First of all, welcome.

Your BF needs to establish boundaries with the ex and enforce them. That's the only way you'll be able to live in peace. My DH ex used to send millions of hateful texts but DH simply stopped responding. Sure, some really ticked him off but the fact he didn't respond drove her nuts and finally it just went away. Your BF needs to stick to facts, the CO and topics related to kid only.

It takes time and patience but there is hope. IMO of course.

Your BF needs to go to court, get CS and a CO through the court and then put up boundaries and stick to them. I'd still be willing to bet BM PAS's his daughter and she will be hell to deal with, especially once teen years hit, but at least you've got a shot.

So in answer to your question, "Is there hope?" -I say yes but that could be b/c I'm an eternal optimist. Yes, and a stepmother. Those 2 dont normally go together, but they do exsist Ive been a stepmom for almost 4 years (sd was 8 when we got married) and it was hard as heck the first 2 years of our marriage. Like harder than anything books told you about, or you heard about. It was just hard. And miserable pretty much. BM was similar to what you describe, a trainwreck of infinite proportions in many different ways. Would I do it all over again? Yes, absolutely. However, the ONLY reason I can say that is because of the type of man my husband is. We adopted the philosophy of "We do not let BM dictate our behavior, our emotions or our actions w/ sd (his daughter)." period. end of story. BM has tried for years to engage dh and i in some pretty serious drama, including calling DHR on us, telling pretty terrible lies about us to SD, sending vile text messages and voicemails, etc etc and our philosophy has stayed the same. We dont walk around cursing people in every day life; we dont curse BM. We dont walk around engaging in drama w/ people at work or otherwise in our personal lives-if people are toxic we limit contact with them to the max extent possible-and likewise w/ BM. BM has gotten to where she avoids me completely, b/c I think it somewhat unnerves her how unresponsive/unreactive I am to her and her high school drama and DH communicates w/ her only about things specifically related to SD like school, medical bills, etc and if she starts down some ranting path, he politely ends the call and hangs up. As a result, BM is much less an issue that she used to be, we can hold our heads up knowing we have never bad mouthed BM to SD, we have never repayed her evil w/ evil and we continue to be adults regardless of how she acts. Now, thats all credit to my husband. If he were engaged in all teh drama, it would be a relentless nightmare. So, i would suggest, unless you have full faith that your Bf will nix the drama altogether (it takes 2 to have drama) then I would walk away. It wont be worth it, things will get worse as sd gets older, and you will grow to resent the preoccupation he has w/ the damaged relationship. I also think it speaks to maturity if he's engaging in hour long text "fights." Nothing productive comes from that and honestly it's just silly. So he needs to show you that he is truly over it by refusing to engage unless it specifically has to do w/ the kid. BM's can only go so far if they dont get the type of response they're looking for. Good luck-I hope he's the type that can tell her to take a hike and mean it.

If you are young, and don't have kids, and are of the age where you can still have some, there are plenty of single guys out there without kids and drama and I say bail and find someone who desesrves you that doesn't have all these issues.

To a great degree it depends on age. If you don't have kids, believe me you have many more options. Don't settle for second best. The BM sounds like poison and if BF doesn't set limits on the texting and stick with them and you guys become a solid team, then there is no hope. Sounds to me like he is still very involved and she knows how to manipulate him. All the time he spends texting her could be spent hanging with you. She will always be able to poison the SD and as she gets older it may become worse, although there is a chance that the SD may like you better than her own mother in the end. I've seen it happen.

There is hope, imo. You described my SO (who later became my husband) to a tee.

I will say this, he has to be willing to let it go and ignore her.

It didn't happen overnight, but my husband has realized that allowing this behavior was all about maintaining an illusion of control for him. She terrorized him constantly and he felt like he always had to respond every single time and immediately to put out fires, to talk her down from threats, to keep her from PASing out the kids, etc. Once he let those fears go, he was able to ignore her.

With a little education, he learned that most of her threats were things she pulled out of her ass, not things she actually had a chance of getting through the courts.

He learned that if there really was an emergency, he would find out anyway, even if he did block her from messaging him. Someone would contact him and it doesn't necessarily have to be her.

The hardest thing for him to let go of was wondering what she was saying to the kids. He felt like as long as she was constantly playing her hand with him, he would always know where her head was and he would be able to head off any PAS. Eventually he started trusting his children to judge him by his relationship with THEM, not by their mom's perception of him. This was tough. I think he's doing a good job but this is still the hardest for him. Since cutting off contact with his ex, the kids have actually reached our to him more than they used to. He is lucky, they are smart enough to see through their mom's pathetic attempts to make him look bad.

I wish you the best but please, insist that he starts to work towards cutting her off. The threats will get worse at first but then fade with time. If my husband hadn't been willing to let go I wouldn't have stuck around. It was way too painful to sit back and watch these exchanges

Sure there is hope. Little though it may be. Your SO needs to get back to court for a structured visitation schedule. That will take the power out of BM's hands to manipulate as much as she is doing now. A CO is the best possible tool for managing the blended family opposition regardless where you fall on the CP/NCP division. Once your SO has a CO he can spend time with his daughter and minimize the intrusion and manipulation by BM.

There is nothing quite like the sound of the toxic blended family opposition getting smacked in the side of the head by a rolled up copy of the CO. (Figuratively of course.)

Once your SO has structured visitation time with his kid then he can start the isolation of BM to keep her out of his life, your relationship and his time with his kid. If BM manipulates or interferes then he can invoke consequences each and every time she raises her vitriolic toxic head.

Your SO is one very simple step from taking control of the situation. He needs to motivate BMs rants by making neutral comments then let her run with the toxic rants. Save that communication history and put it in front of a Judge to see BM's crap and let the judge pummel BM in to submission.

He for sure needs to quit interfacing with BM in the protracted text battles. Nothing takes control in a conflict with a toxic moron like dictating what will happen, outlining the consequences, bringing the pain of accountability and ignoring the toxic idiot rants of the toothless moron opposition.

IMHO of course.

Good luck.