My ex-husband’s girlfriend took their relationship with our small daughter too far, and for that I am angry.
A 35-year-old woman just related a really distressing family incident. She is alone and her little daughter keeps in contact with both her ex-husband and his current partner. Up until the mother disclosed how her daughter had spoken with her ex-husband’s new girlfriend, everything was OK. The woman wrote a letter to our readers wondering what they thought of this behavior because it sounded really strange and even alarming to her.
Vanessa and her husband split up a year ago.
Vanessa, 35, sent a letter not too long ago. All she wanted was to hear as many opposing viewpoints on her extremely complex predicament. The mom believed she was entitled to be furious after what had happened to her tiny daughter. But she wants nothing negative to come of her response.
“I split up with my husband Josh a year ago,” the woman started her letter. That is the type of divorce for which some could even feel envious of our meticulous and well-managed handling of things. We really lived together just to take care of our daughter Miranda; we had lost interest in one another. Nevertheless, we both felt it was time for our marriage to dissolve and soon wanted to start dating someone else.
“Both of us worked hard to make sure that our daughter Miranda would be okay during our divorce,” Vanessa stated. The youngster and I have spent a great deal of time together, performing all of her activities and treating her as the Queen of our souls like we formerly did. Miranda is a bright young lady, and we know she sensed something was wrong between us. She was not overly offended, though, as long as our treatment of her remained unchanged.
Married couples got together with others.
Vanessa continues her account, “I’m now dating a man named Frank, who hasn’t met Miranda yet.” Since I want to be sure we are truly together, I decided to hold out a bit longer.
There is a girlfriend of my ex-boyfriend. Five months has passed since their union. Miranda pays them visits, but I haven’t met her in person, so it doesn’t bother me that they conversed. That they got along so well—that Miranda was praising Kylie, her girlfriend—and that she liked her made me happy.
To be even more clear, Vanessa said, “I was truly happy that my daughter has another wonderful woman in her life.” Another thing I wanted to do was meet Kylie in person and thank her for being such a nice person and for how she treated our daughter. There is no jealousy in my heart; I’m fine with this woman being around my ex and my daughter. But there was one thing that made me mad and sad.
Vanessa found out something bad about how her daughter was talking to the girlfriend.
Vanessa continues her story by saying, “Miranda loves spending time with her dad and Kylie, and she does it all the time.” Three or more times a week, her dad picks her up. It’s important to me to always know where they’ve been and what they’ve done together. My ex-husband knows this, so he tells me about their activities, and Miranda adds some nice details as well.
The woman said, “I know Kylie would sometimes do lots of things to take care of Miranda, like combing her hair or buying her underwear.” That was fine with me. But Miranda went to see them last week, and I could tell something was wrong with the child when she got home.
Vanessa said, “When I carefully asked Miranda what happened and why she was so sad, she told me that she lost her rubber ducky and that’s why she was so upset.” When my little daughter took her rubber duckling to her dad’s house, I asked her why she did that since the duckling was only for baths and showers. I thought she took it somewhere else besides the shower, though.
This is when Miranda told me Kylie bathed her. It did this a lot of times, and this time they lost her duckling in Kylie’s bathroom.
Vanessa is shocked by what happened and wants to say what she thinks.
Vanessa wrote, “Kylie bathing my daughter made me very angry.” The fact that she did it more than once makes me even more mad. So, this wasn’t an emergency; it was just how she normally interacted with my sweet little girl. This makes me feel really strange. I think this situation is wrong, and I think I should set a rule that I won’t bathe my child unless it’s an emergency.
The woman said, “I’m all for Kylie being involved in less personal things while talking to our child, but I feel like I need to be honest about my worries and tell her she can’t bathe Miranda.” Do you believe I am reacting too much? Should I talk to my ex-husband or Kylie about how I feel, or should I just ignore it all and act like I don’t care? “What would you do if you were me?”
