How do you handle a smothering, judgement & critical ex?

[dadthatshadenough]

So I have a shared parenting plan and have enjoyed some great times with my daughter, now 4 1/2. Things in life have gotten better.

The exwife is a constant hassle. By hassle, its not a thorn in the side issue. It's more of a minion of evil issue.

We are divorced and have been living separately for more than a year. I've been seeing a lovely woman thats an elementary school teacher for a year who is also divorced with children of her own that play well with my daughter. We took a vacation together with our kids in the summer for 10 days, its been nice.

The problem is my ex is judgement & critical of everything. It doesn't matter what I do, every choice is wrong and because I formally cut off phone communication with her to hopefully curb the nonsense, I now get an earful by text or email about it.

I thought by the time my ex would have found someone she would have chilled out.

She had a bunch of failed relationships that never flourished, but finally has a guy that has stuck around for a few months. I figured by the time she was getting f%^ked properly, the evil minion in her would have calmed down just a little bit.

But no.

Our schedule is every other weekend, and two non consecutive days during the week each. Every time my daughter is in my care, she wants to Skype or facetime with her. It's only on the weekends that I don't have my daughter that I request a call, but my ex must be in constant contact. Every. Single. Day.

Every call consists of "look what mommy bought you today" "mummy has a surprise for you" "mummy misses you so much" etc.

Our separation agreement just says each parent will allow the other reasonable contact by phone/skype etc. It also says you can't harass, speak ill of the other parent. Basically leave the other parent in peace. My daughter asked me the other day "Daddy, are you an idiot". I'm not even getting into that here.

On thanksgiving yesterday It wasn't my weekend but our agreement gives me the thanksgiving monday. I picked her up for Monday around 11. Well By about 5 the texts started with "when can I Facetime" "I'm going out and want to facetime" "D4 wanted to facetime with me today" etc.

She had just seen her that morning, and my daughter never even asked about contacting mummy not to mention I had my family and my g/f and her kids over.

I've allowed these factime calls every time my daughter was with me as i didn't see much harm. I see a few problems now.

-Its infringing on my time, the constant texts to facetime are getting in the way of my enjoyment time with my daughter. My ex basically expects me to respond to her text requests every time.

-The nature of the facetime calls are disturbing. Its like my ex is trying to smother with contact, and buy attention with trinkets

I talked to my lawyer in the past and basically he said "well whats good for the goose is good for the gander". Essentially, let her contact at the same frequency you contact your daughter. But I haven't pulled back yet on the ex's contact.

The other problem is the long winded emails I get bitching about everything under the sun and moon.

Oh my daughter saw my g/f naked when she was getting changed and I have no values, oh the sleeping arrangements are wrong everytime my g/f and I are with our kids together or on vacation with our kids. I dont make our daughter feel safe with sleeping arrangements. How our daughter sees my g/f & I naked in the middle of the night when she gets up if she is scared.

I could go on and on with her trivial nonsense and its not just limited to my g/f. My family, my car seat, my car, my daughters bike helmet etc are all wrong too.

Now I dont talk to my ex unless its a scheduling issue, and almost all exchanges happen at school now. So all this information is coming from her interrogating our 4 1/2 yr old daughter.

Kids at that age will parrot back whatever someone asks with a leading question. Any my ex is a lawyer so she does it real well.

My ex is quite literally a crazy control freak.

I've done nothing wrong. Our daughter is safe. My g/f is the closest thing to Mary Poppins you can find, and her kids are excellent.

Its gotten to the point where I can't sleep sometimes because I'm thinking about this nutbar exwife, her long winded BS emails and what to do.

Speaking from experience, how did you deal with a ex like this?

Do you just tell her to raise her complaints before a judge?
Do you ignore it totally?
What about the daily factime/skype call requests?

I divorced this crazy controlling woman, but she wont give it a rest.

[DowntroddenDad]

I'm sure plenty of people will chime in.

First, stop texting. You need to be firm with her that you only respond to emails that have something to do with the needs of the child. That is all you are responsible to do.

You have to get a thicker skin, stop caring what you ex thinks or what she does. It doesn't matter.

As for facetime, think of what is reasonable - 15 minutes once a day?

If she is a monster, don't feed her. She wants attention and control, don't give it to her.

[FB_]

Plain and simple you need to simply ignore her. Do not respond to her texts, emails, phone calls nothing.

Allow one phone call / face time before bed only. That's probably the only consistent time for you and her. YOU need to lay down the law. Here is when you can talk to her and this time is at YOUR convenience not hers.

My ex is the same way with phone calls. Starting at 7:30 each night the phone rings non stop. If I don't answer my cell phone rings. If I don't answer she calls my mom (I'm not joking). She will CALL and CALL and CALL until she gets to talk to her kids.

I don't answer the phone. I let my kid answer if they want to talk to her. I have blocked her from texting me. It's email only which is very easy to ignore.

[FB_]

FB_

This might come across as "Controlling" though ?

However, I concur with the "don't feed the beast" sentiments so far

So, lol.

I see it more of managing expectations.

[blinkandimgone]

Plain and simple you need to simply ignore her. Do not respond to her texts, emails, phone calls nothing.

Better yet, don't even read them. Let her know that you will be checking your emails once per day and will respond only to emails pertaining to important matters for the child with the topic clearly stated in the subject line. Define what you consider to be important matters, let her know you will respond to those emails within 24 hours.

Then...follow through. Don't even read the other emails, make a folder in your email titled 'nutjob' and set up a filter to send all emails from her there.

Get an app like 'Auto SMS' for your cell phone and set up an auto responder for her texts to respond for you. Reply only to those that are YOU fell are urgent.

Set up a specific time for the kid to call her mom. Make it roughly the same time, every time. Then you don't need to field texts/emails about her wanting it.

Stop letting her decide how much space she will have in your life.

[HammerDad]

You need to establish boundaries.

If she texts you midday for Facetime, reply that you will set it up at 7pm so she can say goodnight before bed. Say the same thing every time.

Your agreement provides for reasonable contact, that is reasonable contact. Mid-afternoon is not reasonable for you as you have plans with the child.

Ignore all of her ranting emails. Create a new folder in your email box, call it the Stupid Box. Move all of her rants to that folder. Do not reply to anything that is not related to the kids schedule or health. Her rants about how bad a dad you are get summarily ignored.

Don't let her get to you. Set up some boundaries that will allow you to enjoy your time, yet be within the scope of your agreement.

[stripes]

What everyone else said ...

Tell her that you will not respond to texts except in case of emergency. If she wants to discuss anything related to D4, she should email you. Set up a dedicated email address on gmail or hotmail just for her, and check it only once a day (ideally at the same time each day).

Tell her that you will set up Facetime for D4 each night at 7.00 and she is welcome to call then.

I know it's hard not to get drawn into ranting emails from crazy people casting aspersion on everything you do. I told my ex that I would only respond to messages which met all three criteria:

1) They were civil and did not contain insults.
2) They concerned D8.
3) They contained reasonable requests for information (e.g. "When are D8's swimming lessons" - in other words, no broad commentaries on my life, please).

Then I stuck to it. It took a while, but he was "trained" out of the crazy ranting when he stopped getting any reaction from me.

[Pursuinghappiness]

dadthatshadenough:

Definitely re-read the posts by DD, Blink, FB and Hammerdad over a few times.

So much of what happens with the ex is what we allow to happen.

You have to simply disengage...stop giving an audience to her nonsense, decide what works for you and your household and most importantly emotionally check-out of her continued harrassment.

What she wants on your time is irrelevant. Understand this...your separation agreement might say whatever but ultimately, she cannot and will not (unless she's a total idiot who likes picking up court fees) be able to do anything about how you manage your time with your child. She has zero power over how you handle your access time with your child. Use that as empowerment to start taking some control over your access time.

If my ex called or texted me, he'd never get a response unless I considered it an emergency. All the early nonsense stuff he would send me, I just ignored...and over time, he stopped bothering. His opinion isn't required and I find him extremely easy to disregard. He knows this and in time, stopped bothering trying. I literally get almost zero communication from him unless its about modifications that he needs to the access arrangement.

Send her one email stipulating that she's being disruptive to your access time with your child and laying out the new rules. Ie. Don't call me/text me or email me unless its important. Any non-important message will simply be disregarded...and this is the new time for any skype call. This is the only time I will allow. You can also remind her of the bad-mouthing of the other parent is akin to child abuse and that you are documenting the things your child is saying in the event she should require counselling in the future due to ongoing parental conflict and leave it at that. Basically, if you do the right thing as a parent, your ex will have a hard time destroying the relationship you have with your child.

Then...sit back...drink a glass of wine...and you and your new partner can chuckle over her ranting and raving.

Eventually, if you change your behavior...she'll start changing hers. Some ex's are like unruly animals, they need a firm training hand.

[Serene]

Some very good advice on here. First and foremost ignore any email that isn't respectful. But save it. Often high conflict individuals will pepper their emails with some content that requires a response and is semi-respectful but then bash you and be annoying and irritating in the rest. Ignore them. They must learn and to be respectful in ALL communications.

The other interesting thing is this is often a tactic to change the status quo. Many HCP (high conflict persons) will use these types of communications to push you into a corner to try and establish that shared parenting/joint custody is not possible because of the conflict between you both. However, if you never backlash and you never entertain these emails, it would be difficult to ever establish that YOU are the problem.

You would be wise to read "Bill Eddy BIFF". Do it now. Read it again and again and again. Read it any time you respond to any email from the wench.

I feel for you. We've been at this for several years and we have had to endure the most foul emails, and on a daily basis, from our HCP ex. Honestly, I would feel better if I knew the woman was drunk when she wrote these emails, sometimes which span pages and pages at a time... as they do read as if she were drunk. I suspect she is sick with envy and esteem issues, ones which we cannot help her with and she must find a solution on her own. Of course, if you are in denial, there is no cure to be found.

What else is troubling is how her boyfriend has decided to chum up with her and writes his own emails from time to time to us. I'm not sure why this is such an enjoyable past time for them because I know I'd prefer to spend my time with my partner very differently. In any event, they are a few sandwiches short of a picnic and these emails have assisted us many times over in conveying what type of people they are when faced with allegations and dilemmas that require a demonstration of our morals, ethics and character. In other words, they put this all in print and we have hundreds of these emails and have used them as evidence to our benefit.

As for the phone calls. They are over the top. This is about controlling YOU, not about speaking to the daughter likely. We've been through this too. We chose to stop it. And we did. It was silly anyhow, the children had nothing to say to mom since they just spoke with her an hour or two before. It was reckless and a demonstration of HER separation issues, not the children's issues.

PM me if you want more advice. We have been there. Will lend an ear and what we know. Some can't be shared on the public forum for fear of identification.

[Pursuinghappiness]

What else is troubling is how her boyfriend has decided to chum up with her and writes his own emails from time to time to us. I'm not sure why this is such an enjoyable past time for them because I know I'd prefer to spend my time with my partner very differently. In any event, they are a few sandwiches short of a picnic and these emails have assisted us many times over in conveying what type of people they are when faced with allegations and dilemmas that require a demonstration of our morals, ethics and character. In other words, they put this all in print and we have hundreds of these emails and have used them as evidence to our benefit.

Agreed.

I rarely get this kind of email from my ex anymore but I used to dump anything that I felt that I needed to keep in the event of future court action into a folder (won't bother telling you what I named the folder). Such emails never really require a response and just need to be e-filed and ignored.

I think the general mentality with people who enjoy this type of conflict is pretty simple. They enjoy the noise of drama around them because they are unhappy, insecure and unfulfilled by life and seek to bring people down to their level. They feel more alive when surrounded by conflict because they've been unable to achieve happiness in themselves. I think they become obsessed with people who have achieved a sense of peace and contentment in their lives due to raging envy. Its unfortunate that such people exist but it certainly doesn't need to affect your life in any deep way unless you let that happen.

[HappyMomma]

I disagree with everyone on here about one small thing. I think calling every day is unreasonable. She is interfering with your time with your daughter. If your daughter wants to call, she can ask. She's not 2. And she's only away for 1 day! Seriously, your ex needs to back off. There is no way I would allow that.

As for it keeping you awake at night - I think we've all been there. Train her as suggested and it will start to get better. I also recommend you see a counselor. Honestly, it really helps to find ways to ignore it.

[Pursuinghappiness]

I disagree with everyone on here about one small thing. I think calling every day is unreasonable. She is interfering with your time with your daughter. If your daughter wants to call, she can ask. She's not 2. And she's only away for 1 day! Seriously, your ex needs to back off. There is no way I would allow that.

I agree that I wouldn't allow this for my child since she's older but I don't think a nightly short call is unreasonable for a 4 1/2 year old. I remember when I travelled frequently for business when my children were younger that I called them nightly.

Again, however, if the father finds is disruptive and the ex is using the time in an unhealthy manner (ie. bribery, poisoning the kid against him, etc), its his access time so by all means, he can tell her that he won't be allowing any calls unless its an emergency...his choice. The chances of his ex having any chance of enforcing this legally is slim to none anyway.

[Serene]

It should be about reducing the conflict if parents (both or just one) are HCP. However, it is very likely that the HCP doesn't identify with being an HCP they are just right all the time lol.

I think nightly calls are silly. Very silly. Disruptive and typically an attempt to interfere with what is going on in the other house. However, I wouldn't go as far as to put it in writing that I want them to stop. I would just stop them

[FB_]

It is written in my separation agreement that "ONE" daily phone call was permitted to speak to the children. It also states the children can call any time they choose.

Neither my ex or I asked for this my lawyer told me it was pretty standard. Little did I know the pain in the ass it would be. However, like I said I don't answer the phone. If my kids want to it's up to them.

[HammerDad]

However, like I said I don't answer the phone. If my kids want to it's up to them.

I'm not sure I agree with this. The kids shouldn't be put in the situation of having to choose whether they are going to talk to their other parent.

I would pick up the phone and hand it to the kids telling them it is time to speak to their other parent. But not answering the phone when the other parent calls and telling the kids "Oh, it's your mom. If you want to talk to her you can." could easily make them uncomfortable and they'd be less likely to pick up the phone, especially if they get a negative vibe from the one they are with.