| How to handle a hostile ex
An area that can sometimes be overlooked when it comes to step-families is that it often involves more than just the two adults and the children. If both parties have children prior to meeting each other then there will more often than not be an ex or two or even more in the picture.
Unless the biological parents of the children involved are dead or have never been in the picture, you will have to encounter that parent at some point or another in your relationship with your partner and stepchildren.
Ex's can pose more of a problem than you can want to imagine. From painting a very bad picture about you to the child, to stirring up arguments between you and your partner by suggesting things that may not even exist. If you are lucky enough to have to only encounter one ex and that ex happens to be someone you can get along with, then that's great. If on the other hand you are one of those not so lucky ones and you have not one but two or more ex's to deal with and one happens to give you more problems than you care to mention, you will have a bit of a task on your hands.
Ex's may be making trouble for you for a number of different reasons, some may even be innocent. Let's look at a few of these reasons:
- They may still be interested in their ex and will do whatever they can to try and win them back.
- They may just simply be jealous that their ex has moved on and they haven't.
- They just don't like you for some unknown reason and have no intention of trying to like you.
- Or the innocent one, the child may be saying things that are being interpreted wrongly causing the ex to take a stand against you.
Whatever the case may be, if there is not a relationship that exists that you and the step-children's other parent talk, then you may find it difficult to sort things out. The other way would be that your partner will have to step in and deal with things.
The best way would be for you to try and establish a relationship even if it is a small one with your step-children's other parent, then you can always talk things through.
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