I thought this would get better. I am more fortunate than most, I'll be the first to admit that. My ss8 loves me. Our family is well blended, but he comes home more and more like his BM is speaking through his mouth, snotty, hateful, untruthful and mean. The bullshit police visits have started again. GOD...there doesn't seem to be a place to start because there is so much! I'm frustrated! How does a grown ass woman act like this? How does she justify what she does? She drives drunk with him, gives him someone elses Rx (drunk) lies about it and tried to cover it up instead of calling poison control then guilts him into lying about it (what kind of burden is that for a child!), doesn't give him his Rx regular, smokes in the car/house with him (he has second hand induced asthma. He's on meds commonly pescribed for COPD. Ever stayed awake for four days with a child sitting upright on your chest having attack after attack? She comes to pick him up for the weekend and wouldn't even look at me while I explained his new med schedule. I was told I had "no right" to talk to her about her son. He came home a day and a half later from his visit smelling of smoke. I was stupid enough to send her an email apologizing because I yelled at her back), lets her husband be verbally abusive to him....not even the top layer. Report her you may say? Prove it, that's what I've been told. I'm the stepmom. I have no rights, I'm veiwed as bug. It's assumed I have alterior motives. No need to actually listen to me. No way I could actually genuinely love this kid right? Ss8 tells me "My mom said you're like my babysitter....only you don't love me". How is he supposed to process THAT? He knows I love him...I hope, but he loves his mom (as a little boy should) and wants her words to be golden. How do you defend yourself to a little boy when the strife isn't his to be aware of in the first freakin place? How do I protect my other children from her? As I said, not even the top layer.