Competition after Divorce

[Anonymous]

After my divorce, my ex-husband started a new relationship quickly and they moved in together. At times, I feel like they are trying to one-up me all the time. For example, if I have a party for my child they suggest to him that they should have one too. Has anyone experienced this? I wonder if I am imagining it or if it is just what happens after a divorce and I should ignore it.

[Anonymous]

Yes to all - you could be imagining it. It can happen in divorce. You should ignore it - the only way to win is to not play.

[Anonymous]

No, not at all. I wouldn't know what they suggested as my kid doesn't talk to me about what he does with his father.
I don't ask nor care.

[Anonymous]

Hello, I was once the new GF of the recently divorced dad and competition was definitely what I witnessed.

For the record, I had nothing to do with the marital breakup, I barely knew him at the time and she cheated and left the marriage. I got together with him shortly after the divorce was final but it didn't last because I was more attracted to his kids (the opportunity to stepparent them) than to him and when I realized his parenting style was entirely incompatible with my values I left the relationship so he could find a like minded woman.

He was in a constant competition to give his kids more - more stuff, more fun experiences, more freedom/lack of structure or discipline in order to be the parent they preferred over their mother.

It was really gross and as you can imagine, was having no good influence on the kids. Kids whose parents compete like that end up learning quickly that they can manipulate parents against each other to get anything and everything they want. It's a bad way to raise kids.

The only thing you can do is ignore it entirely, don't engage. You can listen to what your kids tell you about time and activities with dad and his GF, but don't go down a path of comparisons. Work hard on this because it's a really big parenting fail to nurture manipulative tendencies in your kids - ALL kids have them, it's a human nature thing, but the chief obligation of parenting is encouraging the formation of good character and this is really critical to healthy adult relationships in all spheres.

Good luck, it sucks.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, the new partner will constantly try to one-up you out of insecurity. It’s so sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, the new partner will constantly try to one-up you out of insecurity. It’s so sad.

As I just posted above, I was the new partner in my scenario and I was totally against the competition BS he was obsessed with. Don't assume this is the new GF's fault, she could very well be as disgusted as I was by it and trying to push back.

[Anonymous]

My XH did this for a minute (maybe like a year or two) but just couldn’t keep it up so he stopped. Yours will stop too when he gets distracted with something else.