Reply to My husband's ex has been bad-mouthing me to him

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Reply to "My husband's ex has been bad-mouthing me to him"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]re pitching in and helping the ex-wife -- why are you doing this?  This is the husband's responsibility.  They are his kids, and if it were me, it would bug me to no end that my ex's new wife was picking up his parenting slack.  Our kids need HIM to participate in their lives, not his new wife.

My kids noticed that their Dad never once sought to drive carpool or have them over when he was single.

I think the new girlfriend is naive and immature because she is falling for this.  She thinks she is being a great stepmom by doing these things for him, when she can't see that she would actually be doing the kids a favor if she insisted that their Dad do them himself.  She thinks she is creating a happy family for them, but really, she is just continuing to create the structure for their Dad not to parent.  They notice, and it doesn't endear her to them.  [/quote]

Try reading.  OP is not picking up her husband's slack.  The ex is asking (or expecting) the new wide to pick up her own slack.  He is taking care of his responsibility; it's the mom dropping the ball and then being nasty and bitter that the OP has priorities other than taking care of the ex's responsibilities.[/quote]

I did read.  OP said specifically that she was snooping because her husband isn't great about communicating "schedules and details. It's just who he is...."  so she snooped on his computer to find out these important administrative aspects of family life.

Ex-wife is probably asking OP because ex-wife knows that exDH doesn't participate in the administrative rearing of their kids.   That has been the pattern of his entire life and was probably a contributing factor in their divorce.  OP seems to know this in a subconscious way but is not acknowledging the role it plays in her current situation.

In a normal relationship, when one parent can't be present for a certain event or to meet a need of the child, then the other parent steps up.  When parents get divorced, both bio parents still have an obligation to cooperate.  So, if bio mom has custody of DC on a certain day but can't get out of work early to drive DC to his soccer game, then it is normal to turn to bio Dad.

The dynamic often exists in divorced families that bio Dad does not pickup these responsibilities but instead hands them off to new wife.  Then new wife gets mad because she sees herself as "serving" bio Mom, and it's even worse if new wife feels like she isn't getting any credit for it.  Bio Mom is irritated because she knows that reason new wife is in the position is because bio Dad isn't fulfilling his part of the responsibilities and is instead shifting them to new wife.

New wife is mad because she feels like she didn't sign up to do all this work for someone else's child.  She also feels like she isn't getting credit for what she sees as "extra" work.  Bio Dad isn't giving new wife any credit for doing this, because really he just expects it.  This is what the women in his life do.  It's sexist, but as OP accepts, "it's just the way he is."  Bio Dad also finds it easier to blame ex-wife -- that way his new wife won't be mad at him.  It's a way of bonding his new wife more tightly to him by having a common enemy.  Also childless new wife doesn't understand that in life you don't really get "credit" for parenting tasks.  If you're lucky, 30 years from now someone might thank you, but in the meanwhile, they are thankless tasks.

Ex-wife is frustrated because she can see that new wife is naively falling for all this.   And that new wife is immature in the sense that she doesn't feel like any of this is her responsibility, when really the whole situation has evolved because new wife jumpted into marriage without having clear and realistic expectations about what her obligations with respect to the step-child are and because she failed to see that the bioDad's failure to meet the non-financial aspects of child-rearing was probably a contributing factor to the dissolution of the previous marriage and would also affect the new marriage.  Bio Dad's probably used the kids to demonstrate that he was a loving dad so must be a great marriage material to his soon to be new wife, and new wife fell for it without asking a lot of questions about how life would work with step-children.  
[/quote]

Wow, you're projecting a LOT onto what OP said![/quote]

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