Dear Prudence,
My partner and I have been together for four years and haven’t had a vacation together since the pandemic, so we are planning a couple’s ski holiday overseas. He has two children with his ex, and they alternate holidays. We have Thanksgiving this year and are taking the kids to his parents’ place. The problem is that their mother is bitter, hateful, and obsessed with stalking me on social media. I have already set my social media to private, but she makes fake profiles to spy on me. I had a minor plastic surgery that the children didn’t know about, but their mother felt free to throw it in my face during a drop-off. I have already deleted and restarted several different social media pages, but I do love to keep up with friends and family. I love my partner and his kids are great, but a big reason why we haven’t moved our relationship further is that I am very leery about potential conflict with his ex. We don’t live together when the kids come over. I maintain my own home with a roommate. His previous partner left because his ex showed up at her workplace and harassed her. So far the courts and even mandatory therapy hasn’t put a dent in her behavior.
Even if we keep everything under wraps until after we come back, the minute she gets a whiff about our vacation, she is going to turn around and tell the kids how awful daddy and that “woman” are for going, and they didn’t want you there. My partner tells me not to worry, but his ex has pulled similar stunts in the past. We went to an adults-only charity event at the zoo and got photos with several of the animals. Try explaining to a little girl why you got to meet the monkeys and didn’t invite her (and her mom tells her it is because she is unwanted). So what do we do?
—Ski Trip