"It's almost as if she doesn't want to acknowledge my existence."
This is EXACTLY it. You are the reality of her failure and if she doesn't acknowledge you you don't matter. You have to think of her as a 12 year old child. Remember girls in middle school. This is where her social development stopped.

"Aren't we all adults?"
Nope...remember when it comes to you at least she's like a 12 year old girl.

Why is she asking my husband about what I can do??
Because she doesn't want to deal with you about their kids, she wants to deal with him. You are too much for her to handle.

Actually, it's pretty good that she's asking you to be involved at all. BM in my life will do whatever it takes for me NOT to be involved in their life esp. picking them up and such.

You have done your best, you've given her permission to contact you. This is really her issue and you can't take it personal. It's not about you at all, she's just making it about you. It's about her and her own insecurity.

DH's ex wife has NEVERRRRRRRRRRR spoken to me or through ss10 to me. So you're doing better in that department than I am, lol!
However, asheeha has it right on the nose.

In all honesty, I would tell my stepchildren when they give a message from her "she can ask me that herself sweetheart, it's not fair that you are being put in the middle"

DH and I are conditioned now when ss10 starts a sentence "mommy said...." or "mommy asked me if you.....". We IMMEDIATELY say "the adults will handle it" because we've been told over and over and over and over by lawyers and the GAL that if he gets put in the middle, its the WORST thing for him.

On the other hand, you could have a BM like mine - sickly sweetly gaggingly nice to my face, and tries to break up DH and I and ruin SD16's relationship with me behind my back.

I will NOT speak to her. It drives her up the wall. SD16 is not my kid, and I didn't sleep with that troll. Decisions about SD16 need to be made by her bioparents, but useless BM shoves everything off on her DH, so it's just the guys, who get along, mostly.

However, YOU are doing HER favors - the least she can do is speak to you about it if you feel that is the courteous thing. At least your DH is asking you to do these thing instead of just volunteering you to be the live-in nanny to his kids - otherwise I'd be pissed at HIM too.

Count your blessings.

I met DH years after his divorce from warthog. They have a very ill son and she asked if she could text. He doesn't do texting on his phone. So she gave him her number and asked me to send a text to her and she would reply. About 10 seconds later I sent the text. I get one back with her biting my head off about why was I texting her. BITCH.

The whole reason she wanted to text was so she wouldn't have to use minutes on her phone. She claimed it cost $1 a minute. Who has a phone that charges $1 a minute?

So I wrote back "You asked me to text so you wouldn't have to WASTE a dollar on your terminally ill son."

F(*)ing bitch - I will NEVER EVER EVER have any communication with her.

I'm sorry her son is going to die - but he is a hard core gang member with a prison record. Second son is a homeless druggie. Wonderful mother that she was.

I think you should consider yourself to be lucky. My SO's ex wife and I do not talk to each other directly. She has no problem calling my SO to scream at him about me though. It's ok. I realize after some time that she IS in fact jealous of me and I am ok with that. She seems like a miserable person that I wouldn't want to have to interact with anyway.
I realize you've been married to your hubby for five years, and it's probably more convenient to just talk directly to her when necessary.. However, the skids are ultimately your hubby and his ex wife's concern, and I agree with someone above who said that she is still asking, which always means you can say no.

Why would she talk to you? She had a child with your husband. It's his problem.

Regardless of her reasons, I agree with others in the "careful what you wish for" and "count your blessings" department. I WISH my BM only talked to SO.

However he should really try to deal with her relaying ANYTHING through the kids. It is not their job to ask you for things she wants. Also, when dealing with her, she should be asking him to do things, and it's a matter for him to decide if he needs your help. Not her.

Don't let any of it concern you. You are making a mountain out of a mole hill.

As for the "messages" through the kids, that's nothing. It's not like asking you to do SD hair was a huge issue that requires a phone call. In fact, that would aggitate me more, that's bm would make sure a big deal out of something so small. I've even told that to my SD when she has over nights with her aunt/grandparents. One time she came back with her hair an absolute mess.... She had been swimming, slept on it, and then taken to church looking a mess. So the next time I just told her to ask br aunt or grandma to do her hair. I intent was for her to just ask them, but she very well could have phrased it... Mommy told me to ask you if you could do my hair. I don't know the ages of your SD's, but kids relay things in a funny way sometimes. Not everything needs to be a big to-do phone call with a formal request.

I get that you'd prefer her to speak to you as an equal and call you directly. Well, she prefers to deal with her children's father, and let him handle it from there. You just have to accept it. It's aquward for everyone, no matter how you do it.

One way to nip this in the bud is to call her whenever someone passes along a request from her to you. I do not think she is jealous of you.. perhaps she is just uncomfortable. So the next time your DH forwards you a text message from her, give her a call to discuss the details or have your DH establish the details. If you do this often enough, she may get the concept to call you directly instead of sending her messengers.

Now my SSs were adults when I came on the scene - but I see no reason to ever interact with her. I guess if you have small kids - but not sure why BM and SM need to have a relationship.

I posted earlier about our "texting" mishap - so glad that never went any where. I doubt if I will ever meet her and she lives less than a mile from me. I park literally in front of her house - but across a big parking lot across the street when I go to the mall. Been parking there for decades before I knew of her existence so hasn't changed a thing for me - I never even think to look that direction.

Not like the worthless SSs are ever going to have anything like a graduation or wedding for us to attend together.

If I were you, I would write her a letter. Mail it to her house (not through child messenger). Tell her that you think her kids are fantastic and you care about them. Tell her that she does a great job as a mom and you would never want to replace her. You should mention that you feel alienated by her actions and if she trusts you enough to ask you for these things then she should certainly trust you enough to communicate with her. Acknowledge that it is not the easiest thing in the world but that it's also not impossible.

If she doesn't change, maybe you should consider ignoring every future request that comes by messenger. Just say, "I'm sorry, did you want something from me? I didn't hear you ask."

I'm in the "count your blessings" camp.

At first I thought it was really wonderful that my husband's ex was so nice and sweet, and acted like she wanted us all to be best friends.And why not? After all, I didn't even meet him until long after they were divorced, and she was the one who dumped him. I didn't see any reason to object to her remaining close to HIS family and friends, not even when she continued showing up at our social and family functions -- BIG mistake.

This whackjob has gone from man to man, and every time she fails in another relationship, she stalks my husband (as well as every other guy she's ever dated), and after every rejection, seeks revenge. He cut all contact with her as soon as his daughters were old enough to arrange visitation directly with them, and finally had to resort to hiring an attorney to send her a C&D (cease and desist) letter.

Did that finally stop her? Sadly, no. Over the past 30 years, my husband and I have worked hard to acheive a certain degree of financial security, and the older she gets, the more desperate she becomes to find some dumb sucker to leach off. It just gets worse and worse.

We both now realize that having anything to do with this, oh so charming, vindictive snake of a stalking ex, was the biggest mistake we ever made. I could write a book on the slimey things the did to us as a direct result, but don't want to waste any more of my precious time on her than I already have, other than to say this:

It is far better to deal with an enemy who makes a front attack, then attempt to deal with one who lies in wait to snipe at you behind your back. At least you know upfront what you're dealing with, enabling you to put up your guard and prepare. I didn't.

Take care.

I may have taken disengaging too far, but I find that I feel the same way about BM! She's always trying to engage me in conversations and it drives me crazy! She is nothing to me, other than an annoyance and the less I have to talk to or see her the better. IMHO she's DH's problem. And I'm happy to let him deal with her! I wish she would do me the same favor and stop talking to me! That being said she would never call my phone either, so I guess you're a better woman than me!

If she can't talk to you directly then the answers are simply NO. Until you GROW UP and talk to me and not USE your children I'm sorry I can't help you. One of the BM'S I deal with refuses to call us. And if we do get a call back it's ALWAYS her husband calling. I am tickled to death that my SO got a new job and that CS won't be automatically deposited this month until we get it going with his new work. I bet you money that bitch will call over that. Yet will only answer on thursdays (IF she answers) and by answer I mean lets it go to voicemail and then has nasty ass husband call back. And by nasty I mean dirty all over. These people disgust me. Oh lordy don't get me started.
You are NOT at her disposal. Don't do anything until she is mature enough to talk to you.
That's my two cents. From the most wicked stepmonster that has ever walked the earth. LOL

Maybe she's intimidated by you? Not that you're intimidating, but exes can be funny like that. Next time this happens, look confused when she drops the skids off, and say something like "I don't remember us talking about this".

I've seen so many on here complaining about the BM's talking the them, it might be a blessing that she doesn't communicate with you directly.

Maybe she's read up on this stuff, and trying to show respect by leaving you out of it, but it's more likely that she's not even aware.

When I as a BM was dealing with my kids temporary step mom, all the material I read and advice of counselors was to keep the communication between the parents..... that seems to be the consensus on what's best for the kids. That's why I did things that way at first, until they got a chance to adjust and she got a chance to know them. I had no hard feelings toward the stepmother and I told my kids to respect her, and they would've been grounded if they had pulled some of the stuff I've seen on here....in fact, my daughter did get grounded for being disrespectful to her.... but I didn't communicate directly with her because all the advice I got was to communicate with their dad.

The intro to STEPMONSTER talks about how there is all kinds of material about what's best for the kids, what's good for emotional recovery from divorce, but there really isn't a lot about the needs of step parents. And as my kids mom, I was reading about and following the advice to do what's best for them... that was my job. It never occurred to me that it might be hurtful to his new wife because I was focused on what would be good for my kids.

You might have your DH suggest her talking to you directly on anything that you will be handling, or ask her if she would have a problem with it. Her response will let you know if she's just being catty or if she has a reasonable thought process in this.