Several years ago my Mom was dating this nice man with two kids. My younger brother and I liked the boyfriend himself, but his kids were another story. His kids were entitled jerks that always got what they wanted, constantly stole our toys and were generally a nuisance to be around. I always tried to be a better person, but my brother and I were constantly getting into arguments with them due to their pettiness.
They weren’t even the worst part of the relationship, the boyfriend’s ex-wife was. From my perspective, I felt that she was the type of person that if “she couldn’t have him, nobody could.” She made my Mothers and our lives hell, constantly filing false complaints about our side of the family generally pointed at my brother and I. From harassment to claiming I had stolen the son’s toys, (which was the other way around) and going after the boyfriend claiming he was an unfit parent.
Several times she’d try and ruin any plans we had come up with. For example, after spending months planning a trip to New York, last-minute she blew a fuse and demanded we cancel the trip so that she could take her own trip with them. (We had already gotten written agreement from her) One time she even demanded the older son and I visit a family therapist, after pointing all the blame on me I told my side of the story. It resulted (without the therapist fully implying) that they agreed I was in the right and them storming out of the room.
Among many other reasons, even after my mom and her boyfriend had gotten engaged, the Ex-wife was one of the biggest reasons why Mom had decided to call off the engagement. The harassment and drama were just too much for us. It broke her heart to do so, but she made us the priority and got us out of that situation.
A few years after the breakup, my small family and I were living happily. I never saw the kids or the dude again. My mom had still kept in touch with the former boyfriend, but after some time apart she’s seen the faults in him too. I was in the 8th grade and living life happily. That was until the Ex-wife stepped into gym class one day. Apparently, since the breakup, she had gotten her teaching degree and became a substitute teacher. She was now replacing our normal gym teacher who was on maternity leave as well as acting as the assistant teacher for our Health/Sex Ed class. Basically I now had to see her pretty much every other day for the rest of the school year.
At first, she didn’t recognize me. Puberty had hit me hard, changing my appearance drastically especially for someone who hadn’t seen me in like five years. Eventually, she recognized my name and that’s when the harassment began anew. All of it was snide remarks about my appearance. Constantly pointing me out as an example as to what puberty can negatively do to you (pimples, facial hair, voice cracking that sort of stuff) to the class as if I was the only one dealing with it. The main health teacher didn’t know about it either. Basically everyone in the 8th grade was taking Sex Ed at the same time. It was technically one extremely large class but split up into male and female groups, and wasn’t I lucky that the Ex-wife got the male half (mine)
I told my mom about it immediately and she was livid. She sent multiple emails to the school requesting that they switch teachers or at least let me take the class online. It all fell on deaf ears until with the help of the Ex-boyfriend, we showed them dozens of emails, phone calls, and messages all spouting harassment at my family and I.
This resulted in her being fired from the school and basically being blacklisted from our school district and the surrounding area. If she wanted another teaching job she would have to find it elsewhere. This resulted in a major legal battle between her and the Ex-boyfriend because she had tried to move out of state with the kids without his nor the court’s permission. Apparently she lost custody of the kids and had to go back to her old job (Don’t know what it was)
All in all, it was an interesting experience. We cut all ties with that entire family after the whole ordeal and went on with our lives.
While my mom still hasn’t had a long term relationship since then, mostly sticking to online dating, but she’s happier than she’s been in a long time.
Source: Reddit
