aspects of being a person. It's quite sad. 

Not a bit.  But BM here is nothing like your BM.  She has lots of friends, lots of family, lots of fun, no shortage of men to date.  There's not much to feel sorry for.  She'd like to have more money, but she seems to have solved that problem by finding a rich boyfriend who buys stuff for her and the kids and flies her off on vacations.  I guess I feel a teeny, tiny bit bad for because I think she's a bad person, but that's her own doing.  FWIW, she's the one who left SO.  She was cheating, but he would have stayed with her.  So the breakup of her family was on her.  But I don't think she misses being a family with him at all.  Nope, she doesn't need my pity.

In your case, I understand fully why you feel sorry for her.  I would too.  But it's not your fault and there's nothing you can do about it.  Don't let her become more involved in your life than you are comfortable with.

Anyone else feel really sorry for BM?

Nope.

Just curious, How do you know all of this about BM?

Eh, I had a moment of feeling bad for Crazy, the one time we talked on the phone and had a decent conversation to "bury the hatchet". She talked about how she thought she had met the love of her life (not my SO, but apparently 1 of the 50 guys she's dated since the divorce), but that didn't work out, and how her divorce lawyer took her money and then went out of business and how she hates being on government assistance and is embarrassed by it. I was like, yeah I guess I have empathy for her... And then a month later, as we were trying to be amicable, she called CPS and filed a bogus report about us and all of my sympathy for that demon went out the window. I hope she dies a slow, painful death for being literally the worst person I know. 

That is a really unusual life story.  Is she very unfortunate looking or does she have some sort of personality quirk that kept her from developing normal relationships with boys and then men?  She just sounds odd.

I have felt sorry for our BM on occasion.  She isn't a bad person but she made the kids her entire life and did not adjust to them becoming their own persons well at all.  That led to a rage that she carries to this day.  It is sad but her choice.

Not in the least. BM is a spiteful, manipulative ... 

Not.One.Bit. Crappy and disgusting and vile and wrong as they may be, they were HER choices.

Why are you so involved with BM?? You know so much about her, it's like you are best-est friends. Frankly, you have NO idea if all of this is even true. She could be making it all up to gain your sympathy. You need to step waaaaay back.

Occasionally I do - but I think I'm picking up on how she manipulates people and plays the victim. She's very good at that - getting people to feel sorry for her.  So I ignore it as just manipulation.

I used to feel bad for the BM of my boyfriend's youngest two. I felt so bad that I allowed her to live with us as she had nowhere else to go and this was after she stole my earrings..... BM was raised by her grandparents while her mom walked in and out of her life and her dad is trash. She no longer has a relationship with any of them. That used to make me feel incredibly sad until I realized what a psychotic loon she is. She sprayed my toothbrush with perfume one time when she was dropping the kids off and claims my boyfriend was physically abusive.. yet wants him to have half custody. I'm done with her. I blocked her on social media and her phone number. I don't even say hello on the rare occasions I've seen her in the recent months. So no I don't feel bad for her. 

She dated DH for 10 years and lived together, he cheated on her (his excuse:she was like a roommate and they were like buddies), her family lives 30 minutes away and don’t seem to have a bond with them, she spends every holiday alone. Her relationships only lasts about a month (then when it’s over she starts emotionally relying on SD and overly communicate with DH) , each time we meet at school events she kinda looks sad when she sees me and DH, but then again who knows why she can’t keep a relationship, maybe it’s karma for her lying, manipulative ways .... 

I think you are a very kind hearted person OP. Most BMs are not like that, mine is a totally self-absorbed, spoiled, immature, manipulative, status driven and money hungry ho who could only get a man to marry her by getting knocked up.   

Generally I do not pity or feel sorry for people.  IMHO their situations are the product of the quality of their efforts and decisions. While there certainly are exceptions to that, what comes next after a bad decision or poor effort is very telling.  People who learn and adjust generally to not get mired in insurmountable situations.

For sure I have no pity for my SKid's BioDad or that toxic shallow and polluted gene pool.  They are the multigenerational product of crappy character, morals, and decisions that reached the peak of worthless depravity in my Skid's BioDad.

Sadly, my son is the only one of the 4 all out of wedlock SpermIdiot spawned half sibs by three different baby mamas who has broken the cycle.  His mom busted her butt to make sure he had that opportunity. I helped.

BM is as vindictive and nasty as they make them. Any bad luck or misfortune that comes her way, I hope it escalates 100 fold.

She apparently has a minor heart condition that she was told losing weight would help with. She didn’t bother. In an ideal world, she would give up the ghost very, very soon. I would be absolutely delighted to hear that news.

Your ‘polluted, shallow gene pool’ line gets me every time. It’s inspired.

Sure I do. I'm pretty sure that BM has BPD which makes it hard for her to have normal relationships. She has focused all of her attention on the kids and become enmeshed. She will drive them away...probably. 

BUT - feeling sorry for her should in no way allow her to trample over my boundaries. 

DH's ex is a condescending bitch and a perpetual victim with "Golden Uterus Syndrome", no doubt. She initiated the divorce and received a huge amount of maintenance, which thankfully was only 5 years (Feb 2020 DH and I will be sipping rum drinks in the Carribean to celebrate). She is a perpetual martyr who has insisted on staying in the huge marital home despite having only 1 of 4 kids left, rather than do the smart thing and move to a smaller place and save money. I don't like her, and I believe strongly in individual accountability. When she is a bag lady one day (her job is a joke) it will be her own fault.

However...and especially after reading some of the stories on here, she is not the worst person in the world. While she refuses to co-parent with DH to the detriment of their son, at least she rarely makes trouble or even contacts him. The visitation schedule never varies. Last year she switched with us around 4th of July, allowing DH and I to have a fabulous 5 day trip. While she may be a martyr, at least she takes full responsibility for her son - he is never pushed off on us. She seems to have been positively disposed towards me (at least did not automatically hate me for being the second wife) and to my knowledge does not create PAS. The one and only time I met her, she displayed grace and class.

I try to keep in mind also, every marriage has a history and a dynamic that is set very early on that in most cases cannot be changed. I was married almost 18 years. DH and BM were married almost 25. DH is very introspective - he is an amazing man, father and husband but tells me he was probably not as thoughtful in his 20's. So BM no doubt has a lot of bitterness towards DH, and though it was her decision to end the marriage, rarely is something 100% one way or the other. I myself would have plenty of bitterness towards my ex-H except that my life has gone no where but up since our divorce (not that there was anything wrong with it before - I always had my beautiful kids, excellent career, wonderful parents/family and friends - I know that I am lucky) whereas his has gone into a downward spiral. All his own fault, but it is hard to feel anger towards someone when he is so pathetic. If the positions were reversed, as they are for DH and BM, I would probably be bitter like BM is (except...I would not be in that position!).

I also think when you have a financial/legal obligation (DH and I keep financial accounts separate but still...), it clouds everything. So in one year, when BM is down to about $1200 per month in CS and that's it, I expect my resentment towards her may clear a bit and yes I will probably feel sorry for her.

I think I would pity any person going through life the way BM appears to be. 

She does not have thoughts, she has feelings.  There is no relationship between her feelings and logic.  The universe must submit to her feelings.  Any person or thing that does not is the enemy until a new enemy emerges.  Most days it appears she cannot see beyond her own nose.  Kids are extensions of her.

There's no sign of critical thinking skills.  She can be twisted and turned like a leaf in the wind based on who she is speaking with at that exact moment.  There is no brain to mouth filter and what seems to be zero inclination towards introspection.  Repercussions never register, it's just not how her brain works.  Cause and effect is a foreign concept.

She sits in her feelings - self loathing, anxiety, fear, rage - drowning as they crash over her.  She has been given the tools and the support, repeatedly and often, only to refuse and rebuke them.  It was what ended her marriage.  That was not some phenom.

I don't believe she does anything with malice.  She is merely exercising the demons, trying to quell the feelings.

It does make me think of her as willfully ignorant and immature. At the same time I find her to be tragic.  Maybe I've been snowed though and she's just a master manipulator in the martyr role of a lifetime. 

I suppose whatever pity I have for her isn't BM specific.  But there is definitely pity, however misguided it might be.

This woman is an adult. It sounds like she needs to work through some of her issues herself. 

I don't feel bad for the BM in my life at all. She thinks life has dealt her a bad hand, but it hasn't. She has made all the choices in her life, including taking on all the parenting responsibilities because she couldn't bear to cede one iota of control to DH. The BM in my life also has "trouble with relationships", but again, that is on her. She needs to work out her own issues, rather than expecting others to fix things for her. 

I used to until I discovered that BM is a horrible, manipulative, liar who orchestrated things to try and get what she wanted. 

Then I realized the villian plays the victim so we'll.