Well, about the window... I think I sort of have a problem with it.
TOS' crappy exH is a jerk for saying no, but I also think it was showing a low degree of self-sufficiency and probably trying out some sort of clever new guilt trip on him to ask.
So while I don't think she should have asked, I also think he's a jerk.

I think there are certain levels to the help from the ex argument. TOS' ex standing feet from the window and saying no is, IMO, kinda crappy. BUT, perhaps he was trying to distance himself from her so that she would learn to be more independent and not think he would be there to fix everything like he was when they were married.

Now were TOS (just for a name to use) to call him at 11:00pm because the plumbing was backing up in one of two toilets in the house I would call foul. No one is going to have to find a bush, there is still an operational toilet for his kids to use, there are repairmen that can be called.

I think the difference is if it is something that will seriously impact the kids if the ex doesn't help out they should, but if it's just an excuse to have them close then it's a no-go.

Another posted made a good point - what if he died not left? Then what would you do? It's a good way to look at it - your marriage with that person is dead. Time to move to plan B.

ima,

"TOS's husband is a jerk for not opening the window. But he is a bigger jerk for cheating & leaving her with six kids." - can't argue with that.

Actually, I only have one toilet. I wouldn't call my exH, or my neighbor, to unstop the toilet. I unstopped toilets plenty of times when we were still married.

Ceph, as far as I know WD-40 does nothing for windows that are swollen shut. Works great to loosen frozen bolts so you can get your license plate off, but it wouldn't have helped the window situation.

And most of the time, I DON'T have anyone very big at home anymore. As I have mentioned more than once, most of my kids are adults and/or in college.

I don't see any problem with helping out your ex-spouse even if you don't have kids. I don't have kids with my neighbors, either, and we help each other.

HOW TO OPEN A STUCK WINDOW

Windows often swell and stick in warm, humid weather. To loosen them, gently wedge a putty knife or paint scraper between the window frame and the interior trim. Then, for painted or stained wood frames, spray a bit of furniture polish along the surface where the trim and sash meet. For metal window frames, spritz a bit of WD-40 on the side channels and locks. Now try lifting the sash. If it moves easily, open the window. If not, stop and repeat the steps.

Unfortunately many cases of Exes wanting help from their Ex has nothing whatsoever to do with needing actual help. I had to laugh when my husband's ex called to ask for help, and I said he isn't home, but I will be happy to come over and help you.

After she got done choking on my totally unexpected offer to her she said that's ok I can ask someone else. Well so? ask someone else to begin with!

I can't believe people could actually argue the point that an X should do anything for them or their property. What if your X has several X's. He's supposed to run around fixing car/home repairs? When you're an X, you're just that, an X. Get over it!! The parenting relationship continues to exist but no other relationship. If you can't repair your home & give the children a safe environment, maybe you should give your children to the other parent who can.

Misti got it right, and actually, I have heard my DH say that to his ex..."if you can't handle it, maybe you should just let me have custody." It's usually in regard to money and not household chores though...although BM did suggest that DH come over and help SD clean out their horse barn...he said no way!

DH always pay his child support, plus half of parochial school, plus clothes, shoes, coats, etc., plus medical insurance, plus whatever extra money BM asks for to pay for this and that....the full amount of which I'm quite certain I'm not privy too...but still BM is always broke and DH doesn't help enough because it's so, so, so expensive to raise a child...probably especially for her since she can't hold a job too long, lives rent-free in a house her parents own, and uses the free babysitting services of mom, dad, aunts, uncles...oh yeah, and SM (who by the way, otherwise is viewed as unfit to be around SD).

And...back to the OP, about a week before the wedding SD said, "My mom doesn't know if she's invited to the wedding or not." Well, duh...if you didn't get an invitation, you're not invited. It was bad enough that she invited herself and attended our youngest's baptism, even though she's been sure to let SD know that her little sis is only a half-sister, and I'm quite certain that she couldn't give a rat's a-- about any children that were born to me.

Well, I feel better now...time for the vultures to rip my post apart!!

I just couldn't imagine calling my X husband to come & fix my window or my stove, whatever needs fixing. How about if my DH now couldn't fix our car, should I call my X to come in & fix our car? Heck No Way! Could you imagine how that would make my DH feel? "Oh Honey by the way I'm going to call my X to come over & fix the window since you can't figure it out". OUCH!

Was thinking that exact same thing Misti, about calling Ex cuz my husband is sick!!! That would work!!!! LOL ... AND OH MY!!! Thank you for responding to original post, 3000 furnace posts later...I d mortgage my house and hire a crack security team from Israel to police the area before I d let Ex into a wedding , Baptism, birthday or whatever!!! We just want no contact what so ever, just the way it works best for us to avoid confrontation...The gall of some people to want to be invited when they are obviously not wanted, and as you say, not exactly sharing in the joy of your day....

"I had to laugh when my husband's ex called to ask for help, and I said he isn't home, but I will be happy to come over and help you. "

Way to go Coleen! That answer is priceless! ;-)

Brilliant, Colleen!

I think it is rather humorous, in a sick kind of way, that so many of you exude such hatred for you exH's. How can that degree of hatred not be obvious to the children even if you try to hide it? As I believe Finedreams said, not everyone hates their ex-spouses. At least my children see by example that it is fine to love their father, flawed though he may be.

I assume you realize that the "if you can't afford to raise the children with little or no child support then you should lose custody" argument does not hold water in any court system in this country. One of the reasons behind child support is that it is blatantly unfair to award custody based on who makes the most money - earning more money does not make you the better parent.

It is even more ridiculous to suggest that child custody be awarded based on which parent is the better handyman/woman.

mistihayes' comment about how it would make her current husband feel if she asked her exH to do something is completely irrelevant, since I didn't have another husband who could feel insulted (actually the person I asked WAS still my husband at the time).

Just wait until, when you are a number of years out of the workforce, your husband leaves you with young children and a mortgage and so little child support that after the mortgage payment and groceries there is virtually nothing left. I suppose everyone can instantaneously find a high paying job and quality daycare. Oh, but then the ex can cut back child support, so there is still barely enough money to cover the mortgage and groceries.

nobody is saying what your husband did to you was right or fair. In fact, most have said he's a terrible person for doing that, yet you feel the need to love him, flaws and all.

I don't have an ex husband, but I have an ex BF. I don't hate him but I wouldn't want to need his help. He wasn't nice to me and why would I want him to think I need him or want to depend on him for anything. He showed me how little I meant to him. Why does he deserve to feel needed by me? If we had children together, they of course would need him.

Custody should not be awarded based on money or handyman skills, but when the NCP is paying their child support and the CP still is unable to provide a safe healthy environment, then there may be a problem with the CP's ability to handle the responsibility. In my opinion, both parents are equal as parents until one proves through their actions that they are less able to handle it. That goes for moms & dads. Certainly, you would agree that if a parent has money for cigarettes but says they can't get shoes for the child, so expects the NCP to do so... do you think that they are being responsible. Surely, if a CP is working & struggling and not getting much or any child support, it's not the same as a CP that is wasting money on themselves and complaining they need more money.

and I don't know how well of an actress I was, but I despised my son's father (and step mom) but I worked so very hard to not show it to my son. He may have known because his step mom didn't hide her hatred of me. (my son did tell me that his father would try to stop her from saying bad things about me) My son is grown now. He loves me. He loves his dad. He sees his step mom when he wants to see his brother. He's respectful toward her (because I've always expected him to be). I don't know how he feels about her (that's up to him).

TOS,
You have so much hate & anger in you, it oozes out in your words. Who has so much hate for their Xs? I have enough respect for my X & his wife that I would not ask him to do anything for me.
You need help. You try to hurt people through your words. You need to heal so you can help others heal. Not pull them down with you. You talk about anger affecting children. What about yours?

Misti said: "I have enough respect for my X & his wife that I would not ask him to do anything for me."

This thread has been bugging me, because I haven't been able to put my finger on why it irks me when BM asks my BF to do ridiculous things like drive across town to Wal-Mart to buy her Christmas lights, even though she has a newer car than he does.
Thanks for helping me figure it out!
It's showing a complete lack of respect for him and for his life (which includes me). She does so many disrespectful things like that.
Here's one I've mentioned on here before, but is a real mind-boggler: We were going to the specialty cheese store and called to say we were coming to pick up A__ first so he could pick his own cheese (this kid loves cheese). Somehow the trip to the cheese store came up in the conversation and she said "No, pick up A__ after. Just buy him whatever, he won't care, because I want you to pick me up some fresh pasta and 4-cheese sauce and a baguette. I'll pay you back when you get here"
I lean towards that BF should have told her to put a sock in it, but he said OK. Unfortunately, they were out of 4-cheese sauce, so we settled on Alfredo instead. When we arrived at her house to pick up A__, and explained that they were out of the sauce she wanted, she said "Pfft, I'm not paying for any of this because this isn't the right sauce" and stomped off to the kitchen with it.
I've marveled at the rudeness time and time again... and things like that have been bugging the heck out of me, but it never really occurred to me that it was showing a total lack of respect for him and for us.
Now I feel better about that it irritates me!

Thanks Misti!

you know what ceph, that's right!

I mention the band aids my husbands ex requested. First she had her daughter call him to leave messages to tell him about her mom. We could understand Mom, Surgery, Cyst, Band Aid. But nothing she said made any sense. BM lived with her mom at the time who works & drives. She was well enough to drive to tae kwon do to 'just watch' and passed several shopping centers on the way. but she wants DH to go out of his way? Why? So it will prove he will do things for her? That he cares about her? Well, he doesn't. He doesn't hate her, he just doesn't care if she gets the flu or needs a band aid. He doesn't call her when he needs something, even before we were together. He'd call a buddy or his family or figure it out himself.

I'm not against anyone helping anyone out. My parents have been divorced over 25 years. They were married almost 20 and raised four kids together. All of the kids have been out on their own for at least, the last 20 years. When my mom stopped drinking, we all helped her get into a house, including my dad. Over the years, he's loaned her money (that she's not paid back so he stopped). He even co-signed a vehicle for her to help her get a lower payment she could afford because she didn't have very good credit. He's done things for her over the years that he isn't obligated to do, legally or morally, he isn't her husband anymore. What does she do? She comes around and makes comments like do you think he'll to take me back? She makes comments like is his wife dead yet? No, she doesn't say those things to him, she says it to US, her kids. and I have to say THANK YOU MISTI too for that realization that she just lacks respect for him and his marriage to my step mom, which he feels very loyal to. If she weren't in a vegetative condition, I can pretty much guarantee that my mom would have been alone on every holiday for the last ten years, and I doubt that my dad would have done ANYTHING financial for her, if for nothing else, respect for his wife's feelings. Since my step mom is not aware of the things he's done for my mom, and she never will, he's done what he can because she's the mother of his children. I wouldn't blame him a bit if he had never done anything for her. I don't hate my mother, I just don't think she's ever done anything for him and she certainly doesn't deserve to expect him to do anything for her.

In situations where ex's are friendly enough to do things for each other and want to, I think that's great. What creates a 'moral' obligation? Didn't my mom have a moral obligation to not cheat on my dad? She broke that one..

My Dh will help but within reason. The first week the ex wife found out i was dating him, she phoned and was always using excused to have him up there. (remember, its a 1 1/2 hour drive up and another 1 1/2 back again into the city.) He just kept saying no cause her father lives a few blocks away and when they were married he did all the things she would ask anyways. ( my Dh would do them , when he was married to her but it wasn't done right, soooo, she phoned Daddy)
The best one was she called before christmas for him to shovel the roof off her house. He saidno. she said' you wont do this for the kids?" What the F*** does that have to do withthe kids??? SUch guilt trips to lay onhim, we both laughed. He told her, ask your dad....like you have always done. and hung up .
Dont get me wrong, if she needed it cause no one would help her, my DH or me or both of us would be there first thing to help her. We dont hate her. We both hate how she behaves. SHe has alot of hate in her that it just spills over to everyone...evne her parents! She has improved.
But you know TOS had it bad. You cannot blame her for all the hate she has. If she carries it, its her decision to let go when she is good and ready to let go. i dotn always agree with her but the situation was thrown in sucked!
My Dh pays CS, he barely has anything left to his name after all the bills are paid. You think he doesn't get depressed cause he cant buy me something for Valentines or Christmas??? Yah, he can't balance a checkbook but i got him organized and i keep track and i've realized that in the winter he is tight. The heating bills are nuts and he has about 30 bucks left on the end of a pay. So he can't take his kids out ot a movie either when he picks them up and sometimes asks me for gas money too.But enough of me.
I think ex spouses call for help if they're still friends or they feel just lost and want help.OThers call for excuses just to see the ex. Heck you can't lose all your feelings with ex spouses. Especially when you have had kids. Most i think dont hate one another. THey hated they way things were and the situation and their behaviour.
I do wish more ex spouses got along. But that is not the reality.

I also agree it would be best for everyone is exes could get along, but that often is not the case and especially if one, usually the female, believes they are OWED that help and their ex should still be at their beck and call whenever they want help with something. Moreover some females still actually see that they are in their exes immediate family and that the wife is the outsider. They continue to infiltrate into their exes family and some even continue to believe they are still the daughter in law, sister in law etc.

Of course that will cause much grief and the ex will always swear up and down and innocently state I didn't cause people to feel that way. They just like me and they don't like HER at all....cough...this after the exwife has waged a long covert battle of relational aggression.

I myself have no problem if my husband's ex is involved in our family as long as she understands the ground rules and respects her new position and understands and acts according to her friend status in the family, not wife status. Some females are never able to adjust to their new role, no matter how much they were at fault for and wanted to divorce.

Sometimes you really have no choice but to walk away.

ima,

I think it is great that your father helped out your mother financially, and she obviously should have paid him back. If he really thought helping her out would be disrespectful toward the feelings of his current wife, I would think he would have found it disrespectful even if his wife was not aware. I am sure it would have been more difficult for him to help out your mother had his current wife not been in a vegetative state, but not because it was disrepectful, but because she likely would have given him a hard time about it.

Colleen and Misti, You are ALWAYS right on target, and IMA, yeah, and my sympathy to you for the last stupid post....Yeah likely to get a hard time from SM in a vegatative state about the CASH!!!!! GGGRRR Sorry I ever started the post on Wedding Honeymoon ..Just wanted a little feedback on whats up with the Exs still screwing with us years later, and this is what it comes to.....

"Yeah likely to get a hard time from SM in a vegatative state about the CASH!!!!! "

Huh?? I said that his current wife would likely have given him a hard time about helping his exW out with loans/co-signing had she NOT been in a vegetative state.

Duh, we got your general drift, TOS.

Well obviously dotz didn't.

TOS:

I think if his wife weren't in a vegetative state, she would still be working full time and it would be 'their' money. She would definitely have a say in allowing him to sign an auto loan for several years or basically giving money to someone else that might affect 'their' finances. That's out of respect for her, not about her giving him a hard time.... read the thread on the parents forum about the husband sending his daughter money for college without telling the wife, but then telling the wife that they need to 'tighten their belt'. It's not about him helping his daughter, the problem is that he doesn't respect his wife enough to discuss something that is obviously affecting her, by expecting her to cut back. (and I don't want to hear the BS about parents obligation to pay for college, I think the dad should help his daughter, but he should also be honest with his wife about it.)

Tell me TOS, if you married a guy and he wanted to loan his ex money (where there are no kids involved) or co sign a car note while you work full time to share expenses, wouldn't it bother you if he took away from that for someone that not only cheated on him, but doesn't have any respect for you or your relationship? Of course my step mom would have given him a hard time. Anyone would. The point in my post isn't about my dad helping my mom, it's about the lack of respect she has for my step mom and dad's marriage. When my step mom was well, my mom would hug & kiss my dad in front of her. Step mom never let it show that it bothered her. I know it must have, it bothered ME!! She was a very dignified lady. My mom wasn't. And knowing my dad is devoted to my step mom, she now shows her disrespect by making comments about her still being alive and questioning if my dad would take her back instead of showing gratitude for his help.

and your comment that the only reason he does it is because she can't say anything about it... that's something my mom would say!!!

"Tell me TOS, if you married a guy and he wanted to loan his ex money (where there are no kids involved) or co sign a car note while you work full time to share expenses, wouldn't it bother you if he took away from that for someone that not only cheated on him, but doesn't have any respect for you or your relationship?"

No, it wouldn't bother me. If I were ever to remarry, even if all my kids were adults and so were his, or he didn't have any, I would absolutely keep the finances separate. It can work to merge finances when you are young and don't have much in the way of assets, debts or responsibilities to previous spouses or to children, but after you have been working for a couple of decades, any assets or debts or responsibilities you have accumulated should be yours and yours alone.

TOS, I agree with you completely. Again, it may be that we are older than others here.

So when your husband of the year was married to you ... you wouldn't have had a problem with him lending his first wife money...or running over to unstick a window???

And you were a second wife so to go along with your thinking he was "morally still married" to his first wife so he was cheating on her with you........ what a guy!!!

and just to be spiteful before the long day of "jabs" starts.... yep home alone .... but might have lunch with 2 of my sister's in law ... who are both stay at home mom's to school age children!... :) Does it count that one sister in law her youngest is a senior in HS?

Cawfe,

If I were to remarry, I wouldnt combine money, and I wouldnt even know if he loaned money to X, brother or the moonies.

Marriage(and even REMARRIAGE) is about sharing, richer for poorer, better or worse...Finances combined has nothing to do with age, length of previous marriage or piled up assets...You cant have it both ways.If New wife has the money, she bought and paid for her husband..If New husband has money, it all belongs to kids from previous marriage..For the record I m sure I m older than the posters who have had long term marriages, and I know I had a longer standing marriage, and I m an excummunicated Catholic, because long term marriage took place in the Church...As for this household, we share our assets.....

I dont want it both ways. Neither does TOS. All she wants is her X to have the same type of job he did in the past and support his children.

You and your DH are entitled to whatever arrangements you want.

I do find it hypocritical to say, we share and share, but only the second to die gets to determine who inherits. One time I suggested to X he look at some of the threads here, and I think he was shocked at how many of the SMs said they wouldn't leave a penny to their Stepchildren.

Cawfe,

don't forget that if he wanted to sleep with his ex wife, it would have been 'morally' acceptable too.

:)

Just wondering where nivea is .... so she can count the low blows....directed toward specific people.

I count 4 already and its not even noon yet!

At one o clock, would this be construed as low blow 5? I said we share everything, even decisions.....Didnt say I didnt have a will, did I? One might be surprised to see how fair I was to Skids.....

"but only the second to die gets to determine who inherits"

It works both ways, KKNY. The thought of me dying first and DH trying to buy his oldest adult DD's love with MY hard-earned money, that I brought into the marriage is not a comforting thought.

Agreed June, but statistically the DH is much more likely to die first. But agree not every time.

pondering a thought

are they more likely to die when they have an angry ex wife?

Doubt it, but maybe when they have a greedy or physcho Second Wife who has managed to cut off contact with children.

Thread getting TOO long to scroll thru, But Ima, to answer your question, I think a guy would live longer if he had an angry EX , and was married to someone not angry this time around....

not greedy or psycho (atleast not diagnosed) although all my friends said I was for hooking up with a guy with 4 kids and 2 ex wives :)

My exH's first wife left him, not the other way around, so your statements are irrelevant. If she left him for another guy whom she married, and he hadn't married me (or anyone else), then yes, it would not have been morally wrong for him to sleep with her.

However, once he married me that was no longer the case, just as it would be no longer the case if I ever remarried.

I would not have minded if he had helped her with the window, or kept all of her gifts to him (I asked him if he was sure he wanted to do that when he gave some away when we moved).

This is probably irrelavant too, but I gotta know, what did this dude do to get all the GIFTS...........Was it helping with the window......

Why wouldn't she have given him gifts - don't you give your husband gifts?

theotherside, it may be a guy thing, but they don't seem to want to keep 'the gifts'. My DH doesn't want anything that his ex gave him (especially the credit card debt she left) I don't think that qualifies as a 'gift' but she might disagree. His daughter is the best gift she ever gave him, he treasures her every day. It could be that the person that leaves the relationship, usually doesn't want to hang onto the love notes and presents. However, I wouldn't let him throw away the 'family' portrait they took when SD was a baby. That is being saved for SD when she gets a little older. Most of the pictures of her mom that were in his box, I put them in a collage frame for SD's room and the rest, I'll probably scrap book for SD. I think that is better than the shredder he wanted to put them in. (I don't think she ever gave him any romantic gifts, if she did, they were long gone before I ever met him)

I think your a good mommy imamommy. I don't buy my DH gifts. I do alot of other things for him though. That's how we got our little Nathan so soon.

LOL Misti. LOL!

ima,

He had kept her gifts and the wedding presents for several years, before he met me, but he seemed surprised that I didn't mind if he kept them. He was not one to throw anything out if it could possibly be useful someday.

BF got rid of almost everything he had from X (married 28 years), but what is really funny is that when his X moved out without telling anyone, she took everything with her including some of the stuff that she previously gave him as gifts lol Like his CDs or his favorite movies DVDs. This is the funniest thing. Why would you take what you youself gave to your DH? As about pictures she took most of the pictures with her.

i think men don't like to keep romantic memories of their past, i don't know. I find it weird though that after 28 years of marriage he has really nothing that she gave him.

Most of stuff i had from X was stolen in two major robberies that i had in my life. Everything of value was gone, but few things that stayed i do keep. I have no hard feelings towards X so i do keep some stuff. I find it sad that somebody would want to throw out everything after 28 years of marriage...

The gift crack was supposed to be funny, not mean...I am actually getting ashamed of myself for being so snipey...Life can be so hard sometimes... Who wont agree with that...Guess these posts have been used as a stress releaser..Does keep ME distracted from dwelling on some problems I do have..Estrangements and such, that I want to heal, and have no control over at this time....

Hah! Cawfe, sorry not counting today. I didn't even count the other day, just was annoyed that it was spilling over into other threads and seeming to take over the board.

Most debates or arguments tend to be interesting to me, but this....

sorry nivea ... :)

Its just that many "low blows" are directed at me daily because I am a SAHSM how dare I complain ....

Afterall if it wasn't for my SC and my benefactor (hubby) I would "have" to be working.

Everyone has their problems no matter what or where they are in life.

Just because you are a SAHSM doesn't mean that you are exempt and I am surprised some people don't see that. You take a lot risks for doing what you do and if you still want to do it, hey than that is great for you.