I recently found this site after years of looking at different step-parenting sites. When I met my husband and we had to deal with his ex-wife's CONSTANT bizarre (to say the least) behavior, I thought there couldn't possibly be that many people like her in the world...BOY WAS I WRONG!!!!
It's incredible how many totally insecure, out of control women (and men?) there are out there, harassing their ex's, their new spouses and even their own children because they can't GROW UP AND MOVE ON... Call me naive, I guess.
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Our nightmare with my husband's ex began nearly 10 years ago. I have a 16 year old biological son from my 1st marriage and my husband has 3 biological children from his 1st marriage...twin boys who'll be 11 in a few weeks and a daughter who is 12. We have no children together...BM made sure vasectomy was done before she drew up divorce papers. My BS has always lived with us and this past June, one of my SS's moved in with us because he is "too much" for his BM to handle. Unfortunately, the kids' BM has made it very clear to other SS and SB that they will not be "allowed" to leave her.
BM set up a competition with me, the moment I met my husband. Only thing is...it's a one sided competition and that infuriates her. She will never understand that I have never tried to "replace" her. I only do what comes naturally to me as a mother and someone who has always LOVED KIDS!!!! Too bad she can't see beyond her own self and let her kids accept love from EVERYONE in THEIR FAMILY.
Anyway, I've read a lot of posts on this site and can sympathize with you all...Been There Done That, right?;)
We've been accused of abuse (continually) and it went as far as going to court 1st time when kids were 5 and 6 and of course BM tells the kids what to say...and they do...but thank god the judges can see right through her and her BS. It always comes back and bites her in her A** but BM's the type of woman who will cut off her nose to spite her own face and she proves that constantly. In fact, she tries so hard to prove us to be unfit, horrible people that she will try just about anything, but everything she does backfires on her and only proves to anyone who's paying attention that there's something seriously wrong with her.

Such as one of her most recent desperate attempts....August 2006 she sent the kids to school (a religious academy) to tell their teachers we were abusing them (mandated reporters don'tcha know) with absolutely unbelievable stories about beatings with a metal baseball bat, yet there was not a mark on them of course. The teacher is very young and BM had already manipulated her mind against us, even though we'd never met. Anyway, DCFS was called so BM jumped on the bandwagon and fed the kids more outrageous lies to tell the authorities to make the case look even worse, such as even more supposed physical abuse and even supposed sexual abuse supposedly done by myself and my teenage son. BM even made the kids call us and leave a message on the phone (with her in the background) about how they didn't lie to DCFS.
Once I began communicating with ALL DCFS case workers involved, primarily by phone, one of them asked me (before we'd even met face to face) "do you think BM is mentally ill?" Of course, I believe she may be but I didn't answer that question. Anyway, in the end, DCFS finished the case as being "unfounded" because they didn't believe a word of the accusations against any of us.
Anyway, the reason I wrote that was to lead to this....February 2007 (5 months later) BM contacts us because she wants one of the boys to move in with us....permanently!!!! Yet, she doesn't see where NORMAL people would say "that doesn't make sense, if I believe all the bad things you say about BF and SM, why in the world would you send one of your kids to live with them????"

Can you say P-S-Y-C-H-O?????????

If I had to give anyone out there advice, it would be CYA and get EVERYTHING in writing where you can, use e-mail for communication (and proof) and IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE as much as you can stand. It's reasonable to believe that everyone has their breaking point and are going to give the BM "what-for" every now and then....it's good to vent...especially when BM's behavior has a HUGE effect on kids.
Over the years, we've killed a lot of trees because of the "record keeping' but we've found it very useful over the years as she LOVES to burn up the internet by sending us HATE E-MAIL but at the same time proving how RIDICULOUS she really is.

To Be continued...................