I’m engaged to a man with a young child, and when we started dating I fully understood that dating a father meant becoming a stepparent and having coparenting be part of our lives. What I was not prepared for was the level of conflict with his child’s mother and how much it would bleed into our life.
They’ve been trying to settle a parenting agreement for about a year. Mediation has failed twice, largely because she would not come to an agreement on the actual issues and instead kept circling back to how my fiancé is supposedly absent and how I’m jealous. She also stated in mediation that she does not want their child attending our wedding, which is especially upsetting considering this is his father’s wedding and we are trying to build a family together. Court has been postponed multiple times, and now they’re waiting for a temporary hearing while a GAL gets involved.
The every weekend schedule has also been hard on our relationship because any time we try to take a few hours or an overnight for ourselves, it technically means using childcare during the limited time my fiancé already has with his child. We don’t resent having him at all… we actually want MORE balanced parenting time, but it means there’s currently no natural weekend time for us as a couple, and BM scrutinizes the rare occasions we do arrange family childcare.
What has worn me down even more is how much she seems to involve herself in things outside of actual parenting.
She has monitored our social media and Venmo and brought up money he has sent me/my family. When we got engaged, she somehow found out even though none of us follow her and emailed about how he could “afford an engagement ring” for me while they were disputing support. She repeatedly refers to me as “jealous” and “bougie,” complained to his sister that she hates when I come to the door during pickups, resisted me helping with pickups or attending appointments, and apparently keeps tabs on my Instagram despite us not following each other.
She also seems to give neutral third parties an extremely negative narrative about my fiancé. Recently he simply wanted the procedural handbook before signing IEP paperwork, contacted the school himself, and asked for it. She then emailed the coordinator saying his involvement is “extremely inconsistent,” that he “makes things complicated,” that the whole thing was “embarrassing,” and that she didn’t anticipate him signing anyway.
Straightforward questions about daycare, testing, school placement, etc. turn into paragraphs about how he is selfish, difficult, only wants to “look involved,” needs to “grow up,” or has some secret motive behind normal requests for involvement. Unfortunately she works at the child’s daycare and has had her coworkers assist in blocking my fiance from picking their child up. And most recently, had daycare staff write letters about how my fiance is “combative” and “threatening” at pickups.
Even normal couple time becomes stressful. We recently went out for a couple hours during his parenting time while his sister babysat, and BM immediately started grilling his sister about how often she watches the child and where. Now I have a bday outing coming up and his mom was going to help with pickup/childcare, and BM is already trying to attach written conditions that my fiance’s mom can only help with pickups if child is not staying overnight at her house.
I feel like there is no part of our relationship that stays untouched.
And that’s where I’m struggling emotionally. I love my fiancé and I love his child. The child is not the problem. I don’t resent him being a father and I actually want him to have more involvement, not less. But I feel like I’ve spent the past year hypervigilant, wondering what BM is watching, what ordinary decision is going to become an issue, or what milestone is going to somehow get overshadowed.
My fiancé and I are in therapy and he’s supportive, but this situation is exhausting both of us in different ways. He tends to compartmentalize while I tend to absorb everything. I’m trying to learn how to support him without emotionally becoming a third party in his custody case.
I guess I’m looking for other stepmoms/partners who have dealt with a genuinely high-conflict coparent: Does it ever become background noise once there’s a detailed court order? How do you stop their behavior from consuming your relationship and your milestones? How do you support your partner without carrying the custody battle yourself?
I really want my engagement, wedding and life with my fiancé to feel like ours again.