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Name: monday New Member   Title: Ex wife will do anything to make the kids hate my girlfriend

Ok.. Long story short... I met the love of my life and ended a rocky marriage with my wife 6 months ago. I have two girls 16/10 and one boy 14 who live with their mother in another state. Last summer, I wanted to have the kids meet my girlfriend and they freaked out. Come to find out, my ex has allowed them to think it is ok to run, yell, call her names, or anything else you can think of including physical harm. This is obviously causing great pain for my current girlfriend and she wants me to fix it. But how, I rarely get to see the kids who are 9 hours away and they have been taught that she is the reason the family is not together and why they had to move. I need help on both ends... how can I work with the kids to have them understand that behavior will not be tolerated even though it is supported and encouraged by their mother. Second, how can I patch this with my current girlfriend? She has a point that our life will not work if my kids hate her.

Name: jackie23 New Member

You were married, met a girlfriend, ended marriage - and you can't understand why the kids don't like your girlfriend? Unreasonable of them, uh?

You don't mention anything about trying to fix your "rocky marriage" or any effort to change it with counseling, therapy, etc. Instead, you "met the love of your life" when you had already married her. Now you can't understand why things are falling apart around you?

Can't you understand why the kids think you and their mom are not together because of her? Don't you think they have a point?
They should not abuse your girlfriend, that is correct. However, in their eyes, you abandoned your family for your girlfriend.

Their feelings of anger and betrayal are normal, but they do need to learn how to control it, which I'm guessing needs to be from counseling since I doubt they learned self control from their parents.

Your kids need you and you have a responsiblity toward them first before anyone else.
You need to patch things up with your kids (who need to come first) before patching things up with your girlfriend.

Name: madalex Member

Your kids should come first. You obviously don't see them very often, since they live 9 hours away (by the way, why did you let that happen?). If that means girlfriend has to disappear when they come visit you, so be it. This should be about you rebuilding your relationship with your kids, not doing what your girlfriend wants. If she does not understand that they come first, you have found the wrong girlfriend.