You could start asking potential intermediaries how they would feel about being the person who arranges visitations and etc. to protect you from the emotional upheavel of direct contact with your ex.

Just tell potential people that you are feeling the need to disengage more fully for health reasons.

If someone is amiable to doing it, tell them you need them to be a filter to send only facts to you.

Potential people would be those who can talk to ex without lecturing him or going off bowling with him.

Mehr, picking your IM depends mostly on the types of things your IM will need to do. Will you be able to have only email contact between the three of you? Are you ready to put in the little bit of extra work initially to get it all sorted out? How will the exchanges go? Are you willing to go dark?

I am more than happy to help your IM candidates sort through all of this, if need be. I know how much a good Plan B depends on a GREAT IM.

Mehr - consider this - every time OW communicates as if it were him, HE IS USING AN INTERMEDIARY!

Or at least he's allowing it to avoid conflict with OW.

You should be using an intermediary to avoid contact with HER. And her abusiveness toward you.

An intermediary boils things down to just facts.

As for the haircuts, shrug it off. The minute it no longer matters to you, the juice she gets from doing it loses it's potency.

Here's what you can tell from their behavior:
1. She's insecure. Otherwise, she'd butt-out of communication regarding your children.
2. She's giving him a rash about just about everything. She's love-busting the h*ll out of him. Oh Joy!
3. Cutting off contact removes the release valve on the pressure between the two of them. Let the cooking begin!
4. Even if you no longer want to reconcile your marriage, removing contact with you gets her out of the picture sooner.
5. She will be the one to cause most of the parenting conflicts because she feels threatened, she will do everything she can to keep the conflict about you. Plan B removes that blame from you, and even if he's got his head in a stinky dark place, even he will eventually see the irrationality of her issues.

Plan B is probably the best thing you can do for your children, because SHE is a threat to your babies' well-being because of her proven instability.

Get a cheapo pay-as-you-go phone that your son can call foghead with. When it's not being used, it's turned off and tossed into the junk drawer.

They (OW and foghead) are only doing these things because they get a rise out of you. Quit playing their game.

Yea they love your reaction to their ill gotten lives. Plan B and remove yoursf from it. Your better than that.

Could I use a boyfriend as a filter?

Our visitation agreement is that he picks them up from my town on his Fridays, and then I drive down and pick them up on Sunday. That really affects me because they are still living in MY house. My boyfriend has been driving down there with me and he sees how it affects me and he offered to drive down there and get the kids next time so I don't have to.

I would prefer to use email but I don't know his email address and he won't give it to me. Any time there's something to email like a flyer he has me send it to his mom who forwards it to him.

How long have you been dating? I wouldn't trust a boyfriend with my kids. But that's just me. Maybe you can negotiate a neutral drop off/pick up point, like MacDonald's in both your towns? That way you won't have to drive up to his "lurve nest".

Maybe the vets would have some better suggestions.

Mehr, I remember you from before and had wondered what happened with you.

I know two divorced people (5+ years) that still have contact with their xWSs and are still stuck in a bad place. Every time I see them, they have endless complaints about their exes and don't seem to have made much progress in their recovery. Do you want that to be you? Of course not. You want to RARELY think of him and OW.

If it makes you feel any better, this skanky OW is MISERABLE (and I know this because she sounds exactly the same as my xWH's OW) and it makes her feel better about herself to fight with you and have a reason to complain about you. That's how pathetic she is. Do you want to give her that? Of course not.

I haven't read your entire thread, just bits and pieces of it. I am a former MB member from years back who went through a horrible and very public affair with my XH. We divorced in 2006 and it was HORRIBLE at the beginning. Lots of drama, nasty text messages, emails back and forth, etc. I have learned many things over the years.

1. you cannot control what happens while the kids are in his custody. you do not have any say so as to what they can do or not do while he has possession of them.

2. Do not engage in any texts, emails, calls, etc. if he texts you, simply reply with yes or no. Do not engage with them. The more you do so, the more they will antagonize you. The best thing is to ignore the texts. Gets them every time.

3. Get your kids a cell phone. It will save you a lot of pain and agony. you do not need to have contact with him or her at all. you can add an additional line for $9.99 a month. They can text him, call him, he can call them do whatever they want at their discretion. Let them have their time with their dad.

4. Do not have any contact with the OW. The kids are yours and his, not yours and hers. If he is unable to conduct business in a mature manner, then you do it at another time. She does not have the right, now or ever, to conduct business with you regarding your kids.

5. Do not discuss your XH in front of your kids. they will eventually realize on their own what a POS he is and was.

You have a long road ahead of you. I have been in "Plan B" with my XH for 7 years now. I have no desire to see him or speak to him. When he picks up the kids, the go out the front door. We do not speak to each other. I think I have spoken to him a total of 5 times in the past 7 years. We can at least speak now civilly rather than yelling at each other or him insulting me and telling me how much better his life is now. Life is so much easier now. Eventually, you'll get tired of the drama and monotony of it that you'll shut down.

I also found that when I had a BF, things only complicated things. I found myself constantly talking about how bad XH was or he did this or that because the BF would bring things up...I realized I couldn't get away from it and I had to move on.

I have to agree...it is so much easier when you don't have contact with them. it really does. And under no circumstances, do you need to have contact with the OW. She thinks she can move on in and take over HIS role as the parent. if she tries, do not respond to her.

Okay. So I need to get rid of contact that keeps me down.

I am dating a guy that I do trust with my kids. He already watches them for some of my night/weekend work shifts when the day care is closed. He is very good with them and they trust him. And yes I am serious and aware of any potential abuse and have taught my kids what is okay/what is not and that they can tell me. Actually I worry more about abuse happening when they are in ex's care because he is very negligent and kids have gotten injured and left alone under bad circumstances. Still, like you said, I can't control that. But as a result I have made sure my communication with the kids is safe and open.

All that being said, would it be okay for boyfriend to do pick ups? Ex just opens door and ejects the kids from his/our house, so there isn't any communication necessary, but for me just *being* in our house's driveway and seeing OW's car there can really trigger me for hours. As far as meeting at a neutral location, he lives in a very small town and there isn't even a Mcdonalds, but even if there was I *GUARANTEE* that he would refuse to do anything other than pick up at his house like is written on the paperwork. He likes to do the opposite of what would help me or what I request even nicely.

How about for the rest of necessary communication I write an email to ex-mother-in-law. This would be events from during his visitation that the kids have interest/investment in, "Saturday Feb 14 DS's basketball game is at 1pm." or "DD has been invited for a birthday party on Feb 14, that is your day, here is the phone number to let them know if she can go or not." She is FAR from a neutral party and enables ex, but I suspect that there won't be any response from either him or her because there never has been when I've forwarded kid event flyers. So it'd be worth a try, future revision possible.

My oldest is 8. My second child turned 6 last week. So they are very young and not good at using a telephone for conversation, I would have to help them a lot. But that can be something to work on this year with calling other people so we can get there.

Regarding the telephone.
I have a 8 and 6 year old.
I don't help them with the phone at all (unless they ask) in which case I dial ex ww number and hand it to them.
I haven't heard her lying adulterous voice in months and I'm glad

Yeah, that's good. When I was 7 I used the phone too, but my kids have never really had a reason to use a phone so they have no practice. They have maybe used a phone 1 or 2 times. I am sure they will pick up the skill though.

I don't like the idea of you having your BF pick up the kids, only because when you start to enforce going dark, your WH and OW will most likely start to cause problems with your BF. If that is the best option for now, then use it, until it no longer works, and plan for that eventuality.

Now, I wouldn't suggest that you use your xMIL as an IM, but what you can do, is use your IM to send the messages to xMIL, and have the IM filter out them, to add an extra level of protection for you.

I did a free annual credit report today and found that the mortgage on our jointly owned home, that he and skanky live in, hasn't been paid since January and is already on the credit report. Sigh.

It is on the market to sell right now so I guess he figures he can get away with not paying it. So frustrating what a second rate person he's turned into. He's hurting his own chances of buying the house he supposedly wants to buy with skanky.

You can also just call the mortgage holder directly to see if it has been paid and what you can do. Can you find a way to pay it? A judge will most likely return your payments after the house sells. I assume he is under court order to pay it?

Update:

I have an intermediary, it's the same one I had short after he left. She is a friend of mine that I've vented about things many times and he/ow got very abusive towards me over text so it had to end. I blocked his number from my phone so he cannot reach me that way.

His new thing is to try to talk to me at pick ups. He keeps walking up to the front door and talking. It's upsetting to me. I asked my fianc� to answer the door this time to prevent it but he still talked to me when I had to walk my 3 year old to the door because he didn't want to go. Ex is trying to avoid using intermediary by accosting me at the door.

I got engaged and I am very happy. We are getting married next fall. It's a much healthier relationship than my marriage, which is sad... But it takes two to work on things.

My ex got married and I didn't realize for over a month after it happened. One visit my daughter came home and told me they got married and she didn't get invited but that the ow's daughter was the flower girl. Not sure if that's true or not, about the flower girl, they may have just gone to court. I'm glad my kids weren't there.

I kept my married name upon divorce because of the kids and I am looking forward to getting rid of it because it just gives me an icky feeling now.

Sometimes my daughter tells me about their fighting and how she's in charge, and I figure not all is well in paradise, but they got married anyway.

I am relieved to just be living my life and out of the drama. Life is good.

Oh and ex and ow bought a new, slightly larger house. I'm glad they're out of the home we bought, but I wish I had a bigger house. He got a new job which is reported to make 4 dollars an hour more and he isn't paying as much in child support as he should, but it costs Money to take him to court too.

It is true what they say, that the divorced man comes out better financially.

mehr,
Thank you for updating us.
It sucks that finances are shattered and or limited with divorce.

I am very glad that you found a new man to share your life with. I wish you both the very best.

Hugs to you and your children.