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When I created this website I had only fathers in mind. I had the type of father in mind who is basically a decent guy who loves his kids and is doing a good job of paying his child support, keeping up with the visitation schedule outlined by the parenting plan, and he is staying involved in his child's life. Then, somewhere along the way this decent and loving dad's relationship with his child became damaged or strained, possibly reaching the point of complete separation. This damage or separation didn't come from anything he had done, rather it came from the ongoing bitterness and anger exhibited by his ex-wife - the sort of woman I label a DeadBEATmom. In short, he was driven away.
I was very surprised when women began to contact me through this website; I have actually had more communication and feedback from women then from men! I learned there are thousands of women out there also experiencing the DeadBEATmom phenomenon first hand. There are thousands of step moms out there who have married these decent and loving men; step moms who love their step children and want what is best for them; step moms who see first hand the ugliness exhibited by the power-hungry and controlling DeadBEATmom.
Here is what some of them have to say:
A Life Sentence???
My Name is Tiffany Hartman. I run an support group for Step-moms to go and vent and share stories and opinions about how they deal with the Biological moms to their stepchildren. I never in my life dreamed that I would grow up to find the man of my dreams and his insane ex-wife.
You know it is one thing to marry a man and have his parents always trying to stick their nose into your business as most of the women's parents do also. But you never think that your life can be controlled by a woman who has been legally divorced from a man, just because they have a child together. My thought when marrying this wonderful man was, well at least there is a Divorce decree in place so where should the confusion be?
Well let me just start by saying, I had NO IDEA! He never could have warned me enough.
When we first got together she seemed like she actually supported him in his relationship with me. A little too much I remember thinking. But I of course didn't argue, because it is a dream come true to have an ex-wife like the new wife. But as our lives together evolved I realized how wrong I was to think that she would ever be ok with us being together. When we moved in together, she increasingly made things difficult, she would want us to take his daughter on weekends that we not ours; and we would have to pick her up and drop her off. Well since my then fiance didn't get to see his daughter much, he agreed. Then, when we asked if we could coordinate the visitation schedule so we would have both of our kids, his and mine, on the same weekends so that we could do things as a "family," she refused. If my husband couldn't take his daughter on his weekend due to personal reasons, illness or other whatever, she would tell him what a horrible father he was, even if we had had her three weekends in a row, and two not even being ours. She would say things like this in front of his daughter and tell her that daddy didn't want her to come over for that weekend. We tried very hard to not talk bad about her mother in front of her, especially anything that would make her look like a bad mother. We didn't want to hurt my stepdaughter's feelings in regards to her mother.
With every life change it got a little worse; after we got married she would call and scream at my husband so loud on the phone that I could hear her across the room. My stepdaughter always heard the fighting and the obscenities that her mother would use while on the phone with my husband as she was usually only feet away while these conversations took place. The Ex told him I lied to him about things constantly and he should reconsider our relationship. (She had already been remarried and divorced at this point, and on boyfriend #20.) My husband had gone through a layoff; he never adjusted the amount of child support she received he just continued to pay her the same thing he had while he was bringing home $700 a week. He continued to pay her child support, half of her insurance and half of her daycare, until the money ran out. As soon as he couldn't make a payment she had him in court; by the way we were served with the papers 9 days after our first daughter together was born. During court cases my husband would struggle to get money together to pay her something, and if he fell short, she would insist that the judge would throw him in jail. He had never been late in 6 years and this was how she responded to him falling on hard times. Thank the Lord the judge saw the attempt that my husband was making and eventually we got through it. The "ex" was only working part time then and actually had the nerve to call and tell me to get a job! The problem was that even with a job, all of the money I would make would go toward childcare for a newborn and another child. So that was not a solution at the time. She even tried to take the child support I received for my son from his father. Her attorney advised against asking for that however.
Then I had an argument with her over email about the way she acted toward us and my opinion of her. Well in her opinion I had threatened her life, which I had not done in any way. She decided that she would talk about this with my husband and tell him what a loose canon I was, when he sided with me, she had a fit. After he left her house she went to the police department and filed a Child Abuse charge against my husband based on spankings. He was unable to see his daughter for 3 weeks until the hearing. At the hearing the judge threw out the charges based on lack of evidence, of course, and when the "ex" found out they were going to let him see his daughter again, she kicked the court room door open and came out screaming like a banshee, until she was escorted by a police officer out of the court house.
Whew!!! Just reliving that makes my blood pressure shoot up! Needless to say a few short months later we had his daughter for her whole spring break... I don't know about you but if my ex was abusing my child I would find a way to put that child in daycare.
I almost left after it was all done... the scale was tilting closer and closer to that option with knowing that I would have to deal with this lunatic for the rest of my life.
She has pulled a few stunts since this all happened - like leaving town with the child on our visitation weekend, refusing visitation after we moved to another state. We also got through that, and now that my Stepdaughter is almost 13, she actually is starting to see through all of that mess, and she is starting to really take a stand on visitations. Her mom trying to be the "good guy" usually gives in. So our initial 4 weeks of summer vacation has turned into the entire summer. The Biomom or BM as they are referred to in our group never seems to complain, she likes her summers free to party, and she posts blogs about it on her MySpace account. Moving away has seemed to calm a lot of her attempts at controlling my husband down. But The REAL Mrs will stay around, and if you are in a similar situation, please know-You Are Not Alone!
Good Wishes,
Tiffany "The REAL Mrs" Hartman
Click here if you would like to visit Tiffany Hartman's online support group.
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