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Would it be wrong of me ..

livizzle's picture

.. to have BM blocked from calling our (namely DH's) cell phones?

I wouldn't be blocking communication between DH and his kids, but rather, forcing BM to call our home phone. Ex-spouses do not need to speak to each other 3-4x a day. IMO, there is no need for BM to call DH during the day while they are both at work, wasting away our minutes. The other reason? I'm tired of BM spewing her crap about me on a cell phone that, married or not, is in MY name. Just like, married or not, those are DH's and BM's kids. It was the straw that broke the camel's back last night when she started her "OMG, I can't believe she STARVED the kids today! I'm so tired of HER drama!" crap. This isn't the first time that BM has called and talked about me on what is essentially MY phone.

I was going to talk to DH about this when he gets home tonight. It's not something that I'd rush into. I was going to give him 24 hours notice before calling T-Mobile. This, IMO, is more than enough time for him to make sure BM has our home number, etc.

What do you think?

Comments

Done WIth It's picture

I'm surprised your husband allows her to call that much. You'd think he'd gotten the message across to cool it.

BM needs to stop being a drama queen in front of the children. I'm sure she's doing it to get the message across to her children, "Look and listen to me rant and rave about how much I care for you".

You'd think your husband would be sick of listening to her rag on his ear blathering on and on. Do you think there's something more to this? Maybe he should tell her to make a list of everything she wants to discuss because unless it's an emergency, she now allowed one phone call a week.

Sounds like your husband and the BM still consider themselves "a couple" because that's a lot of talking to each other a day...fer sure!!!!

Disneyfan's picture

She is only doing what he allows her to do. If he ignored the calls or would hang up when she starts in on you, she would stop calling. Kinda hard to have a one sided conversation. Having her call the house, won't change things if he isn't willing to stand up to her. She will just talk crap about you on the house phone instead of the cell.

masonsmom's picture

I would I have had that done to his ex before bc she was sending pics of her to Dh. She would also text him all the freakin time...ANNOYING! I would just do it esp if it is in your name!

livizzle's picture

So, I went ahead and called T-Mobile to have BM's number blocked. She can no longer call either of our cell phones and no calls can be placed from either of our numbers to her.

I'm normally not a snoop, but I did look at DH's portion of the cell usage. DH and BM have spent over two hours talking since June 23! I know that most of the talking has been to BM because skids have been at MIL's for 90% of that time. I mean, really? Over two hours? What in the world are you talking about? Especially at 7:22a? 12:30p? You're supposed to be working! For this, I figured that BM (nor DH) didn't deserve a 24 hour notice of what would be happening. They'll find out soon enough. }:)

Done WIth It's picture

oh man....good luck there.

Though I always wanted to do that.....I felt it was up to my husband to make that choice. I kept out of it, and he finally kept cutting her off. It was hard for him because she wanted to engage with him. If she could get a rise out of him, at least he was still saying words she could use against him. If he was quiet and let her blather, she felt she was still calling the shots. She wanted her kids to listen to her talk to "dad" trying to enforce that they were still a family....even though she lived 1,000+ miles away. What a friggin' nuisance she was. But my husband kept it cool and short. From what I'd hear from the kids, sounded like even when my husband hung up...she'd stat on the phone talking as if he was still on it. Lovely, huh? Cuckoo Cuckoo!!

Sure hope you don't have problems with your husband over it.

Done WIth It's picture

Smofnowitall, it's obvious she's at the end of her rope with the nonsense.

Those of us who've dealt with this know exactly where she's coming from. SHe's exasperated having to defend herself, she's sick of BM's habitual complaining about her, she's sick of the baseless drama.

She's done what she can and it's been twisted for another thing to be used against her.

THe least you can do is cut her some slack and advice her on what to do so she doesn't catch hell for reacting to a situation that has clearly been the straw that broke the camels back.

Sheesh!

Done WIth It's picture

livizzle...you really might want to rethink what you did. I think my husband would not have liked it had I done that.....although, believe me...I wanted to block her.

Just recoup and rethink. If you do take her off block (keep her blocked on your phone) tell husband you had to do that for some sense of sanity and literally "removed" her for just a few minutes. Tell him you're better and that he has to do something about her constant phone nagging.

Good luck...I know exactly what you're going through.

livizzle's picture

There is NO WAY IN HELL that I will be removing the block from our phones. If BM needs to speak to DH, she is more than welcome to call our home phone. I refuse to keep up a cell phone to be talked about on. I have begged for MONTHS for DH to fix the problem, to tell her to eff off when she started spewing her crap. Asking nicely failed, so now, we're going to play MY game. Am I treating DH like a child? Kind of. Am I being treated as a free babysitter/maid/taxi/etc.? ABSO-FRIGGIN'-LUTELY! All while being the scape goat for BM. She's tired of MY drama? Well, I was just making her life easier.

Anon2009's picture

Hi livizzle,

I can certainly understand about the cell phone calling from BM and how annoying it is.

What DH had to do was find a third party that had his cell phone # in case of emergencies and give BM the numbers of the third party. She could call those in emergencies. For us, that third party was an acquaintance we all knew. You might want to call your local family court to see if they have anything that can help with this.

mom2five's picture

While I understand your reasons, I think you made a big mistake for three reasons:

1. What happens if there is a true emergency and no one is at home? BM will be unable to reach the kids' dad. And he would be unable to reach her.

2. If your DH wanted to block her number, he could have done so. You should have suggested it, but not done it without telling him. He is not a child. And men resent being treated like incapable kids by their wives. His ex, his problem.

3. To be honest, it makes you look insecure.

And I say this as custodial stepmom married to a man with a certifiable ex-wife who sends bizarre texts, emails, and calls my DH's cell for the most ridiculous reasons. We just cut the conversations short and we don't respond to unnecessary texts or emails.

livizzle's picture

I did NOT go behind DH's back to set up the block. I did speak with him to let him know how I was feeling about all of this. His response? "OK." There was never a "I don't think you should do that", etc. DH is a pushover, when it comes to BM and skids. He is always seeing BM's actions in a 'the glass is half full' sort of way. DH makes sure to answer BM's calls each and everytime she calls. I have never seen him hang up on BM or give her the tongue lashing she deserves. Instead, it's "I don't want to talk about this now." DH doesn't want to talk about it when I'm within earshot. It's upsetting.

As for an emergency (which there has never been one that DH wasn't contacted until HOURS after said "emergency"), BM is in contact with MIL. She knows MIL's home and cell numbers, and MIL knows how to reach both DH and me.

And insecure? Well, that's far from what I am. "Insecure" would be not having the balls to stand up for myself and put my foot down when it comes to spreading vicious lies, etc. My mother didn't raise a fool.

mom2five's picture

Um....that's not what you said. In your previous post, you stated:

I'm normally not a snoop, but I did look at DH's portion of the cell usage. DH and BM have spent over two hours talking since June 23! I know that most of the talking has been to BM because skids have been at MIL's for 90% of that time. I mean, really? Over two hours? What in the world are you talking about? Especially at 7:22a? 12:30p? You're supposed to be working! For this, I figured that BM (nor DH) didn't deserve a 24 hour notice of what would be happening. They'll find out soon enough.

I'm not trying to be mean. But you clearly state that you didn't give notice and that they would "find out soon enough".

My point is simple. You DH is a grown man. This is his ex-wife. He should be the one handling this. When you do stuff like this, you send a message to your DH that you don't think he is capable of handling his ex. I know you don't mean to....but the message is, "you are too weak to handle this".

I speak from experience on this. I've been guilty of the same thing, especially in the first few years of our marriage. Trust your husband to deal with his ex.

livizzle's picture

When I told DH what I was going to do, I told him that I would give him 24 hours to make sure BM had our home number, etc. DH KNEW at that point what I was going to do. I decided then that BM did not deserve the courtesy notice.

I have begged DH for two years to take care of the problem. It has yet to be taken care of. That's EXACTLY why this happend.

buttercookie's picture

Don't feel bad, I blocked my husbands crazy ex and his youngest son from calling his cell, he was so happy about it, They can call the home line or have the other step son relay any emergency information.

srangel112's picture

I think this should have been something you and your DH worked out together first. But we have blocked communication to and from our cell phones to any and all of her numbers. There is a dedicated cell phone line (since we don't have a land line) that she can call and the kids call her. The reason we did this was more because of the harrassment she was doing to us, threatening us, telling us to go to hell or that she's calling our lawyer...it was also a way to show, if it ever gets to that point, the judge of the extent of harrassment and what we've had to do about it. If there ever was an emergency that we needed to call her about the kids, we can easily log on to our cell phone account and unblock it. However, last week SS6 had tonsil surgery, and I had him call her on the way to the hospital. She was well aware of this and has been in and out of the hospital herself so she knows surgeries are early in the morning. So at 5:45 am he calls her, no answer, left her a message, and then she calls a little later saying, "It's 5:30 am, why are you calling me?" That's the kind of mother we have here! So we didn't even bother calling her back after the surgery.

livizzle's picture

The difference here is that I don't have anyone that calls me who attacks DH. This would NOT be tolerated. Why? He is my husband, and I am not going to allow anyone to put him down to me.

As far as talking to the mother (if you'd like to call her that) of his children, there is a time and a place. A quick "is there anything I need to be aware of?" at the end of his conversation with skids would suffice. There is no reason for BM to call DH 3-4x during the middle of the work day on a consistent basis.

GlitterGal79's picture

I find his behavior odd. Why isnt he sticking up for you? Better yet, why is he taking her calls? Typically, a woman wont continue to reach out to a man unless he gives her reason to (unless she's mentally ill). If I were you, I would strongly consider asking him who he's in a relationship with and ask him to stop taking all of her crazy calls.

SMH, this doesnt make sense to me...

twopines's picture

LOL my DH felt the same way. No big deal for him as long as I didn't block the kids' cell phones.

buttercookie's picture

exactly what we did and I agree wholeheartly we didn't sit by the phone before cell phones

twopines's picture

>>>not long ago, we didn't have cell phones and we didn't all set by the phone waiting on bad news.<<<

Exactly. Miraculously the world kept spinning before cell phones.

herewegoagain's picture

I don't know that I would have done it without a warning to my DH, but I definitely would have blocked her. When we first had a cell phone over 12yrs ago, idiot BM would constantly call DH when we had the kid or not...I got sick of it and since they were both under my name, I disconnected BOTH phones. No more drama. Too bad. DH was warned that I would be disconnecting as I was paying for him to talk to ME not to talk to his ex. He didn't like it...too bad...he could've gotten himself a phone and paid for it himself...obviously he had messed up credit thanks to BOTH of them so he couldn't do anything...it wasn't my problem.