Too Much For Ten

My ten year old spent the evening with his head in his hands talking about how he spends half of his life trying to avoid his father's long term girlfriend. (I note here that he never complains about have to go back to his dads, so we're not there yet.)

It would take something incredibly egregious for me to believe that my son not living with his father 50% of the time was the right thing to do.

However.

I am quite sure that The Girlfriend is a bad situation. She's caustic and sarcastic and generally unpleasant. I can understand where my son is coming from because still, after 6 years, this woman will not look me in the eye to say hello. We have had one conversation, about 5 years ago, that ended with her throwing a fit (yelling loudly) at me in front of my son's head of school. We have not exchanged a word since - not for lack of my trying. Like I said, she won't acknowledge me. So I imagine someone who can act like that is a bear to live with.

My ex-husband gets iPads from his work, so he gave our son his old iPad. Except he forgot to erase some messages on it. My son brought it to me last night with his eyes wide and on the verge of tears. He found a message from his dad intended for The Girlfriend where he is very angry with The Girlfriend. My son, being the incredibly self-aware little 10 year old that he is, claimed he was upset about it because now he had even less understanding of why his dad kept The Girlfriend. This is all too much for a ten year old.

And what do you do here? The parent in this situaiton is fine - but the other? Not so okay. As my son pointed out, things only get worse if you try to bring this up to either of them.