On a side note, I was reflecting on previous postings on why bio moms harbor so much resentment towards step moms. In my case I think that the obvious feeling is jealousy, but I believe that at her core she feels very very guilty and ashamed. Even if the bio mom made the choice to leave, perhaps there are feelings of unresolved guilt.

I have been with hubby now for almost 7 years and I am not going anywhere. Why don’t you focus on your new marriage; which you made sure you tell your girls it was for the money, house and what you can get when your new husbands mother dies was all about. Nice role model you are for your daughters. Don’t hate me because I have a master’s degree and a career which helps to pay for your kids. Why don’t you actually step up and be the mother that you project yourself to be so that I don’t have to step in and be. I never wanted to be mom or ever take your place. I was happy with seeing your kids over the weekend and then having alone time with hubby all week. I wasn’t happy with you calling constantly for stupid crap and to just ruin the girls visits. I want to be a mom to my own child and it will happen whether you like it or not. You don’t control US or anything that has to deal with us. GET A LIFE! Don’t be a hater because I worked hard for what I have and where I am. I feel sad for you that you don’t even know that your daughters love you unconditionally and all they want is your love and respect in return. They are loyal to you not me! They want you (their mother) to stop acting phoney and putting on shows around other people, and actually love them for who they are with no judgement. Why can’t you see that you have the greatest gift that God could give….two beautiful, healthy, intelligent daughters that only want their mother to love them for who they are. I feel pity for you not hate. Try coming into this relationship when you don’t have kids and have to deal with a jealous, manipulating ex who only thinks about themselves and no one else.

It’s all incredibly frustrating and disarming. We keep trying to anticipate what will happen: will she take their daughter and flee? Will she become violent? And what of the daughter? Does she believe her dad abuses her? Will we have to de-program her? We keep spinning our wheels. And waiting…

First things first: this person has a serious personality disorder or is mentally ill. Take a minute to let that settle in. You say she may be on a manic upswing. She is, in that case, a person in a biochemically altered state with, as you say, endless energy for conflict, trouble-making, and deviousness.

So your first order of business is to protect yourself and your marriage from this negative and destructive force. I suggest you and your husband get in to see a qualified couples therapist immediately, someone with a good understanding of and a great deal of experience with both manic depression/bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder.

What this person is likely to tell you is that you and your husband should cease all but the most minimal contact with this woman. Your stepdaughter being caught in the middle is heartbreaking, as are the lies, but the more you interact with your husband’s ex, it seems from your description of the situation, the more “activated” she will become.

Again I urge you to seek professional help immediately if you haven’t since the time you posted this.

Don’t forget to meditate if you wish, or build another ritual of relaxation into your day. Stress can literally kill you. So take good care.
Wishing you all good things,
wednesday

My BF and I recently moved in together. He has a 10 yo daughter of whom he is supposed to have partial custody. He ex-wife is crazy. I’m not exaggerating. Her craziness has paralleled our relationship. Since we moved in together, it has increased, and their daughter has become increasingly “anxious” yet also increasingly busy with sports and friends to the point where there was always a convenient excuse why the daughter could not visit with her father and I.

This week, the ex-wife stopped fabricating excuses and simply said, “She is not coming over. Call your lawyer. You are on notice.” We didn’t know what she was talking about. Then, we found out that earlier in the week she had applied for (and was thankfully denied) a petition for an injunction against domestic violence against my BF on behalf of their daughter. Her petition rambled for 7+ pages. She is alleging emotional abuse and feels their daughter in imminent danger of physical abuse by her father. This is outrageous, and she’s either perjuring herself or she’s delusional if she believes it all. Needless to say, we were shocked. We had no idea anything of this magnitude was brewing. Although the petition was denied, she has since refused visitation twice this week. The daughter has also been out of school for at least three days this week for no apparent reason.

We are both decent people who have tried very hard to communicate and cooperate with this woman. We feel she on the brink of or in the middle of a manic cycle. My BF went to his lawyer this week, and they will be filing the appropriate motions on Monday. Unfortunately we both work full time and do not have a lot of money. We are barely scraping together the (very kindly reduced) retainer fee the lawyer is requesting. She, on the other hand, is unemployed and is funded by a seemingly endless trust fund. She has all the time and money to drive us to bankruptcy.

I feel so threatened. We had plans for 2010 to move into a 3 bedroom house (right now we rent a tiny 2 bedroom apartment) and have a baby. I feel like she’s trying to prevent our lives from moving forward. I feel like she wants us to suffer. In the petition, she alleged my BF told their daughter that we would have a new baby when we got fed up with her. My mind is wrapping around each lie she fabricated and wanting to refute them all, but it’s pointless. I am obsessing.

I fear if we don’t have the funds to see a custody battle through that my BF’s daughter will go on believing her mom is some savior and her dad has abandoned her. I fear if we do get custody, we will have one pissed off preteen sulking in her room. The girl will be devastated if she’s separated from her mother, and we can’t financially support the lifestyle her mother has gotten her used to. Her life will be “ruined,” although we know it will be better in the long run. I’m scared and confused. I’ve never felt targeted like this before.

Last week, there were troubles and issues, this week feels like life and death.

In general, reading these responses, I have one main reaction. Some people get divorced because there is no other way out, and manage to remain sane and relatively healthy during and after. Other people, hopefully fewer, are so sick, so pathological, that divorce is just a symptom of deeper, more fundamental issues that make them incapable of having relationships–and the stresses or divorce just worsen their tendencies and exacerbate their pathology. Other people seem to be rendered pathological and sick by the pressures and stressors of divorce. I keep coming back to Hetherington’s observations about gendered responses to divorce. With some notable exceptions, who have all my admiration, Hetherington and Ahrons both shore up our sense that these histrionic (sorry, but if the shoe fits) responses to divorce are among women, many of whom initiate divorce but lose it when their husbands repartner. That is not to say that men aren’t sometimes crazy, violently possessive post-divorce, with women falling victim to their madness. But the fact remains that these baroque interpersonal dramas post-divorce are stoked, as Hetherington and Ahrons found, largely by ex wives. Much more research will have to be done before we know the precise hows and whys–though I agree with sociologists Stephanie Coontz and Linda Neilsen that our possessive mother model does us no favors here.

Reading all this I really give credit to the exceptional women who divorce and who, when their husbands repartner (as we know from the research that husbands tend to do within two years and often within one) maintain their dignity and self-respect, rather than beating the drum of their divorce for the rest of their lives. A wonderful story by Mary Kelly-Williams in the December issue of Stepmom Magazine really caught my attention and may interest you all. Mary, a family and couples therapist, mother of four, is also divorced and remarried a man with kids. In her essay she discusses a moment of “divorce regret”–examining a moment of temporary envy and jealousy at her ex’s life with his now wife–with raw honestly that is enlightening. I recommend it to everyone.

More soon. Keep the responses coming, here and on the Noonesthebitch website, if you are inclined!
-wednesday