You sound like a wonderful person. Very sweet, understanding and level headed. I'm going to tell you what I wish someone had told me, because what you're going through now sounds very similar to what I went through.

BM is the enemy. Not in the evil soul sucking way (though some BMs on here are) but the enemy in that: she cannot be trusted. She's still in love with your BF. You can expect her to throw mini-drama filled fits for the next year or 2 to get his attention(this is what happened to me). The fits will be like: I need you, EX. Can't live without you, EX. You are a horrible Father, EX. You love your GF more than your children. I'm gonna move far away because that's what's best for me and the children. You don't see you kids enough you must not love them. You don't pick up the phone late at night and talk to me about our kids, so you are unreasonable. And so on and so forth. You can expect her to throw her fits for much longer if you or your BF start playing her games.

You were wise to not befriend her in the beginning(smarter than me!). Keep it that way. I'm not saying you have to be a b!tch, it's just a good idea to keep your distance.

It would be great if your BF learned not to be phased by her "fits". Sounds like he's still trying to pacify her (hour long conversations alone with her). It won't work and he's just playing into her "game".

Honestly, you are in the wrong place. The only support you get on this forum is when you are bashing your stepchildren or ripping apart the birth mom. I stopped posting here long ago after reading some of the horrific things people were saying about children and then justifying them as "vents".
I am a step mom and a bio-mom who has worked very very hard at creating a decent relationship with my ex's new wife for the sake of our children. These women on here are spiteful, jealous and vindictive and most of the posts consist of disgusting "vents" about little children or horrible descriptions of the women who gave birth to them.
My advice to you is to follow your gut and give everyone time to adjust. The birth mom is not the enemy, as one poster so ignorantly told you, but I am sure she is carrying pain that you cannot possibly understand unless you've been through it. Hope for the best and concentrate on making your relationship work. Continue to be kind to those boys, as they are carrying a lot of pain as well and at their young ages in may easily be expressed through bratty behavior. I admire your empathy and compassion towards birth mom and I hope you do not get tainted by these witches on this site.
Good luck!

I think its great, that you are handling this so well. I, like giltridden, am a stepmother (of sorts) and bio mom. But to judge every one else based on one good relationship, is not fair. the other side of my coin has been nothing but drama, and anger, and foolishness and im doing my best but if it ends, I will NEVER date another man with small children until I am absolutely positive about the situation. My dumbass SO actually thought BM and I would be great friends and we would frolick down the yellow brick rd together as one happy blended family. She was crazy then, and after we got together, the crazy only escalated. It happens. And when BMs arent over it, its a nightmare for EVERYONE.

I have a nice, quiet, drama free relationship with my sons father and his wife. BUT, i was not a needy, money hungry, controlling, jealous psychotic BM. My ex and I dealt with the kid issues and that was that. I never called her, tried to be her friend, or got in her business, or threatened her, or tried to warn her. that being said, it usually only works with you have two (3) adults trying to co parent, and make things work, and focus on the kids and not all the other crap.

the BM that I have had to deal with, is a nightmare. there is no reasoning. She is certifiable. yes, signed and delivered, has papers where she can get disability because she is psycho. You cannot reason, you cannot talk. It might improve, it might not. YOU HAVE TO SET BOUNDARIES. And you have to set those with SO and BM and skids. There is no reason for them to be chatting it up for an hour while you babysit. if it is going ot be all that, put it in an email. If she needs something, get it in writing. And let him know, that you are not okay with stuff. If he cannot see your side, then you really need to consider how much you want to pursue this relationship. If he cannot set boundaries with her, and hang up the phone when she is going on and on about how much she misses him, that is a problem. He either likes hearing it, and enjoys it or he is just a coward and cant stand up to her.

that phone call happened ONCE. it was prob and hour or so, and she was going on and on and on about them, and their family, and what about it, and is it not important anymore.

I let it happen, and then I went off. I asked him the obvious smartass questions, like, I thought you said you were already split up? Are you moving in with her? Should I leave and give you some alone time with her? (my house, yes, I was being a smartass) and if this is the norm, I was obviously misled about the status of this relationship and can see I am not involved here and we need to reconsider our relationship.

it worked. He stopped engaging (it was difficult at first) but I didnt force him to. He just knew that we would not be togheter if this nonsense continued. If he needed to do that as much as she did, then they were not spilt up and I was moving on. He did it because he wanted to and because he wanted to be with me. I just made it very clear what I would handle.

I hope some of this helps. My favorite word is boundaries. And making those clear to your SO, and knowing your limits. If he cant detach from her, then you will only grow angry, and feel more like 3rd in line.

I doubt that there are many women out there that really want to be "sister wives". But a whole lot of men seem to be unable to cut the emotional ties to the ex. Yes she is the mother of their children - but they need have no more communication than the minimum to co or parallel parent.

Anything that is not about the children is about "the two of them". If my DH wants a relationship with another woman he is absolutely free to do so - I cannot dictate what he does. But I totally control what I do. I only participate in monogamous relationships.

My SS is almost 30. There is no reason on the face of this earth for DH and BM to have a relationship (in my world). DH tried that crap when we were first together. I nipped that in the bud right away. He had a choice her or me.

You say you're a lawyer just curious what does BF and BM do? He moved in w/ you how does he contribut to the household? Also she has lived w/ her parents for 6 years or so (and you have your own home) and the children are 5 and 7 did he live w/ his inlaws also or did the relationship disintegrate pretty much around the second pregnancy? I'm just trying to wrap my mind around it all.

Hi There,

I am both a BM and an SM. From the BM side of things, I havent always had the relationship with my ex that I have now and I mostly attribute this to his GF. My ex was quite petty, wouldnt drop the kids off if my SO was here etc etc which made things really difficult all round. Then he met and starting seeing his current GF and has done a complete 180. He now drops the kids off to my SO one night during the week and stays for a beer and a chat. His GF will drop the kids off to my if my ExH cant and we will sit and have a chat. I realise that this is not the norm but I do attribute most of this to his GF, she is lovely and I am glad to have someone like her as a potential SM to my kids.

On the SM side of things, my SO's ex was fine until things got serious and we moved in together, thats when I think she started PASing out the SS so he pretty much never comes here anymore. I tried to befriend her, thinking that we could have the kind of relationship that I now have with my ex and his GF but apparently my attempts to befriend her made me a creepy stalker }:) . She wont even say hello to him if she sees him she is just a rude bitch.

I guess what I am trying to say is that if you can have a relationship with the ex for the sake of the kids thats great, but if she has turned psycho as so many BM's are then perhaps you are better off stepping back and letting your SO deal with her?? Its a shame she has cut down visitation particularly if its time that you all enjoy together though, I'm not really sure there is anything you can do or say to BM.

Good Luck

Unfortunately, you might never get to the point where you can all sit and have a cup of coffee at drop-off. It might happen, but, it might not. But know that it's OK if it doesn't happen that way. When I first started dating SO, I had the notion in mind that it would be like that for us. That we would be able to hang out with GUBM at drop-off time and that it would all be hunky-dory. I couldn't have been any more wrong.

Just don't ever let what BM thinks of you or the way BM treats you impact the way you interact with your skids. Sure, she doesn't want you coming to events that she'll be at, so, fine. Whatever. Maybe she'll get over it because she is still hell-bent on playing happy little family. Maybe she won't. But, that's OK, too. You and your SO can celebrate special days for the skids by yourselves. If you're OK with him going to those things alone, cool. But, if BM can't handle seeing you at events, then, perhaps there are things that BM should take the skids to or do for the skids and things that you and SO should do for the skids/take them to. Perhaps it's just the bitterness that comes from having a PAS-ing, psycho BM with a personality disorder, but, I can't help but think that forcing you to stay away from things will be used against you at some point in the future by BM. But, maybe your BM isn't as bad as my BM and wouldn't even consider such a thing.

GUBM was fine with me dating SO at first, but, got really insecure after I met SD. At first, she made a few remarks about wanting to be friends with me, but then, for the next four months after I met SD, GUBM would call SO all the time to talk about things unrelated to SD, send him texts to let him know she was thinking about him, send him pictures of her and SD being all happy ("we miss you, we love you SO!"), position herself between the two of us (gee, I wonder where SD learned that behavior...) when she would 'hang out' when she came to pick SD up, give SO these really creepy hugs where she rubbed his back and aggressively pressed her chest into him (far different from the hugs she gave everyone else), say obnoxious things like "Oh, I remember when SO and I first moved in together/first started dating/had SD". That kind of nonsense. I told SO it seemed like she was clearly trying to mark her territory and trying to scare me off. It didn't work.

But then, when SO and I moved into SO's townhouse after she elected to move to the Jersey shore with SD, all hell broke loose. She LOST it. And in a far more psychotic way than your BM has it seems. When we moved in, the house was filled with her mess and stuff, so, SO packed all of her things up while I scrubbed down the house and he put it all in the basement. She came to pick up SD and get some things after the first weekend visit post-move and had a mental breakdown in our house. And this was after demanding and threatening SO to let her into HER house. She broke down and cried and slumped to the floor in the living room because he let me touch her stuff (I totally didn't) and let me move my stuff in (because, what, I was going to keep my stuff at my Mom's house or in the garage? ffs). She freaked out because she realized the relationship was really over. Before it was still just a joke to her, SO was living in some house with some girl and would come crawling back any day now. But now, now it was real because he had clearly moved on and she hadn't. Lord knows she tried. GUBM cheated on SO and moved her boy-toy junkie into the townhouse before kicking SO out and 'dated' him for the first year we were together. But, she really was just biding her time and waiting for SO to crawl back and beg her to take him back.

GUBM freaked out about the failing of their relationship then and there in our living room, in front of SD, while I hid upstairs because I knew I would not be able to witness whatever nonsense she planned to unleash on SO in my own house. She whined and cried about how SO let her down, how he ruined their relationship, how he's a horrible father to SD, how I wrecked their family and SO just let me do it and how could he let me do that and blahblahblah. It was at this point that I started listening to music to drown her out because how in the hell can you say all of that in front of your kid?? To me it's not surprising that this was the beginning of the end for SO's relationship with SD. It's been all downhill from there. I can't even say that GUBM is completely over SO now. She does have a live-in boyfriend, but, based on the fact that SD has grown ever more distant with SO and that GUBM is ever more vile towards SO, I really don't think she's over the whole relationship. She's moved beyond grief into anger. Now, rather than being sad about the relationship that was, she's angry that SO let her down in so many ways and broke so many "promises" to her. It's especially sad because there are things I want to do with SO that I know will just result in GUBM being vile and noxious. Like, I want to marry SO sometime in the relatively near future. But, I know that's going to cause a huge problem with GUBM and SD. Because SHE was supposed to marry him. NOT me. Maybe one day she'll get over it completely. I just wish it had happened a long time ago.

But, anyway, enough of my own ridiculous experience. I hope that your BM does not prove to be a psycho BM. I really wish I didn't have to deal with the GUBM I do and that I had BMs like some of the BMs that grace us with their presence on here. Yes, it's hard getting over a relationship, but, sometimes you just have to suck it up and realize that it's not going to happen and that it's better to work on you getting to your better tomorrow. So, I hope that your BM can get over the relationship she wishes she had with SO and instead focus on making herself and the skids happy.