A couple of months ago I had the first face-to-face moment with my boyfriend’s baby mother after almost 4 years. Based on stories he’s shared, I knew that she was problematic in ways, but was always hopeful that because I never had a conversation with her or have done anything to her personally, that we would at least be able to tolerate each other/co-exist when the moment came. Wrong. For this same reason, I’ve never celebrated his child’s bday on days when she’s around, I would join when he did things involving his biological family.
During this moment, we did not know each other would be in the same space. It was a community event that I attended with my boyfriend & his family. She felt the need to try & paint a picture that she was more important than I was & was very confrontational, but in a passive way interestingly enough, directing all of his comments toward him while I was standing with him (walking up to him asking “is this your b-word” (she knows 100% we’ve been seeing each other for a while), saying she’s about to “pop her shit” on me, just very weird comments. We did end up in an altercation unfortunately & my boyfriend (& his family & close friends who were present) did ultimately take my side which caused her (& her sister who was there) to be even more upset. Apparently she acts this way with anyone who he’s dated over the years since they’ve been broken up. According to them, she acts the same way she’s acted since they’ve known her when they were in high school. They’ve all known each other for a long time & used to be very close. They are no longer close due to her getting into altercations with his mother & his sisters as well in the past.
As far as those two go, I guess she’s made it clear to him years ago that she doesn’t want to be with him & when they were together, she say things like she would cheat on him & was just very toxic. I can tell there’s clearly a lot of resentment on both sides. They do communicate sometimes outside of parenting things because when there are birthdays & things like that he still sees her mom, brothers, etc. The kids on her side of the family are really close to his daughter & nieces & nephews. It’s a very blended situation which I don’t really care too much about because it’s similar with me & my child’s dad in that way.
I do admit that I am very embarrassed about how things happened, but everything escalated so fast & I was caught off guard by her behavior. I do acknowledge that I could have simply walked away but a larger part of me felt the need to take up for myself. It’s also interesting because we’ve never met in person, but I’ve met her sister a few times during my previous relationship with my son’s dad (we even exchanged a hug this day of the event) & I talk with her brother occasionally due to us both being in the art community. So I’m not a complete random person to her necessarily. We’ve known “of” each other for maybe 10-11 years & we have a lot of mutual friends.
I’m sad because I’m a very open minded person & although I love him, my ideal situation would be one where if I dated a man who had a child, their mother & I would at least be cordial & have a mutual respect for one another. I’m realizing that will probably never happen because of her immaturity & lack of respect for him & me. I also have a child. Our children are the same age. He doesn’t really care my my child’s dad, but they’re at least able to celebrate my sons bday in the same space for a few hours.
I hate how things unfolded & now I feel that I may have ruined the possibility for us to even be cordial in the future if we are ever in the same space again. Should I just let the idea go? Is it unreasonable to even want to be able to be around each other? I used to be in a poly relationship & even when my metamour & I weren’t too fond of each other, we were still able to coexist when needed.
TL:DR, my boyfriend’s bm dislikes me for no reason (it seems). Ideally, I would love for us to be able to at least get along. Is it unreasonable to want to be cordial with her? It happened a couple of months ago, but the situation is still bothering me. What’s a good way to move forward?