Beside myself...Please help me.....
Been married to my wonderful hubby for 5 years. I have two SD. 21 & 16. Both great girls!! They live far away from us, so we only see them about 3-4 weeks all together out of the year and thats tough as they are getting older.
I'm not the jealous type or like the drama of the ex-wife/new wife thing. Their mom and my hubby have been divorced for 13 years now. He/we pay child support and even though one of them is 21 we agreed to keep helping with college ect.
The ex wife has always been very hateful, over bearing, causes scenes when we are with them for no reason, has told the girls that their dad is just with me because I'm pretty and can't have kids.....it's horrible. I have done NOTHING except for attempt the kill them with kindness approach, I have no reason to hate her/dislike her except for what she does to me.
She always has to throw fits about the child support in front of the girls, say we are spending time with them for a week where they live, it's Thursday the child support check is due to her friday (never been late EVER), she will throw a big fit in front of the girls about how bad she needs the money and it better not be late and how much she struggles (she has a 3 story 2100 sq ft townhouse and a brand new Dodge Charger). My husband and I always just answer her calmly and never escalate the conversation.
The oldest and I are close and she has seen what her mom does, but with her being in college doesn't have to deal with it much. The youngest and I haven't had that bonding moment until this summer. She finally had a break between all her activities and got to come spend time with us. We had a GREAT TIME. Spent time together as a family, she spent time alone with her Dad, we got to have some girl time it was just a GREAT experience.
After she went home she would even say hi to me on facebook or refer to something funny that happened while she was here ect. which is just huge to me that she would let her friends and her mom see her talking to me on Facebook ect. but her mom takes stabs at me when my step daughter does talk to me and she does it on Facebook in the conversation between me and my step daughter. So, all my step daughters friends see and I'm guessing it's making their mom feel better about herself, but it CRUSHES ME.
I am always come and play the adult in the situation, I'm just beside myself anymore with their mom trying to ruin good times with the kids and trying to make me look bad when there is no reason for it. I never say a cross word to her or about her, I have no reason to except for what she does directly to me. I'm not jealous, my hubby and I are very happy and have a great realtionship. The way she acts is not his fault or the girls, but WOW it creates some tension. It's very very hard.
You are both right. I never
You are both right. I never looked at it that way, I always are just afraid after every incident with her the girls listen to their mom, just because as a step mom who doesn't get much interaction with them because of the distance don't want that tension everytime we seem them when it isnt much. And it was pretty hurtful things that she said. I had a new picture on my FB of my hubby and the girls and I, it was a goofy fun picture and she posted on SD FB, "well is she trying to pretend you and your sister are actually hers." (which kills ME because I have miscarried twice and almost lost my life at the beginning of the year due to it) so she takes pretty hurtful stabs, its not even the usually ones that you would expect to hear from an ex-wife, she takes it to a whole other level.
We do have a good life, and the time with the girls are great, and we have great conversations with them and they call and talk to us both and that should be my unsaid payback to the way she treats me. We are still parents to them, getting on them if they act up or don't clean their room or help pick up after dinner, giving them our opinions of choices they are making. We will just keep being us and letting the girls see their mom the way she is and after they are both out from underneath her roof, we won't have to deal with her as much, we can just enjoy the girls. (which the oldest has mentioned wanting to come live where we are after college (in 2 years) and the youngest wanting to go to the University that is in our area (which is also in 2 years)and she even had me take her around that university and wanted me to take pictures of her by the football stadium).
"Step-parenting consists of a thousand little wounds that never truly heal." - Me (so true)