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Ex wife won't move on

Cutetreehugger's picture

My husbands ex wife refuses to move on. This is after 11 years. She emails him in the middle of the night, saying that she's thinking about how it used to be, wondering where it all went wrong. She emailed him very upset that he didn't contact her when her brother passed away. She has even emailed me, attaching their wedding photos. She severely alienated his child and there is no relationship because she used every opportunity that my husband had to see his child as an opportunity to abuse my husband, both physically and verbally. She has a very strange dynamic with their now 16 year old in that since day one she openly shares her feelings with him. The child knows that his Mom is upset that they are no longer a family and pretty much knows every thing about the legal aspect of their divorce, which she dragged out over 9 years by being unreasonable. She also has not moved on from his parents and still crosses boundaries by constantly visiting and cooking for them when they are ill. They are quite old and just want to see their grandchild, so they go along with everything, which I feel is only hindering her in moving on.

I feel this woman is very unstable and I feel like she is really in the way of us creating full potential for our own marriage. Is this woman mentally ill or suffering from some sort of personality disorder?

ctnmom's picture

This is your DH's problem. He can't control her going around his parents, but he needs yesterday to put up some rock solid boundaries. No phone calls , and texts and e mails should only be acknowledged if they are about the kid. HE is the one who needs to keep your household free of his ex's influence.

Snowflake's picture

She sounds like a nut who has no other romantic prospects, so she is clinging onto the one that she had. If the skid is already alienated then why is she even in contact with your dh. He needs to tell her very firmly that she needs help, and to never contact him again regarding her emotional needs. He is married and he would never go back to her, period. No more skirting the issue. It has been 11 years!

Helen_Jane's picture

We have had this problem with my partners ex although not as extreme and not for as long. It sounds like there is no question that she is unstable and any contact he allows will only worsen it. I agree with TuesdaysGone. The best way we dealt with it was telling her strongly - no more contact - and if that doesn't work, take out a non-molestation order or US equivalent. If you can get their consent by explaining the problem, perhaps you can make this order cover the grandparents too and bring the children to see them yourselves.
You have to take the strongest action for everyone's sake - including his ex.

erasec63's picture

We have the same BM, except we fought her every step of the way. She tried for the first three years all of the above mentioned strategies. She immediately FB friended all of his family (they are in Italy) and started talking to them. She sent food out at every pick up, called on holidays, birthdays etc. We got court orders to keep her in the house at pick up (she punched him one night and we had an OOP, courts don't take abused men very seriously) and to stop the food gifts.
She tried keeping the kids from him and succeeded with the older two who turned 18. She fights every holiday and we have to call the police to enforce the schedule. She made false DCFS reports against me in order to try to get my teaching licensed revoked. ANYONE who thinks women aren't dangerous, THINK AGAIN. She tried to get petty gang members to kill me. This is an Italian woman in her 40s who grew up in Chicago and was educated in America. She was middle class, yet she acts like a street drug addict. We had custody while she was homeless and the moronic judge gave SD back to her at 6 years old.

My DH is an immigrant, ignorant of American laws. They destroyed him because of his language barriers (judge removed his interpreter) and his innocence. We have only gotten as far as we have due to my fierce opposition and ability to communicate to the lawyers and police what she does.
Make no mistake, these are mentally ill women with an agenda, and they all follow the same pattern. They are not men, they don't show up at the door and grab you and force you to come home-that's not in our DNA as it is with men. They use other, more devious methods to try to get their objects of control to come home. They won't quit.
I can only tell you what we do-no contact, no answers to her, no holiday niceties. We stick to the schedule and call the police when she won't comply. We tell the lawyers and judges what she does-no protection for her. We are honest with the now 10 year old, no matter how much she doesn't want to hear it.

I hope that someday she will self-destruct as she did when she was homeless. Their mental illness won't go away, particularly if she won't get any help.

Show your face at every graduation, wedding, visitation-it flies in the face of what they believe-that you have stolen their unwitting ex.

Show her you are stronger than her-you are.

sadstep1's picture

Wow! She sounds just like my husbands ex-wife. She won't move on either and she's been remarried twice since their divorce back in 2004!

She has turned my husbands parents against him by using their son to tell them lies about bad things my husbands is supposedly guilty of. She has ruined the relationship between father and son because she is so bitter about their divorce she can't let go of her animosity towards my husband.

Talk about a weird relationship between mother and son! Come to find out, she was still washing his genitals when he was 11 years old! This came out in the 4 year long change of residential custody case my husband started to try and get their son away from the crazy ex-wife. Did the court do anything about this disgusting discovery. Hell no!