I'm so frustrated with everything! Just to give some background I'm engaged to a wonderful man who has an 8 year old son from a previous relationship (never married), he didn't even know he didn't even know about his son until he was 4 years old. His ex has 4 children total, all from different men and she's got this mentality that because she has kids and is a single mom that the whole world owes her. My fiancée is the only father that has stepped up and is willing to take responsibility for his son all the other dad's are deadbeats and don't even pay child support.

I've really tried to be understanding and take the high road when it comes to BM. When my fiancée and I first met 2 years ago I knew he had a son and he informed me that there wasn't any legal custody plan in place because she'd put a different guys name on the birth certificate so it was a huge hassle and he needed to retain a lawyer but didn't have the money as of yet. I understood this and at first things were fine. He'd get his son on weekends and after a while I met him and we got along fine. It wasn't until we started getting serious that all hell broke loose on the BM front. She'd call him at random times and ask him to watch his son and her other kids because she had a dr's appointment (she was pregnant with her youngest at this time) and she'd call to ask for favors such as helping her move (took him all day to move them because she hadn't done anything), she even had the nerve to call him when she went into labor with her youngest to watch the kids!

I tried to be understanding because as he explained it before we were in a relationship he use to do things for her and take both his son and her other kids because he felt sorry for them not having a father figure and also because when he didn't do things for her and stood his ground she wouldn't let him see his son for long periods of time.

I tried to be understanding of the situation because I knew he didn't have the money to retain a lawyer and even helped out when he had all three of the older kids. I even remembered all three of their birthdays and at Christmas etc… This last October when his son turned 8 years old BM wasn't going to let my fiancée have him for the day because she said she wanted all the kids to spend that day together, I knew how much it bothered him to not have his son so I told him "text her and tell her that we'll take all 3 kids off her hands for the day" I knew that this was what she was fishing for and of course I was right. I ended up spending a bundle on the 3 that day because we'd promised his son we'd take him to build-a-bear and we couldn't very well not let the other 2 get them as well. I paid for it all because he was saving up for a lawyer.

The last straw was when one night we were at home with his son and just hanging out when his phone rang, it was BM. It seems that her youngest had a cough and so she rushed her to the emergency room at Children's (side note the baby was fine it was JUST a cough). She started telling my fiancée that she needed him to pick-up her other 2 kids because they were going to keep the baby overnight (she threw a fit when they told her the baby was fine so they said ok we'll keep her overnight) and they didn't allow siblings to stay overnight only the parents. What made me mad was that she was straight out lying, my brother had been in Children's for a heart condition for 6 months when we were younger and I slept there with my mom every night. However I didn't want to argue so I told my fiancée that I was ok with it.

My fiancée asked me to come with him and his son when he went down to pick-up the kids, I was surprised because he always picks them up on his own as not to get BM upset. She's got the thought that if she doesn't see me than I don't exist and she can continue to fantasize that my fiancée will go back to her (they've been part for years). Well we get down there and she isn't were she told him she'd be so we wait around for her to call us and 40 mins later we finally get the kids. The plan was that she was going to pick-up the kids in the morning and if she couldn't get there before 11 that my fiancée would drop them off at daycare and she'd get them from there. Sounded good and it gave me at fiancée the day to spend together. HA! Of course that's not what happened…here is what actually happened

Feed and put all three kids to bed, they were hyper so that was a chore in itself and because of that they didn't wake-up until late the next morning, my fiancée tried to call BM in the morning to find out what was going while I made the kids pancakes but he got no answer so he left a message. We decided to take the kids to the park and than drop them off at daycare so he called her again from the park to let her know what we were doing, again had to leave a voicemail. So finally we drop the kids off at daycare and we spend sometime together, go to lunch etc… well 6pm rolls around and we're trying to decided about what movie to see and where to have dinner when I tell him maybe he should call her to make sure she got the kids alright so he does that…again voicemail. At this point I'm thinking "CRAP" because I know something's up, so we call the hospital and find out that the baby was checked out early that morning. I'm thinking this isn't a good because we can't reach BM so we discuss it and decide that my fiancée is going to swing by the daycare and see if the kids have been picked up before we head out for the night because they close at 6:30. Well guess who he shows up with? Yep all three kids - she didn't pick them up! After trying all night to get hold of her and not being able to my fiancée and I are both steaming mad. We finally get hold of her at 9am the next morning. It seems that she was at her friends house with the baby the day before and "lost track of time working on something" GRRRR! Fiancée of course takes the phone outside and finally lays into her about everything and tells her that he's dropping the kids off and she better be at home. Finally he's standing up to her! HA! I wish…when he gets back who does he have in tow 2 out of the 3 kids. I ask him what happened and he tells me that he's keeping the boys for a few hours so she can finish up some stuff. I've never been so pissed in my life! She walks all over him and than he does her a favor again!

We took it outside and I had it out with him…I told him that this was NOT going to happen again, that I would not stand by him while she took advantage of him and while he kept bending over backwards to do things for her and that if it happened again that would be the last time he saw me because I was going to leave him. He'd already let her overstep the boundaries way more than he should have and this was just the last straw for me.

Nothing like that has ever happened again but he still kept taking all 3 kids at times and had them quite a bit during the summer. It was very annoying but I put up with it because he was getting better at standing his ground more than before and I knew it would take time…this Dec I was very close to leaving him because I was tired of all the crap with his BM and her being involved way more than she ever should have been (yeah she was starting up again - calling in the middle of the night to pick-up son because he was fighting with his brother etc…). The reason I didn't leave was that one night fiancée got a call from BM at work, she was hysterical saying something about a guy that wouldn't leave her place. It seems she'd gotten back together with her youngest father and they were fighting again. She's been in trouble a number of times for domestic violence (always both the guys and her fault) and she'd had her kids taken away for drug use etc… (she's no supermom) so she was scared to call the police because she'd been in trouble with them before. Well of course fiancée calls me and tells me this and I tell him to get over there because his son and the kids are there. Well he gets there and sees her ex outside the apartment complex so he does what she couldn't calls the police. He's there almost all night giving statements etc… and of course she and her ex get domestic violence tickets. This scares BM because her ex works in a job for which he could lose his job with something such as this on his record.

She calls my fiancée a few days later stating she's moving out of the state with the kids because she's "scared and wants a fresh start" my fiancée is pissed because this means he'll never get to see his son, so finally he takes me up on the offer to pay for part of the lawyer costs. After a lot of talking and convincing we got her to sign off on the temporary custody order and told her that the lawyer would mail her the final paperwork to finalize it and to get the father's name on the birth certificate changed to my fiancée.

Well she finally moved out of state but not before testing my fiancée everyday until she left that she was in love with him and how she wanted to be a family with him and that he should move with her and their son etc…gag! She than had the nerve to email me asking me to show her son how to use the cell phone we got him to call his mom and how to use email and all these other things. I took the high road and did these things and was nice to her and of course it bit me in the ass. One night she called and her son didn't want to talk to her, he's an 8 year old boy he doesn't like to talk on the phone. Well I told him "it's your mom and you need to talk to her, if you don't want to than you need to tell her that yourself" This is the same thing my fiancée tells him… she than had her son hand me the phone after they talked and accused me of yelling at him. WTF! I never even raised my voice or used my stern voice. I told her calmly that she had was mistaken and that was not the case and if she didn't believe me that she should ask her own son. She hung up on me and I being naive at the time thought the phone got disconnected so I called her back, her response was quite colorful. So I called my fiancée at the gym told him what happened and to be expecting a call from BM. Ever since she's been acting crazy…threatening to move back and take his son away from him and so forth.

I know she did this on purpose to start trouble and I shouldn't let it get to me but it does and now I'm not sure what to do…I love my fiancée but don't know if I want to deal with all this and it doesn't help that since we took on his son full-time we've had only 1 day to do anything alone together in 3 months. I'm just getting stressed…can't deal with never being able to talk to my fiancée without having an 8 year old asking "what", "tell me" or interrupting me. It's just all getting to me.

I know this is long but I just needed to get it all out before I exploded and thought getting it out might help me look at things from a different point so I could decide what to do.