Oh, I just found out that she has informed my husband that she will be the team mom on the team he coaches (even though the other two children are on teams he doesn't coach).

This after even the counselor they were seeing a while back said it wouldn't be a good idea because she and my husband don't communicate well with simple personal matters (hence, how can they work together?).

How do you deal with that one?

My heart goes out to you in your situation there. My opinion is that it would not be a good idea to ask the children to keep things quiet. That would be putting pressure on them to keep "secrets" - which I know you are not attempting to do. I can understand that you would like for the fires to go out where this BM is concerned, but until she decides to put them out within herself they will continue to burn & flare. Looks like your best bet will be to continue doing what you are already doing: being the mature adults by tempering your own reactions to whatever the BM is doing.

As for the soccer team....can your DH go to the soccer association and request to be put onto another coaching team? He should be able to get them to intervene and assign her or himself, at the least, to separate teams. Unless your town is extremely small, this should not be a problem to have changed.
Blessings!

Properina, it sounds like the BioMom wants to make things difficult. I know in a lot of custody agreements the responsibility for filling out forms and paperwork are pretty tightly spelled out. However, in the interest in getting things done and making things more simple, is it really a big deal if someone other than BioDad fills out a form? My SS17 had me sign a bunch of stuff from school for him over the weekend. I was sitting at the kitchen table when he thought about it, and if he'd waited to ask his dad, he probably would have forgotten. When SS17 was about 12, I took him to the dermatologist to have a growth removed from his neck. His BioMom had no problem with that. It made her life easier not to have to take him.

It's a control issue with the BioMom. TOS and kkny will no doubt side with the BioMom, if it's in the agreement, blah, blah, blah. For goodness sake, it was only filling out forms that Dad ended up signing anyway!

As for being the team mom for the team dad coaches - is this for a child that she hasn't been involved with team sports? Has she already been the team mom for both of the other kids? If not, is there a way DH can suggest to her, in the interest of the child, that it might be better if she were team mom on one of the teams he doesn't coach? Do they have the kind of relationship where they can talk about and do what is in the child's best interest? If not, he may want to go to the league and ask them to reassign her.

Lastly, the religion thing did strike a chord with me. I am assuming that since BioMom goes to temple, she is Jewish. So am I. So is DH's ex, even though he is not. I would define myself as a secular Jew, we live in a predominately non-Jewish area, we don't go to temple on any regular basis, we don't observe the high holidays (except to note "Oh, hey, it's Yom Kippur,"), only some of my kids went to Hebrew and Sunday schools, and they opted not to be bar/bat mitzvahed, and we do have a 10-12" Christmas tree every year (holiday tree, we call it). Like I said, very secular and totally non-practicing. However, if someone, even their father, took my kids to church, I think I would probably flip out. As you said, the ex is "culturally" of a different religion. It's not just the religious part of it, it's also a culture. Unless you are Jewish, you probably wouldn't understand. You are doing a good job exposing your kids to organized religion, and telling them the choice is theirs, but if they are not exposed to the other religion, there really isn't a choice then, is there? I don't think you can fault the BioMom for wanting to take them to temple and Sunday school, for wanting to expose them to her religion. Incidentally, since the bloodline is passed maternally by rabbinic law, your stepkids are Jewish. (I guess the thought back then was, well anyone could be the father, but you always knew who the mother was ... LOL!)

Do you have the kids every weekend? Would it be possible to accomodate the BioMom's desire for the kids to attend services, at least once in a while?

NotWicked and Tamar, thank you so much for your responses.

I think it is true, we can't ask the boys not to talk to their mother about me or what happens here. I know they get that their mom doesn't like me (they don't say goodbye when they leave.... we have to say our goodbyes when she isn't around).

As for the league, other than the snack schedule, I don't think that my husband is going to have her involved in anything else. She has never volunteered for any of the children's sports. I really think it's not for them that she's doing it...

Finally, about the religion, Tamar, thank you thank you thank you for saying what you said. Lineage-wise, I too am Jewish; by personality, I am a religion-phile, meaning I love religious practices and cultures.... and that is why, since their mother has never until now even mentioned Judaism, I have talked to the kids about their mother's religion (I bought Old Testament stories to read to them, talked about the 10 Commandments, explained what Yom Kippur was all about and why they weren't in school, to mention only a few things). The reality is that she was raised Jewish but would go to church with my husband when they were married. This is really coming up now because the boys complained they are bored when they go to church and they wouldn't want to go... when it was brought up in the past, she was fine with it. But it's as I said in my post, tit for tat, that's what it's about 90% of the time when it comes to her.
We have joined custody, so the kids have ample opportunity to go to temple. I am happy for them in the sense that I think a God presence in their life is something they can only benefit from. I just wish her motivation were coming from another place...

Do the father and mother have joint legal custody with one of them having primary physical custody (very common) or shared physical custody (less common)?