Am I the problem?
I share three children with my ex. We split about a year and a half ago. Since then, he has had very little involvement with them.
When I say little involvement, I mean very little. He rarely exercised visitation, showed little interest in their day-to-day lives, and was largely absent when it came to the actual responsibilities of parenting. He was not involved in daycare, school, appointments, or emergencies. There were many times I had to drop everything because he simply would not step up.
Until now.
Almost overnight, his level of involvement changed after he started dating someone new.
If this were simply about him becoming a more involved father, I would genuinely welcome that. My children deserve a present and engaged father. That is not the issue.
The issue is the behavior surrounding this sudden change, particularly involving his new girlfriend and the boundaries that have repeatedly been crossed.
The first major red flag happened before she had even met me or my children.
She made a social media post about me that multiple people sent to me. In the post, she essentially implied that she was better than me and that my ex was finally getting “the woman he deserved.”
This came from someone who had never met me, never spoken to me, and knew absolutely nothing about me beyond whatever version of events he may have told her.
That immediately made me uncomfortable. Instead of entering the situation neutrally and respectfully, she came in already hostile toward me and already viewing me as competition.
Even so, I bit my tongue and chose not to engage.
I simply made it clear to my ex that because this was a brand-new relationship, I was not comfortable with our children meeting her yet. I felt that was a reasonable boundary. I wanted to see whether the relationship was stable before introducing someone new into our children’s lives.
He was angry about that.
The second major incident happened right before Easter, and at this point she still had not met my children.
She posted a picture of three Easter baskets—one for each of my children. In the caption, she talked about how excited she was to “finally have girls to shop for,” and referred to herself as a “girl mom” and a “bonus mom.”
For context, she has three teenage sons of her own.
I brought this up with my ex and told him it made me uncomfortable that she was already referring to herself as a parental figure without ever even meeting my children. I found it disrespectful and honestly distasteful.
He disagreed.
She eventually messaged me and said she was not trying to cause problems, that she respected that I was the children’s mother, and that the post did not mean anything by it.
She did not take the post down.
Again, I let it slide.
After about a month, I finally agreed to let the children meet her, but with clear boundaries.
Our court order specifically states no overnight visits involving new romantic partners. I made it clear I was not comfortable with the children staying overnight at her house. Again, my ex was upset by that boundary.
Eventually he agreed that overnight visits would happen at his mother’s house instead.
After only the second visit, my daughter came home with a new phone.
The phone had a passcode, parental controls, time limits, app restrictions, and even contact restrictions set up by his girlfriend. I did not have the password. I could not add family members’ phone numbers or access basic settings.
I reached out to my ex and politely asked for the password.
He refused.
I then messaged her directly and explained that I was uncomfortable with my daughter having a phone in my home that she had complete control over after meeting my child only once. I asked for her address so we could simply return the phone.
She ignored me.
A short time later, my oldest daughter was visiting family. My sister-in-law overheard her calling someone “mom” on the phone and asked who she was talking to.
My daughter said she was talking to her dad’s girlfriend.
My sister-in-law later told me that the girlfriend was not correcting her. Instead, she was actively responding to it and saying things like, “Yes, daughter?”
I cannot adequately describe how disturbing I found that.
A child using a title out of confusion is one thing. An adult encouraging it is another.
Things escalated even further.
My ex and his girlfriend went to every daycare in our city trying to locate my children and attempted to get access to them without my permission. He only has every-other-weekend visitation.
She also continued posting my children on social media in ways that portrayed herself as their mother.
Then my oldest daughter, who is eight, finally broke down and told me she “couldn’t lie anymore.”
She told me that despite court orders, she had been staying overnight at this woman’s house and that her father had instructed her to lie to me about it.
That was the breaking point.
I stopped overnight visitation completely pending the next court hearing.
These are only some examples. There are far too many incidents to list. Including multiple social media posts talking bad about me.
Communication with my ex has become nearly impossible because he defends her at every stage.
She has repeatedly inserted herself into custody disputes and parental decisions that have nothing to do with her.
For example, instead of simply informing me that my daughter had a cough and allowing me as her parent to decide what to do, she messaged me telling me that I needed to take my daughter to the doctor.
She has also directly messaged me requesting additional visitation time for my ex, which I do not feel is remotely her place.
I have tried very hard to remain calm, reasonable, and focused on the children.
I am not upset because my ex has moved on.
I am upset because a woman who barely knows my children has repeatedly tried to insert herself into a parental role, override boundaries, and involve herself in custody matters.
My children are stuck in the middle.
At this point, I feel exhausted, frustrated, and honestly alarmed. My children have only met this woman 4 times now total. 4 weekends. 8 days.
Am I crazy or would other parents be deeply uncomfortable with this situation too?
Any advice is appreciated.