It's All My Husband's Fault

  The kids came home last night with a check made out to Husband.  The check is from Ned.  Ned wrote out and signed the check.  After this, The Ex wrote in the note line: "[The Ex's name] medical exspanses"   Look, I'm not trying to tell someone else how to live their life.  I'm just going to say that it would be a huge red flag for me if I was in a relationship for less than a year, my partner already moved in with their kids, and I was paying their bills for them even though they had a job.

  I often feel like I want to "expose" The Ex to the kids.  I want to point out everything that she's lied to them about over the years, how she is constantly trying to drive a wedge between them and Husband just to make herself feel better.  But I don't do that for multiple reasons.  The primary reason is that Son and Daughter are still children and don't need that burden placed upon them, especially from both sides of their family.  I love them more than my ego.  If something gets brought up, then we will address it but we don't go out of our way to tell them what really happened, and we most certainly don't bad-mouth their mother.   The Ex is another story.  For the past decade, her primary objective has been to portray Husband in a negative light.  It doesn't matter what the circumstance is.  If Husband says or does something, The Ex will twist what the events and "show" the kids how he has hurt her.  If Husband does nothing...

  There's not much going on right now so I'll just update with the minor things that Daughter shared about their time at The Ex's over Christmas break.   ●  At some point, The Ex's youngest son couldn't or wouldn't go to bed.  The Ex brought him to Daughter and made it her job to take care of him in the middle of the night because....yeah, I don't have a reason why.   ●  Ned's parents bought a McDonald's gift card for Daughter as a Christmas present.  On their way back to our house, The Ex wanted to stop at McDonald's; once there, Daughter paid for everyone's food with her gift.  ( So it's pretty much, "Merry Christmas, now you can buy me stuff." )   Really, I shouldn't be surprised by any of this.  I still am though.  I still can't wrap my head around a woman who is so selfish that she treats her own children like this on a regular basis.  It's just so appalling.