A big theme in the post divorce arena that has come to my attention and what I have experienced myself, is dealing with a divorce bully. I was at a recent all girls birthday party and half of us were dealing with this traumatic situation. Sadly, it seems to be completely dominated by the ex-wives, not one of us complained about a similar situation with an ex-husband. There is obviously something on the x chromosome that causes this Queen Bee behavior of gender harassment. The underlying truth is that women can be vicious especially when it comes to their role of an ex-wife.
When you think of the word, “bully”, you probably think of a bratty pre-teen boy who takes someone’s lunch or maybe of a mean girl in high school, who made fun of your fabulous new outfit. But bullying isn’t something that many of us associate with adults. Unfortunately, adults can be bullies. Some people never outgrow the desire to put down others or to make someone else feel bad at their expense. Bullies live to assert dominance and often do this by putting someone else down. The post divorce stage is a purrfect breeding ground for an ex-wife bullying situation. Some people who divorce their partners do not instantly cut contacts with them. You may have fallen for such a guy and are still struggling with how to deal with his toxic ex. The baggage brought from your formerly married new partner could be in the form of property, children, or worse, a bully ex-wife.
At this point, I would like to tell you, in my REAL opinion, my own incredulous 10 year story about being in a relationship with a man who has a toxic ex. As you will see, it requires a level of patience and tolerance that not everyone has. The importance of this article is to give you permission not to accept this emotional abuse from any bully at any age.
I’d like to introduce you to My Terrorist. There was one MASSIVE minus in getting into a relationship with Hottie Scottie. He was connected to an ex-wife piranha aka divorce bully.
BACKGROUND: When I first started to date Hottie Scottie, he had already been divorced for a year. I was NOT involved in the reason for his divorce. I was actually his second girlfriend post divorce. I went into dating him with the hopes of having a courteous relationship with his ex. One month into our dating, I received a strange Facebook message from Scott’s ex first girlfriend, Dee.
Hi Tricia, I know you don’t know me, but my name is Dee and I briefly dated Scott before you. I just wanted to warn you about his ex who is a VIPER. 🐍 She is one of the reasons why I broke up with him. One weekend we were staying at their joint home and she came in and ruined all of my cosmetics and clothes and threw them out on the lawn when we were at the beach. She is certifiable. Just a word to the wise from one woman to another. -Dee
I wasn’t really sure what to do with that, so I just forged ahead with my new romance. 💘The first sign of interference came the first time I was at their joint home, and I was jumping on a trampoline with my kids and My Terrorist’s friend saw me from her car. Within 5 minutes, Scott came out to the trampoline and said:
“Hey so get this, my Ex just called me. She is accusing me of dating an 18 year old because her friend just saw you and thought you were my daughter’s friend. Congrats to you.”
Hmmm…..I thought to myself kind of strange, she’s already calling about something so ridiculous. She’s obviously very over involved.#EXTRAbizarre
The following month I had spent a few hours with their daughter and she had liked my lip gloss. In an effort to connect with her I bought her one and I wrapped it and wrote out a simple card for her. I asked Scott to put it on her dresser. My Terrorist unfortunately found it first. Scott told me that not only did she rip up my hand written card, but she tossed the lip gloss out of the second floor window, and he saw it shatter all over the flagstone below. Ok, soooo that’s f**ked up……Note to self: Showing disrespect as an adult is not only immature, but is a common trait of narcissism.
Not long after that I started to see the pattern. On his weekends when he wasn’t scheduled to have his kids, he would spend them with me. She knew this and in her best efforts to ruin that time together she would say, “Hey, so do you want some extra time with the kids? Why don’t you take my weekend.” She already had half her foot on Block Island ready to bolt. He would decline and she would answer, “I’m going to tell the kids that you are more interested in f**king your girlfriend than getting extra time with them!!!” She didn’t like not getting her way, so he would pay. Cruel.
When Scott bought his own ski house, she went into an envious rage. She knew that our blended family would be spending time together there. Her texts to him started coming in fast and furiously:
“You’re fiancee is a pig.” What a lovely sentiment. The irony is she weighs 200lbs and I weigh 125. You do the math. Cruel. Hypocrite. No response from me. Not long after this insult, we were up at our house in Stratton, and she dropped off two of their sons at our house. She was obsessed with seeing our house, so she showed herself in and took herself on her own tour. I was in disbelief with her audacity. Then she invited her friends in and asked us for a glass of wine. I couldn’t even speak, I mean who does this???
One day, Scott didn’t respond to one of her text’s quickly enough and she sent over:
“Your fiancee is a whore.” Again lovely. The irony is that SHE was the one who cheated on Scott during his marriage by having an affair with the local guy from the fire house. She duped and lied to him for months as he worked his a** off to feed all of them. I had also been using a bathroom in their joint home and I was looking for a trash basket. I opened a cabinet and 10 boxes of Vagisil spilled out onto the bathroom floor. Hmmm…what do you think Vagisil is for??? Cruel. Hypocrite. No response from me.
Then My Terrorist had recently ended her relationship with her fireman. She was on the warpath more then ever. She went to Scott and asked him if they could get back together. She saw her gravy train leaving the station. Of course he said no, and she responded with sending him a text which explained why each of their four kids hated me and why. Again, cruel. No response from me.
We were scheduled to be in their joint home on a weekend and My Terrorist had told us that she was gone. We drove up to the house only to find out that she was indeed inside waiting for us. She had hid her car in the garage. She thought she could interrogate me. I refused the ambush and had absolutely no desire to see this woman who had been terrorizing me so I left. She sent the following text in her next tirade:
“Your fiancee’s kids are ugly and annoying”. I’m sure you will agree with me that there is nothing lower than bullying someone else’s children. ESPECIALLY, when you have a severe special needs child yourself and you have experienced your child being stared at or ridiculed by others. So let me point this out as clearly as I can. My Terrorist has an autistic son and STILL name calls and attacks the self-esteem of my children. Complete lack of empathy, zero class. Epitome of cruelty.
I had pretty much had it with her verbal and emotional abuse at this point and wanted to answer to her behavior. I told Scott I wanted to stand up for myself and let this adult toddler know that her bullying wouldn’t be tolerated. He asked me not to respond to her, to disengage and walk away. He knew if I did, she would use the “kids card”. Meaning, she would implement parental alienation. She would try to destroy Scott’s relationship with his children and poison them against me as well. Unlike healthy parents, the narcissistic parent sees their children as extensions of themselves. They can’t tolerate the thought of them having their own opinions and are threatened by the thought that they could actually like me. To regain control, she embarked on a mission to get them to hate me with her lies, to get them on “her side”. She enjoyed brainwashing their kids to get them to blame Scott for moving on. If she hates the new fiancee, then the kids must too. My Terrorist did not hesitate to use her kids as weapons to manipulate my fiancee and amp up an already contentious post divorce situation. However, not taking any course of action in the beginning, has been my biggest mistake.#EXTRAgoof
Bullies unfortunately, like it when their targets don’t stand up for themselves. With the lack of appropriate boundaries implemented on My Terrorist her outrageous demands continued. Cruella de Vil had the ovaries to ask if she could rent our house in Stratton even after all of the above behavior!!! A true narcissist doesn’t believe there are consequences to their actions. My response to Scott was, “Does she want to wear my underwear too?” AS IF!!!!
My Terrorist became obsessed with me. What she pulled next is Stalker level. We are talking Alex from Fatal Attraction.#thebunnyisnext. 🐰She was too lazy to work, so she spent her days in bed eating Doritos, and had a huge amount of time devoted to terrorizing me. I received a Facebook friend request from Scott’s best friend’s wife, Kay. Kay was the only female that I knew in their hometown besides My Terrorist. I was flattered and immediately confirmed the friend request. A few days later, I saw a text that My Terrorist sent to Scott. She had remarked on a Facebook posting of mine. She was so dumb that she didn’t even realize how she had implicated herself. She had most likely bet that Scott wasn’t sharing her texts with me. I could smell a rat. I pulled up what I thought was Kay’s FB profile and noticed there was not one picture of her kids, her family or any other friends listed on her profile. I instantly called Kay. I asked her if she sent me a FB friend request and she said, “Tricia, I don’t even have a FB account and I never will.” There was only one other female in the state of Rhode Island that knew I knew Kay. It was My Terrorist. She had slunk down to a new low, that of a slithering, sinister green eyed monster. My Terrorist was in desperate need of some serious professional help. Still no response from me.#EXTRALithiumnow
This past April, Scott and I were exhausted from her multiple daily texts and phone calls. She was so desperate to keep control over him and be connected to his life, despite being divorced for 11 years. She would text him things like, “Oh hey, our old neighbor has been arrested for DUI, take a look at this news clipping” or “Oh hey, I just had a huge fight with my sister and I’m so sad, can we talk?” or “Oh hey, I need a new IPad, can you get me one?” Really Cruella??? She stalks me and terrorizes me and she thinks he will give her a new IPad?? Her insolence was astounding. Instead Scott sent her an email asking her to stop calling him and texting him. He blocked her FINALLY, told her he was not her husband anymore and to act accordingly. He asked to communicate in email only and ONLY about the logistics of taking care of their autistic son. All the other kids were over 18 and on their own. No joke, within three minutes, my phone was lighting up like a Christmas tree. She was erupting in furious rage. Mount Terrorist’s lava was spewing out from the state of Rhode Island all the way to Connecticut. Obviously, duh, I didn’t pick up. I let her stew in her downward spiral. But My Terrorist wasn’t through with me yet. Since the email had so much strength and conviction, in her crazy mind, she didn’t think Scott could possibly write that email. She assumed it was me. Here is a picture of the threatening text she sent next:
When I read that threat to my personal security, the gloves were coming off. I broke my handcuffs that Scott had put on my wrists. When it becomes painfully obvious that your terrorist has no intention of leaving you alone, and is making your life a living hell, it was about time to take corrective action and maintain my own sense of self-respect. The response was ON!!! It was time to let my inner Kristen DiMera out.#DOOL⚡🔥
3 TIPS TO HANDLING THE DIVORCE BULLY:
1. Show Your Strength – You have everything to lose at this point by staying passive, so stand up to your bully, show them you aren’t taking anymore of their crap. I wrote My Terrorist a NastyGram (harsh email), in which I went at every single area of her jugular. This means I went hard at every single weakness in her soulless existence with enough poison tongue to take down a woolly mammoth.
2. Use The Bullies Own Tactics – Strategically give them a taste of their own medicine. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This may sound counter intuitive, but after one or two times, the bully will think twice about attacking you again.
3. Remember That Your Bully Is An Insecure Person – They have a basic mental condition in which they have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention, have troubled relationships, and a huge lack of empathy for others. Behind their fake persona is a fragile self-esteem with a deep insecurity.
The sooner we learn to stand up for ourselves, the sooner the bully will go away.
Fifteen minutes after My Terrorist received my NastyGram, she sent her flying monkeys out to do her dirty work. She is brilliant at parental alienation so her oldest two children began to call Scott like clockwork. “What is Tricia doing to Mom?”, “Tricia’s being so mean to Mom”, and “Two wrongs don’t make a right Dad, Tricia should just keep quiet”. Yeeeeahhhh, NO. Scott’s kids are more concerned with my response to her terrorism then of course, the terrorism she has rained down upon me for simply existing and being with their father. But you know what, I don’t care anymore. If her minions reject me on the basis of her propaganda and not on how I have presented myself to them, then so be it. They can drink their mother’s Kool-Aid all they want. Caring about them has gotten me nowhere. I’m sorry if you have mistaken me for a woman who will take your s**t. 💩
WAIT FOR IT: GETTING MY FIRST RESTRAINING ORDER, SO SPECIAL!!!😳
Last week at 9am on a Monday, I got the following phone call:
Me: Hello?
Officer: Good morning this is Officer DeCarlo in Rhode Island. Your Terrorist has filed a harassment report against you, which you should view as a restraining order. You cannot text or email her nor enter onto her property. Would you mind telling us when was the last time you have sent her a text or an email??
Me: April
Officer: Whaaaat??? Are you kiddin me?? Why did she wait so long to file this against you?
Me: Well, because she’s trying to get revenge on me at the moment. But I will let you know that I sent her that correspondence based on a threat to my personal security.
Officer: Well then in that case you may want to file the same report and restraining order against her.
I hung up the phone and realized that at 51 years of age, I was receiving my first restraining order. Shocker that it all involved My Terrorist. I in turn followed the officer’s advice, and slapped her with one as well. This was her third restraining order. Doesn’t that just say it all??
Believe it or not, after all of that, she comes to Scott for a favor and begs for an extra $3,000 in child support for this summer because she is claiming that she and her live in boyfriend cannot afford to feed their 18 year old son in times of Covid19. After we stopped laughing and said no, we find out that she’s been vacationing on Block Island and Nantucket. Too poor for extra deli meat, but plenty of money for party time. 🎉#EXTRABS
Someday, I may even pen my first screenplay, called “Meet My Terrorist”. I know the perfect casting for my movie: 🤑 Ca-Ching!!
BREAKING NEWS!!!
I pay a company to provide me with data from my website. They are able to pin point every single website viewer based on their IP address to the exact street they live on. What is the coincidence that outside of my immediate family, that my next top fan lives on the EXACT street as My Terrorist? Coincidence or Stalker??? You tell me.#SHOCKER Just want to add a personal note here to My Terrorist, as I know she is reading this right now. Your material has helped me achieve almost 10,000 blog views in a two month period. This success is almost unheard of for a new non celeb blogger. Thank you for that and Cheers!!!🥂
The reason I am identifying bully behavior is to help you cope if you have also been subjected to it because I know it sucks. I hope this post will help you rise above and have the courage to defend yourself. Let my experience give you the freedom to make your own decisions, to release any emotional baggage and to learn the coping skills to deal with these impossible people. No one said life post divorce would be easy. May the force be with you, you’re gonna need it. ⚡
P.S. I’ts probably not a good idea to be a meanie to someone that has her own blog. Just sayin….😉
STAY EXTRA!!!!
