When DH and BM were married, they lived beyond their means and rarely paid bills. In 2011, they were both working (BM was making six figures and DH was making close to that with overtime), but - according to DH's credit report - they paid all of their bills at least 30 days and sometimes 60 days late. BM's profession is working as an accountant, so she should have been able to manage this, but she doesn't. I asked DH what they were spending all of their money on and he couldn't give me an answer. He had a bunch of BM's paperwork he grabbed before their divorce and it looks like she was just buying lots of stuff from Amazon and QVC. She was also spending $3-5,000 a month at the casino. BM also owes a very large sum of money to the IRS for her business (which she kept entirely in the divorce). DH got an Innocent Spouse Relief ruling after the IRS started taking money from his pay to satisfy that debt (I know all this, because we had to produce the letter from the IRS granting DH relief in order to qualify for our mortgage).

BM is also a believer in "get-rich-quick" schemes. When they were still married, BM took DH to some Amway-style orientation session where you get people to buy things like toilet paper and paper towels off of your dedicated site and you get some sort of a cut. On the drive over, BM said "we'll be millionaires". On the drive home, DH said to her, "that's a pyramid scheme and I'm not asking my family to buy toilet paper from us." BM screamed and yelled and told him, "I wish I never married you!" and hit him on the drive home. He told me that she got her parents to buy tons of products from her and made something like $20.

Fast forward to 2013, BM files for divorce and four short months later, moves her new boyfriend in with his child to the house she and DH had been renting. This boyfriend was somehow involved in introducing BM to the pyramid scheme, but I don't understand all the details. She told DH that this new boyfriend was a "successful businessman". When she and DH were married, BM loved to tell DH that it was his fault that they had no money. That his profession didn't pay enough, that she wished she had married a husband who made more money, etc, etc, etc.

When I meet BM, she and this boyfriend are now married (they are not actually legally married - for reasons I don't quite understand - but they had a ceremony and tell people they are married). I'm immediately suspicious of this "successful" businessman. He's also a "stay at home dad" and a "beautiful, beautiful man" according to BM. At the time I met them, BM and her boyfriend / husband live in a home that BM's parents bought for them and her husband drives a car that BM's parents gave to him. If he's so successful, why can't he afford these things for himself?

I do a little digging and discover that he has left a trail of fraud behind him. Many of his "businesses" are now defunct websites, including several that have many reviews from customers who claim they were cheated out of money. There is even a posting on BM's business site (which she paid her husband to help her create before she filed for divorce from DH), where his former stepdaughter says "stay away from him, he's still married to my mom!" He also loves to gamble (SSs tell DH he's "really good" at poker, but he seems to have only won a couple hundred dollars) - great pair for BM who also loves to gamble. He is also involved in schemes to convince people to "buy courses" from him, in order to figure out how to become rich and he posts ads on FB and makes money when people click on them.

When I was trying to verify my SSs' address (which neither of them knows even though they are 11) online, I found one of their stepfather's "businesses". It was a site where he sold cheap watches and jewelry from China for a large mark-up. If you googled the products, you could find them on the original Chinese site for $40-$50 less than what he was selling them for. He has a corresponding FB site, on which he's disabled reviews. I periodically check out this site, because my hunch is that DH hears more from BM when things are not going well in her marriage. This week, I look for his site and it's gone. I do some googling and in the last few days several reviews have appeared where people say they bought products months ago, but never receive them and now can't get in touch with the site.

I have to laugh to myself because it seems only fitting that BM - the ultimate fraudster who pretends she's much wealthier than she is - would now be with a man who is also trying to convince others that he has the system figured out. Just hope things don't blow up too much for him before my SSs are adults and out of the house. I suspect that BM's relationship with him will sour soon enough - if it hasn't already. I'm sure this will lead to more demands for money from DH to cover up the fact that she can't manage her finances, but fortunately, she's also harassed DH so much that he basically ignores her.