Dear Prudence,
My fiancé has two sons, one in elementary school and one a freshman in high school, with his ex-wife. He and I met after the divorce and he has joint custody of their children. I am very happy to say that his two boys and I get along very well. But we are having serious problems with his ex-wife. Since he and I started dating, she has been on the warpath. She has called child protective services on us, stating that we do not feed the boys, that there is animal filth in our home, and that I inappropriately discipline the kids. CPS visited our place and interviewed the boys and found nothing to support these claims. She has stalked us through a grocery store and falsely accused my fiancé of buying pet food instead of paying child support. Now she has told the younger to take photos of our house and send them to her so she can “investigate.” We don’t want to demonize this woman to her children but we also don’t want them to be used as weapons against us. How can we talk to them about their mother without depicting her in a horrible light? Or are we trying to shelter them from something they have a right to know about?