I respectfully disagree that "she can be a part of yall's lives in a healthy way if she chose to".
I don't believe you do this to children. Aren't they all under 5 years old? At that age, they can recover from her absence.
What children don't recover as easily from is the yo-yo of on-again/off-again. She is NOT a family friend. She believes that they are HER kids. They are not. They are Patty's kids and they should be shielded from intense relationships that engage their hearts and then don't last.
There is no way to know up-front which relationships will last, and that is why it is important not to let children develop super-close attachments to SO's who may turn out to be insignificant.
Every time my XAH and his high-drama GF break up or argue (which is often), my children come home upset. They love her. For the sake of my children, I wish they would commit and marry and put an end to all this teenaged drama.
I am highly protective of children's emotions and consistency and predictability for them is essential to my doing my job as their mother.
This former GF is spiteful, mean, manipulative and she is possessive of Patty's kids. She does NOT exhibit the ability to be a "family friend."