Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : I am 32F, my bf is 32. He has a 10 year old boy from a previous marriage. His ex is extremely manipulative and was abusive to my boyfriend while they were together. She manipulated him into having a child and getting married within a few months of being together. He left her when their son was 3 years old. He had no reason to suspect she would be abusive to the son, but I know that’s not how abusers work, and have strong reason to suspect she his abusive to the son now as well.

I love my bf and his son, but I’m at my wits end. His ex tells their son lies about me constantly, saying I’m trying to replace her as his mother, that I’m trying to stop his dad from seeing him, that it’s my fault if his dad doesn’t answer the phone because I don’t like him. I used to have a really positive relationship with the son but he’s started to believe her lies and now he doesn’t speak to me. He’s polite to me but he doesn’t want to actively spend time with me and often retreats to his bedroom if I’m in the same room.

He’s also extremely depressed. This has gotten significantly worse in recent months. He has horrible panic attacks because he doesn’t want to go back to his mums. A few years ago I contacted child services about concerns I had about his mums treatment of him and it honestly made the entire situation worse, I did it anonymously but she found out it was me and threatened legal action against me saying she could stop me seeing their son. It caused a lot of trouble and I think made it worse for the son at home, too especially as I noticed a huge difference in his behaviour towards me after that.

There are other things as well, such as my boyfriends parents also listen to his exes lies about me and they hate me too. I feel like everyone in my bfs life think I’m the worst. I suffer from anxiety and depression anyway but this is seriously exasperating it. My boyfriend is lovely but a bit useless at actually dealing with his sons trauma, I keep pushing for him to take the son to therapy and he agrees he needs to take him but keeps putting it off.

I feel like I want to leave. I’m constantly stressed and depressed and feel completely helpless. I feel like I’m only staying in the relationship because I don’t want to further damage the son during an extremely difficult period in his life. I don’t know how to deal with his mum, I don’t know what the right thing to do is, and I feel like an asshole for even considering it because it’s not like my boyfriend or his son have a choice in this - they’ve got to stick it out regardless of whether I’m around and I’d just be making the situation worse if I left. But I don’t know if I can cope with the situation anymore.