His ex wife is ruining our relationship

"My Partner's Ex is Ruining Our Relationship"

By Nathan Feiles, MSW, LCSW-R on August 7, 2012

Have you ever been in a relationship (or known someone who has) where your partner has children from a previous relationship, and the ex — the children’s other parent — becomes a constant negative presence in your relationship?

Being in a relationship with the custodial parent of a broken family can present its set of challenges (whether or not you bring your own children to the relationship). When there’s an adversarial relationship between your partner and his or her ex, it’s not uncommon for the parental issues, legal issues, and emotions to spill into and impact your relationship.

Indeed, these types of frustrations and conflicts have caused relationships to break up. That being said, this result doesn’t always have to be the case.

While it would be nice to have a peaceful relationship where everybody gets along, it’s an unfortunate reality that this kind of relationship can take some mindful navigation, especially if you are living with the custodial parent (and therefore, with the children, too).

Here are some suggestions for handling a relationship where the conflict between your partner and his or her ex is spilling into your relationship:

1) Remove Yourself. Your partner’s issues with his or her ex are best left between them. If the ex sees that you are moving into a parental role with his or her children, which can include simply joining in the parenting conversations between them, the situation may turn adversarial and create strain in your relationship.

Your partner is the one who needs to navigate a relationship with the ex, but you don’t need to be involved in their process, unless it is asked and agreed that it would be beneficial to have you playing a sort of parental role (e.g. if you are committed long term, or involved as a step-parent).

2) Support Your Partner. It’s not an easy situation for your partner to have to raise children, work, and struggle emotionally and possibly legally with his or her ex, while attempting to have a healthy relationship with you at the same time . Being a positive support to your partner — listening, helping with the kids, etc. – can help your partner cope while strengthening your relationship.

3) Plan togetherness time. If your partner is overwhelmed with issues involving his or her ex, and you’re seeing your relationship sliding down the priority list, take the initiative to plan some meaningful time together — dates, dinners out, fun activities with your partner and maybe the children as well.

4) Don’t Parent the Children (if not the step-parent, or long-term domestic partner). It can be very tempting for some people to want to act as a pseudo-parent, especially if living with the children. Unless this has been agreed to all around (between you, your partner, partner’s ex, and the children), it’s generally best to refrain from playing a parental role. Otherwise, it opens the door for possible resentment from the children, a battle with the ex, and possibly even conflict with your partner.

Having your own unique relationship with the children will help establish boundaries and avoid confusion. It’s important for the children to know that you’re a safe and supportive person, but that they have their parents already in place. If the children turn to you as a parental figure, don’t be afraid to reinforce the boundaries of your role with them so the children understand.

5) Don’t Overlook Yourself. Being in a relationship with a parent has expected challenges. While it is necessary to understand that these challenges are part of the deal, it’s also still important that you’re fulfilled in your relationship. It’s good to be supportive, but you’re not signing up to be a caretaker to your partner’s frustrations with his or her ex. If you’re doing all the work, or if you’re not being fulfilled, this is an issue that needs to be addressed, even if the partner is having issues with the ex. Communicate with your partner about your relationship. Couples therapy may be helpful for this, as could separate individual therapy for each of you.

The high-conflict ex will do what they will do. You can only control how you handle your part of the relationship. While you can’t solve your partner’s issues with his or her ex, the more you understand your boundaries in the relationship, the better chance you have of successfully side-stepping any lasting impact of the high-conflict ex.

Angry parents photo available from Shutterstock

"My Partner's Ex is Ruining Our Relationship"

By Nathan Feiles, MSW, LCSW-R on August 7, 2012

Indeed, these types of frustrations and conflicts have caused relationships to break up. That being said, this result doesn’t always have to be the case.

Here are some suggestions for handling a relationship where the conflict between your partner and his or her ex is spilling into your relationship:

Your partner is the one who needs to navigate a relationship with the ex, but you don’t need to be involved in their process, unless it is asked and agreed that it would be beneficial to have you playing a sort of parental role (e. g. if you are committed long term, or involved as a step-parent).

Angry parents photo available from Shutterstock

"His ex is getting into our relationship": who is to blame?

Man and woman Relationship crisis

Photo: Shutterstock/Fotodom. ru

Fallback

Svetlana is outraged that her ex-wife constantly asks her husband for money, attention and help. “I recently started a renovation, most of which is paid from our family budget,” she says. - He drags him to hardware stores, asks him to come, check the quality of the work. He does everything possible to keep him in his house: either the computer is broken, which it is the husband who is obliged to repair, or the cat gets sick, and he needs to be taken to the veterinarian.

Aida says that the first wife still controls her husband's health: she herself makes an appointment for him to see a doctor. She is sure that she does not do this out of concern, but to invade the personal space of her family.

While a woman believes that her husband is a victim, the situation is possible only with his tacit consent

Why does he allow this? “The reason may be hidden uncertainty that your relationship will continue,” says psychologist Marina Myaus. - And then it becomes an "alternate airfield."

This often happens if there is a significant age difference in the second marriage, and he feeds his ex-wife with attention, realizing that if the new relationship does not work out and the younger companion is disappointed in him for some reason, then the first one will not leave him and will accept anyone.

This woman assumes the symbolic role of a mother, so they do not want her sexually, they try to run away, make another connection. But they constantly return, because in a new relationship, that maternal part, which is associated with peace and security, may be missing.

It is also possible that there a man receives special admiration, which he does not see in the family. And communication with the first wife is an opportunity to show your masculine qualities, to feel like a hero.

Feelings of guilt

Marianna recently found out that much more money is allocated for her first wife's family than she expected: “She travels with her child at our expense to expensive resorts. Our son cannot boast such expensive gadgets as hers. She manipulates her husband, and he cannot refuse her.

Yulia says that her ex-wife intentionally allows children who come to stay with their dad to do whatever they want: to spoil things, ignore remarks and be rude in response: “This is how she provokes my quarrels with her husband, because he does not want to conflict with sons whom he does not see every day. I can't even say a word to them."

A man who has left his family, especially if he has children, may feel guilty for a long time.

Indulgence to the ex-wife turns into an attempt to pay off a difficult experience. “The other side, as a rule, understands this very well and can skillfully manipulate,” says the psychologist. - This exhausting feeling for a man cannot but affect your family relationships. However, until the partner takes the trouble to sort out and work out these difficult emotions in order to break away from the past, quarrels and conflicts over the first wife and children are the sphere of his personal responsibility.

Self-affirmation

“From the very beginning of my relationship with my husband, she began to write to me that he still loves her and the relationship between them continues,” says Karina. - A couple of times she sent me intimate photos in which they are together, allegedly taken recently. And although I understand that this is a provocation, every time it brings me to hysterics. The husband asks not to pay attention, but can do nothing. And although she recently sent me a threatening letter, he will not report the mother of his children to the police.

Obviously, such recurring situations are possible only with the connivance of a third party - a man. He is obviously impressed by the struggle for him two women. Often this becomes a way of self-affirmation, which distinguishes people with traits of narcissism.

The non-intervention of the man (and stopping the aggression is his only task) gives carte blanche to continue the game. The former correctly reads the message: this is an invitation to war, in which a man turns into a coveted trophy for women.

How to react to the behavior of his ex?

First of all, do not get involved in someone else's game. By answering, you increase the aggression of the other side and at the same time invite it into your alliance. You make it clear that she is a force to be reckoned with. And external indifference, on the contrary, deprives any of her actions of significance.

“Of course, your partner should act in this situation,” the expert believes. - And if he is passive, this is an occasion to think about how dear his relationship with you is.

At the same time, without getting involved in the war, take responsibility for the situation. It will not be superfluous to analyze what exactly the partner is losing in a relationship with you, gaining it from the other side. But the most important thing is to ask yourself the question: why do you choose the person you have to win back? Indeed, in most cases, this is obvious already at the stage of establishing relationships.

Perhaps this is an unconscious desire not to be the only one, and a person without a backstory is not interesting to you. Sometimes this happens if in childhood you had to win the attention of your parents, and this attitude is transferred to adult relationships with loved ones.

Text: Sabina Safarova

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A man should remain a full-fledged parent after a divorce. But material about his next relationships and problems in them

Illustration: Yuri Orlov / Network of city portals

It is commonly believed that it is difficult for a woman with a child to find a mate. We have already discussed this many times in the company of our readers and experts, by the way, the opinions of men and women on this issue are divided. They also collected happy stories about how mothers and children found love after difficult divorces. But let's look at the situation from the other side - is it easier to build a new relationship for a dad who has a child from his first marriage and an ex-wife to boot. And how many women agree to raise their husband's child as their own and share attention and other benefits with his previous family. We collected the stories of our readers who have experience of relationships with men with children and asked experts to comment on their problems.

— Andrey and I have known each other since school, in adolescence we had a short childhood relationship, someone was offended by someone, and everything came to naught. 10-11 years passed, we accidentally added on Facebook and started talking, then he suggested a meeting. I already then understood that I was crushing on the ears. We have been dating for 1.5 years, I am 30 years old, I have no children and I have never been married, but I would like to. The fact of marriage is important to me, but I have not decided about children. Andrei was married, he has a daughter Alice from his first marriage - she is 8 years old. He helps his family, bought an apartment, his wife did not file for alimony, he simply voluntarily supports his daughter, I think, more than half. Relations with his wife are normal - he can do something around the house, take the car to the service. We have no relationship with her, we have friendly relations with the child, but I do not seek to spend time with her, she is with me too.

— He says that he no longer wants to get married and have children, that he will not be financially or morally responsible for two, but he loves me very much and I am his ideal woman. He argues his reluctance by the fact that his relationship with his ex-wife was good before the registration of marriage and childbirth, and then hell began, but at the same time, he does not have a soul in his daughter and he is an excellent father for her. But I don’t know if I’m ready to give up the opportunity to become a mother for the sake of a relationship with a man, and is it worth it? Or will I always be in this union on the sidelines?

— In this situation, there are complaints that a lot of attention is paid to the first family and the first child. As if the question arises, does it even make sense for a woman in such circumstances to think about her own child? You can understand this only in an honest conversation with a partner. There seems to be indecision in Katya - "do I want to be able to give birth and raise my own child." I would start with the idea of my own identity, who I want to be, what I want to be, advises psychotherapist Igor Lyakh.

Experts have debunked the idea that a recently divorced man is an excellent marriage partner.

— A typical freshly divorced man resembles a man who has broken free. Just freed from a series of control and reporting, he does not seek to plunge into a new relationship. Commitments during this period are useless to him, says sexologist Olga Perova.

Another common misconception is that if a man criticizes and scolds his ex, it means that he has fallen out of love. Rather the opposite.

“Accusations against the former may indicate that he misses her madly,” warns psychologist, psychotherapist Natalya Tolstaya. - To think that since he scolds his wife, it means that he loves you very much, is at least a delusion.

— I immediately knew that my husband had a child from his first marriage and that I would have to live with it. A mother is also attached to it, which, of course, creates additional inconvenience. She can call or write, then her husband talks to her, no matter if he was busy at that moment and what, "suddenly something with Max." While he was a baby, my husband and I walked with him at the zoo as much as possible, gave gifts and took him away for a few days for the holidays, everything suited me.

— A second-grader, absolutely not independent, you have to check his lessons, cook for him, iron his clothes. I treat the boy well, I have quite warm feelings for him, but I can’t call him my own. Recently we had a common child, he is only 2 years old. The eldest will drag all the infection from school, and in general I did not plan to have 2 children, one of whom will perceive me as Aunt Elya.

Angelina complains that the second child in the house on a permanent basis is an extra material burden for their budget

Photo: Yury Orlov / Network of City Portals

— But my husband is happy and, of course, didn't say no to him. It ruins my life; when Max finally leaves for his mother on Saturday, I rest mentally and physically. In the spring, we were supposed to go on a long-awaited vacation, the three of us, but now the husband’s son from his first marriage is traveling with us, which was not included in the financial plans, and because of this we will have to give up a lot. How to behave in such a situation? Do I have the right to insist that the child lives with the mother? I'm afraid to ruin my relationship with my husband if he sees my hostility towards the boy, but I can't stand it either.

According to the experience of psychotherapist Igor Lyakh, some people (mostly men) are able to form wonderful relationships with spouses' children from their first marriages. In women, this phenomenon is also observed, but it seems to be quite rare. Although there are no special studies on this topic, the expert emphasizes.

— Here the situation is somewhat more complicated: the idea that a child enters the family already as a stepson, and this is important for the father. Here the question is about the ability of parents to make joint decisions, since the transition of a child from the mother's family to the father's family is always a crisis. And for the child himself, and for relationships within the family. And this crisis can be quite deep - according to Igor Lyakh, it may take a long time for a family to overcome this stage.

The psychotherapist emphasizes: in those families where children from first marriages are accepted precisely as people who not only consume a resource, but can create and create, be valuable members of the family, adaptation occurs faster and easier.

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