It is kind of surprising that her animosity and anger came out of no where. When someone asks so agressively my first suspicion is that they know they were in the wrong…“…the best defense is a good offense”. If this is the first that this has happened I would call my ex when I know his wife is not going to be around and tell him that since his wife acted that way towards you (without anything you said or did to provoke it?) that you would prefer to only speak to him and if he puts you on speaker phone and she begins to talk to you then you hang up.
Maybe if you approach him with something like…I don’t mind that you were out of town, I’d just like to know if you are leaving our daughter w/ someone in case there is an emergency. Perhaps you could even offer to switch time if he needs to be out of town.
I didn’t provoke it…all I asked was if he was going to be out of the town the rest of this week (so I could confirm in my mind how long my ex’s parents would be watching our daughter and who to call) and then she started in on me. I am coming to realize that she is pretty aggressive…she and my ex met last September, got engaged in March this year and married June this year. They wanted our daughter to call her “mom” after the marriage took place, but I explained that she already had a mom and that would not be proper. We actually have stopped switching our schedule around to accomodate trips and such because my ex husband was always making plans on my weekends with our daughter and expected to switch our schedule around so much to the point it was affecting our daughter. Thanks for the suggestion, though. I have tried to be the nice/understanding one for several years but now with the new wife it’s almost impossible to deal with my ex.
I guess another question I also have other than what recourse do I have with my ex’s new wife verbally attacking me, is that my ex and I have a court ordered custody agreement (separation agreement incorporated into divorce decree). I recently agreed to change the court ordered agreement and let him have more overnights with our daughter…this was done verbally between he and I and not a legal change. If I feel like his new home life could be deterimental to our daughter, can I tell him that we have to go back to the court ordered agreement or do I have to stick with what we verbally agreed upon? He said I had to take him to court to change our schedule back to the way it originally was but I don’t believe that is true. Thanks.
We’ve been told that a verbal agreement is just that and really holds very little weight. A notarized agreement is better but the thing that really counts is the court order.
Since this is the first time that this has happened I would suggest you give the situation some time to cool down and then try to set up a time to speak with your ex husband. It is always hard to blend someone new into the picture and it sounds like she did not handle it well. If this continues to be a problem, it sounds like the two of you may need to address your custody issues through mediation or court if mediation is not successful. If you get some of these issues spelled out more clearly, it may prevent conflict down the line.
Helena M. Nevicosi
Attorney with Rosen Law Firm
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Raleigh, North Carolina 27607
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My husband and his new wife recently went out of town for a week and left our 7 year old daughter in care of his parents, which is fine with me. But, they did not inform me that she was to be taken care of by someone else and they were going of town and I believe that I was owed the courtesy of being told this since it directly affected our daughter…I found out what was going on when our daughter told me. When my ex-husband called the other night (still out of town), he had me on speaker phone and I asked him if he was to be out of town all week. His new wife started to yell at me (first time ever)that it was none of my business and that it wasn’t my concern on the nights when our daughter was supposed with them. I told my ex husband that I was not going to argue with his wife and kept trying to speak with him but he left the phone on speaker and let his wife do most of the talking/yelling. I am obviously not comfortable with not knowing who is caring for our daughter and also that his wife would attack me in such a way. I am not comfortable with someone around our daughter that may say something bad about me or take it out on her because of any disagreements my ex and I have. What kind of recourse do I have? Since this is the first time she has addressed me in such a manner do I just document it and hope that it doesn’t affect our daughter? I would like to think that nothing negative would happen with our daughter but I am very concerned/stressed over this outbreak and now see my ex’s wife as extremely controlling and a hot head.
Thanks for your help.