How do you deal with a passive aggressive ex?

Best would be face-to-face with an impartial, professional intermediary (perhaps an arbitrator). You need someone to point out to your ex that you two have to co-parent and her hostility is making that difficult.

The best thing to do is just have a face to face talk about how it’s harmful to the children if any animosity is shown. That definitely needs to be brought up.

If it is affecting your ability to connect with your children, you should so something and @marinelife‘s idea about using an intermediary is a good one. It will formalise the whole thing though, so I would only do this if it is really damaging your relationship with your children.

If it is causing tension, but isn’t so bad you feel an intermediary is a good idea, perhaps write a letter? Keep it light and fair and on topic though. Don’t use it as an excuse to attack your ex. Let her know you want to reduce the impact of the breakdown of your relationship on your children. I know my ex can wind me up in about one second flat, so I find writing can give him time to read my thoughts and I don’t lose it with him.

If it is still fairly minor stuff, I would try to not engage with it. Don’t rise to the jibes as it were.

I once had an argument with my former girlfriend when we were a couple still about something very trivial.
I said I never even talked about the thing, she said I definitely did.
I was sure of my case, as was she.
Turned out she was right (I can’t recall anymore how we found out, but we did).
I apologized and promised myself that from that day on I would never be that sure anymore of my being right (if the other truly insisted that I was wrong).
So, @Hawaii_Jake, let me do a suggestion.
I am not saying you took the book (of course I am not, you probably didn’t take it), but for the sake of keeping harmony, how’s this: you simply say to your ex that you sincerely think that you didn’t keep/take the book, but if in the improbable case that you did, you are willing to buy a new copy, just to make things ‘even’.
She happy, you happy, kid happy.
You might add that you do so, not as a camouflaged confession, but really to not make an elephant out of a mosquito.

I would just say, “Please don’t put our kids in the middle of our communication especially with a condescending tone.” Face to face. Follow it up by, “It’s not healthy for our kids, it stresses them out.” Then she might ask, “How do you know it stresses them out?” You can reply, “This guy on Fluther grew up in a similar situation, and he said it stressed him out his whole child/teen hood.”

I’d go for not getting the kids involved. She needs to understand that what problems you have needs to be resolved without any “problems” like this.
Better talk to her via email at first the work your way up to phone and then to face to face.

I am reading all the comments about trying to speak to her about this and I can’t help but wonder if that is even possible without creating more trouble. I know with my ex there is really no way at all for me to stop his behavior. None. We worked with a mediator to try to solve some of the differences between us. Within ten minutes of being there he shouted at me to shut up – with the mediator sitting between us – and stomped out of the room. Not a great solution for us.

When he tries to suck me in to some kind of altercation, I do my best to ignore his shenanigans. When I know he is commenting to the kids and trying to get them riled up against me, I come right out and tell them that I disagree with what their father is doing, that I am sorry they are forced to be in the middle, and that I will deal with him. The best I can suggest is do your best not to be sucked into her drama.

Has your ex recently started acting this way? You say she’s been doing it for about 3 or 4 months, but was she always like that (at least since you’ve been divorced/separated) and was she like that during your marriage?

As I recall, you came out as gay, and that is most likely why you and she divorced, correct? Or did you get divorced for other reasons, and she didn’t even know you were gay until after the fact?

If she was always like this, but you’re just now becoming more aware of it, your best bet would be to talk to a therapist, on your own, or a limited number of sessions, just so you can better equip yourself on how to deal with her when she starts acting like that, especially in front of the kids. Then you could write her a little short sweet note and let her know that you’ve been seeing a therapist, because you have felt a lot of anxiety since the break up (even though most of the anxiety seems to be caused by her, but you don’t need to say that) and it makes you even more nervous and upset when you hear her accuse you of things (and give the example that you used about the book, and any others that you can think of) and let her be assured that you are not saying that she’s doing it on purpose, but maybe she doesn’t even realize how it makes you and the kids feel.

Let her know that you would prefer that she just talk to you, rather than accusing you of doing or not doing things (even if you have done, or haven’t done the deeds). It’s the accusatory way of discussing things that hurts you and the kids and make the kids feel insecure.

Tell her that you’d like to sit down with her over coffee and just have a little talk about how you can better communicate. Apologize, again, for anything that you might have done to bring about your divorce. I’m guessing that she’s probably still really pissed off about your being gay, and keeping it a secret and then ultimately having to divorce her. I know and you know, that that was not your intent in your life, but unfortunately for both of you, that is what actually happened. So not only did she end up divorced, there’s always that unmentionable reason for why she had to get divorced.

Even in this day and age, in 2011 where it is legal in some states for gays to get married, and the DADT policy of the military was revoked, some people still find it very hard to explain that their husband was gay, and that’s why they had to get a divorce. She can’t even hate you, in the same way that a woman who’s husband had an affair with another woman can hate you, because that kind of cheating is really a choice to cheat.

Being gay, obviously is not a choice, so for your ex-wife, she probably still can’t wrap her head around the fact of you being gay. You probably didn’t stop loving her, in the first place, and you didn’t run around on her, so it’s hard for her to hate you in the traditional sense, but you still ruined her life, and that is where we are now. (Note: I’m not saying you ruined her life, you sound like a great guy, what I mean is that she lost everything, and she can’t believe anything in the same way that she did before, because nothing is as it seemed back 20 years ago).

If she brings up the incident about the book, be prepared for her to describe to you in great detail how come she knows that you have the book. You may actually have taken the book, but have absolutely no recollection of having done so, because it isn’t that important to you, or you were stressed about the move and you have a million other things on your mind. Let her know that if you took it, you don’t remember and you’re sorry and ask her if she wants you to buy another one, as a replacement, otherwise your kid is welcome to come look through your books to find it if he wants to.

If you are able to get her to come to coffee with you, simply throw out a few rules that you would like her to participate in. Such as: not accusing the other spouse of anything in front of the kids, not speaking poorly of the other spouse in front of the kids, being matter of fact about things and not harping on old times, agreeing that the two of you will get together over coffee if there are some problems that need to be worked out, but never hash out those problems in front of the kids. And ask her what she thinks would be helpful. And again, if you can apologize (and make it seem heartfelt to her) about being the one who caused the divorce (even if you didn’t do that) and apologize to her about sometimes not remembering specific details, such as the incident about the book, because you are under a lot of anxiety. Sometimes it’s better to offer an apology, even when you don’t owe one, as long as you make the other person believe that you are sincere. Basically, what you’d be doing is appeasing her.

Then, if you can catch her in a really calm state of mind, let her know that you would love it if she would come to a few sessions of therapy with you, for the simple reason of both of you learning new techniques on how to communicate with each other without causing anger or grief to each other, and how to get your needs met, with regard to the children, without involving the children or upsetting them. Tell her that you really think it’s important and you want to do everything that you can to make sure that the kids are going to be OK, because you’re very worried that they’ve been feeling a lot of anxiety lately, and part of it is due to you and your spouse not being able to communicate effectively to each other, and that you feel like the kids get caught in the middle of that situation.

And for you own sanity and for a little bit of fun, you should check out Fran Drescher’s new TV series on TVLand called “Happy Divorced.” It’s very funny and is based upon Fran Drescher’s real life situation in which her husband, the producer of The Nanny and this new show, came out as gay after 18 years of marriage. It will put a little levity into your situation, hopefully. You can watch the episodes online.

I’m still trying to figure this out myself with my ex, too, and this website helped me some. The second page has suggestions on how to confront the PA person.

I think everyone posted good suggestions—I especially like the intermediary idea.

Start documenting, just in case. Your ex is wrong to behave in this manner. Even if you’re nervous, you should be adamant in addressing this issue asap. I would never tolerate this behavior in my ex-husband.

If this is a recent behavior, I’d email about it. In a very non-confrontational way, I’d say “I noticed that you don’t seem too happy with me lately, and I’m wondering what’s up?”

Emails work best between my ex and I when the subject is a touchy one.

My ex is a moron. I left her because she was impossible to have reasonable discussion with. She is no different today. Thus, we rarely talk.

Maybe voice your sympathy to your child first as he/she is in the middle of your conflict of the two mature parents.
Say something like ’ I am sorry that I canot recall that book, but I will search for it and let you know if I find it Ok?”
Might be that the father does not know how to handle the upset child?
( he could easily had gotten the book through the library or bookstore could he?)
Sometimes my Ex would pull this on me as HE really wanted ME to take the child for the weekend or whatever timeline he wanted to have for himself.
Some fathers are not good with their kids and need to learn how to relate honestly.
Maybe he also thought that you would talk to him?( misses you?)
My ex would dream up any little thing to get into a conversation.
An answering maching soon cleared that up quick.
Too bad your kids are in the middle and feel the stress.