Every time I read about such a situation it makes me want to weep! My parents divorced when I was a Junior in High School ... (I'm the youngest) ... my mom married my step father just before my senior year in high school ... He and I sat down and talked together several times before the wedding ... including several hours on the day of their wedding while we drove to a town 1 1/2 hours away to pick up the flowers and others items for their reception ... From the first day we agreed he would not try to be my father ... and I made certain he knew that I would never call him by a term meaning father ... not because I thought bad of him, but that my relationship with my own father was not ever very good and it wasn't a term of respect for me. There are 6 kids in my family ... he had 2 sons (at the time of wedding one was 29 and the other was 36). Pete was the best guy ... every one of us loved him so much ... he could have treated us all badly and we still would have felt the same, because he treated my mom like the LADY she is. But to add to that, he absolutely treated each of us kids the same as he treated his 2 boys ... in some cases better because 5 of us are girls and he had always wanted daughters. Pete died a few years ago ... my dad died a few years before that ... I hardly think of my own father, but I miss Pete desperately sometimes, several years before he died ... I slightly amended the terms of our agreement .... long enough to tell him that though I would never call him my father, as far as I'm concerned, he's the father of my heart!

Wish your ex could have understood the positive things her kids could have experienced with you in their life instead of making it acceptable for things to be so confrontational. (((((Hugs)))))