Ex Husband is Researching my bf and showing Kids

[unicorn]

So my one of my kids said to me last night that they knew my bf participated in a certain hobby. I assumed my bf mentioned this to him and I asked how he knew. He said, "Dad looked up his facebook profile and showed it to us." The poor kid even had an uncomfortable look on his face when he told me. I felt sick to my stomach. My bf's facebook is on private and nothing bad, he really doesn't even use it anymore, but I cannot believe that my ex thought that was even remotely ok to do. I could see him looking up out of curiosity for himself, but you shouldn't share that with children. I am also afraid of any future things he may do to try to make me and bf feel uncomfortable. I have been dating him for a year at this point, but we have only recently begun doing activities with our kids and we are going very slow with this, at some point I would like to have him around more though, and that means around ex husband eventually.

[Penny Lane]

Hey, congratulations on the boyfriend! I've been in his shoes and I have some advice for you and for him that might make it easier for him.

We too dated for a little less than a year before I even met the kids, and we took it really slow. I think it's really the right way to go and you'll be really glad you're doing it that way. It allowed me and the kids to naturally develop a relationship, rather than me being foisted upon them. No advice in that arena, keep doing what you're doing!

First of all your bf should block your ex on every social media platform. I did this after my now-husband's ex started driving by our house on her way to drop the kids off at school, texting my H when she saw my car in the driveway and threatening to run a background check on me. ("Threatening" - I mean, who cares if she looks me up? She was just trying to terrorize him and me). I have never regretted blocking her on social media although I'm fairly sure she gets her boyfriends and friends to spy on me. But whatever, I don't use social media much anyway, and I locked it down even further at the same time I blocked her.

Your ex wants to get at you by talking about your bf. Ignore everything humanely possible. Don't let him think it gets under your skin when he talks about your bf (even if it does). That'll just encourage him to keep doing it.

Don't feel any pressure to share ANY information about the bf with your ex. Even if he tries to make you feel like it's the right thing to do for the kids. He needs to know 1. if you move in together 2. if you get married, that's it.

Have you talked to your bf much about your ex and what's his attitude about it? I don't think you want to bog down a new(ish) relationship with complaining about your ex husband, but I do think it's helpful if you can make sure he comes into this next stage with his eyes open about what he's getting into. At least he'll be able to take steps to protect his privacy.

The sad fact is that your ex is going to try to disrupt your happiness in any way he can. And he'll probably see your new partner as a great way to get at you. You can't really protect him from this, he's just going to have to learn to live with it. But, I don't regret it at all. I see it as having a PD mother in law (my MIL is great) or something. It's worth it to have an awesome relationship. I hope your bf can keep that attitude too.

I'm so sorry, it's so hard to know that he's targeting your loved ones. It's a huge violation and that's totally why he does it. Eventually, hopefully you'll be able to deal with it as partners.

[athene1399]

I agree. I think xH is doing it to get a rise out of you. As far as xH's concerned, I would pretend it didn't happen. Maybe if you guys don't seem fazed by it, he won't do stuff like that.

SO's the one with the PD ex and when we started dating he said his ex was interesting, but he wanted me to form my own opinions. It was actually someone at work who heard I was dating him approached me to warn me about her behavior. I hardly spoke to this person, so I was really taken aback by it. Then slowly he started sharing with me her nasty-grams and we would work together to decide if it needed a response, what to say if it did so we could mitigate her reaction. And he also didn't let me meet SD for a while. Like I think we were about half a year together before I met her.

[Stepping lightly]

Hi Unicorn,

It is definitely more tricky navigating a relationship when there is a PD ex that may want to destroy it.  Like the others, my advice is to really keep your BF as separate as possible from anything that is happening with your ex.  Protect his privacy as much as you can on his end.  I refused to meet BM face to face for over a year.  I remembering feeling that if she hadn't ever actually met me, I had a solid response to any bad mouthing that would come back from the kids, "I'm not sure why your mom would think that, she hasn't even met me".   

BM's BF sorta stalked me for a period of time,  it was really unsettling.  I didn't know it was happening, and we were in the middle of custody battle hell.  A comment came back from our Parent Coordinator, something to the effect of "SL has been traveling a lot lately, and every time she is out of town DH is a tyrant to the kids".  I was floored, I literally had been away from the house for 1 less than 24 hour period in 6 months.  I was baffled.  Then I started putting it together.  I looked up where BF worked, and it was literally across the street from my office.  He was tracking my car in the parking lot, he had to have been.  I hadn't been going into the office, because I was at home with a dying family member.  Once I realized what I thought was happening, I felt extremely vulnerable....and pissed off.   Of course, the PC didn't care how he came to this "knowledge".

[unicorn]

Thank you for your responses. It's crazy that they continue to care about destroying relationships. Like he is already married and having a baby with someone else, I don't see why he would care about what I am doing, but they are crazy.

[plainwords]

I can totally see my ex doing the same as yours when and if I meet someone new. When my ex got with his new partner, I had loads of random log-in requests from places that weren't me on Facebook. Someone was trying to hack into my account. This was cos when I found out about my ex's latest affair, I locked down my facebook. I blocked him and his partner. Then all of a sudden I started getting 'Friend suggestions' from people that had no relation to me whatsoever. I quickly realised that these were people who knew my ex and partner and their new life. I blocked them. I deleted any social media I didn't use, such as Twitter and just kept Facebook and locked it down completely. This stopped the behaviour.

I know that the new partner would drive by my house too. It was bizarre behaviour. She also approached my nephew in the school she teaches at to ask how I am and approached my sister one day to ask how I am. My sister had no idea who she was, but she knew my sister.