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Dealing with the BM

Possum2220's picture

My fiance and I have been together for a little over 3 years now. He has 3 kids, Girl 10, Boy 13 and Boy 15. We have the middle child full time, except every other weekend. The other two are still 50/50 custody with week on week off. The BM, for little reason other than I am someone other than her, hated me. She does everything she can to try to make our lives miserable, or cause drama. Anytime there is mention of me and the kids interacting, she tries to punish the kids, telling them they will be grounded/write sentences. She stalks our FB and uses anything against us to try to turn the kids against us. She lies constantly about my fiance and I trying to make the kids go against us in anyway, while she is leaving the kids to constantly party, we think she is also on drugs, but have no hard evidence. We try to regulate the negativity by positive reinforcement with the kids. we reassure them that what she speaks against us are lies, and try our best never speak negative about her. The tow youngest see our side more so, and understand she lies and causes drama for no reason, but the oldest is for some reason on her side. he defends her actions when she doesnt deserve it, and we have to regulate him the most when he comes back from his moms, because she puts a bunch of stuff inher head about me, and then he acts rudely toward me. I am not sure what to do or how to deal with this. We continue to just move forward, but I am so sick of the drama, and the stress she causes. Any suggestions is greatly appreciated!

strugglingSM's picture

You can't change what the BM will say about you when you're not there and you also can't force your stepchildren to see their mother as being manipulative, but you can impact your home environment. Continue to build a home environment that is respectful to everyone, never say anything negative about the BM, don't initiate conversations about the BM (if a child mentions something about their mother, just smile and nod or if it's something negative just say "well, that's unfortunate"), and last, but perhaps most important, your fiance needs to make it clear to his kids that when they are in your house they are to treat you with respect, no exceptions.

BM drama drives me crazy, but the only thing that has sort of helped me is that I push her drama as far out of my home as I can, which means that I don't talk to her, I don't talk about her with the kids (other than the smiling and nodding and giving positive affirmation when needed), I don't talk about her with my in-laws, I expect DH to manage her drama (most of the time, I wish he wouldn't even tell me about it), and finally, I push DH hard to try to limit the drama on his end by following the CO to the letter of the law and not contacting her when he feels concerned over something (because if he brings concerns over anything about the children to her, so just turns it into a fight between the two of them, even if his concerns are valid things that every parent should care about).