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summersuxx's picture

Hi all, I'm new here. My situation is thus: been married for a year to a man I have known for 10+ years, we dated in grade school and promptly broke up. In the years following, we each had a child with previous partners and then got together again in 2018, got married and had a baby. Our DD is now 7 months. My BS is 8 and my SD is 4.

The start of my relationship with my husband was rocky to say the least: I basically left my son's father to be with him. I know it's shitty but it was complicated. My son's dad was a sh*t partner and I was basically raising two kids (or at least I felt like that) being with him. I left him, got with my husband (no I did not cheat on my ex with my husband in case you were wondering lol) and we got engaged soon after. My ex is a nice guy he's just a total manchild. After I broke up with him he was not easy to deal with. He was heartbroken and angry and I don't blame him. Things were tense between us but we're in a good place now as far as coparenting goes.

Anyway, DH's relationship with the mother of his child is totally different. They were together for a very long time and their relationship was toxic. My husband cheated on her a lot when they were teens. She knew he would cheat but always took him back. Well she got pregnant in their early 20s and he had a "come to Jesus" moment I guess you could say, where he decided to get his act together and stop the games with her. They were doing okay but their relationship just couldn't hold up to the pressures of being young and having a baby, they didn't trust each other anyway so their relationship fell apart. My husband tried to be involved but before they even broke up his ex moved out of the home they shared and moved back to her parent's house, taking SD with her. He would try to see SD but his ex would say things like "[SD] doesn't need to be at your house its not safe" or "I'm uncomfortable with [SD] being with you for long hours without me there", basically using SD as a crutch to get my husband to come around her (his ex's dad hates my husband and would intentionally give him a hard time when he came over to spend time with SD). After a while of his ex giving him the runaround and making it difficult for him to see his daughter (she was maybe 5 months when they split), he said f*ck it, agreed to pay child support but pretty much stopped dealing with his ex altogether and let her take over all the parenting duties.

Well now my husband realizes that was a mistake and he should have established a custody order then but he wasn't prepared to go through court so he pretty much let his ex have what she wanted. Then my husband and I got together when SD was maybe a little more than a year old. When we first started dating back in 2018 he was seeing SD for a couple hours twice a week. Then the pandemic happened and visitation pretty much halted (which is a whoooole other mess, but that's a story for another time). I got fed up with my husband rolling over and taking it up the *ss from his ex that I sat him down one night after a heated text exchange between the two of them (DH and his ex) and told him that something needs to change. I was so tired of his ex calling the shots and hanging time with SD over his head that I finally managed to convince him to take her to court. So he did. Little did he know that at the same time he petitioned for an amendment to visitation, she petitioned for a child support modification. She was denying my husband time with his daughter and at the same time asking for double the amount of child support she was getting. That was the beginning of one of the most stressful times of our relationship: we had just gotten married, just found out we were having a baby and my husband was headed to court for CS AND custody at the same time(they're two separate cases in the state where I live).We bickered so much during this time I'm surprised we made it through. In the end, the outcomes for both CS and custody were good but it was still very stressful for me as I had our daughter at the tail end of the court cases and we started getting SD more and more. I'm not sure if I have regrets about pushing my husband to take his ex to court but I do see that time with his daughter makes him happy and he is very good about not dumping the responsibility of parenting her on me. But a few things have happened since then that have made our respective coparenting relationships difficult and I hope to blog about that in the future. For now I'd like to say thanks for reading if you made it this far lol and I'm so glad this website exists <3

Comments

JRI's picture

Steptalk will help you.  If nothing else, you can vent here.  It's good.

CastleJJ's picture

Welcome! Wow, certain aspects of our stories are so similar, I feel like I could have written them myself. You will find a lot of support here from people in similar situations. 

In my case, BM and DH dated in their senior year of high school to freshman year of college. During their toxic relationship, BM had several suicide attempts, exhibited self harm behavior, and ran away from home. Her therapists told her family and DH that it was attention seeking. DH stayed with her under the pretense of "how do you leave someone when they are at their lowest." BM's behavior continued and it led DH to start to self harming, so DH broke up with her. A year later, DH ran into BM's parents and they told him how great and stable BM was and that they should get back together. DH and BM started dating, but DH wanted to take it slow to not get sucked back in. Well after a few months, BM said she wanted to marry DH and have a baby together since they had been through "so much together." DH said "No." BM didn't take no for an answer and manipulated the birth control, getting off the pill without telling DH and altering the condoms. A few months later, BM ended up texting DH to break up with him out of the blue and two weeks after that texted him telling him she was pregnant. DH was devastated. BM and DH agreed to put SS up for adoption. Well 1 week before SS' birth, BM texts DH to tell him she is keeping SS but doesn't want anything from DH. DH sees SS the day after birth and BM says nothing. Then BM was mad because DH would not sign the birth certificate without establishing paternity via DNA test. 

Soon after, BM petitioned the courts for child support. Paternity and CS was established, but no visitation or custody was. The state defaulted to BM having sole custody due to laws about unwed parents in our state. DH fought to change this and lost. He was in and out of court for a year and a half. BM withheld SS for the first two years of SS' life and BM and DH had no contact during this time. When visitation was finally ordered, BM demanded it be minimal since DH "had abandoned SS for 2 years and SS didn't even know DH." The judge agreed ordering a few hours per week. 

I met DH when SS was 10 months old. When SS was 3, BM really ramped up. She emailed DH claiming that SS had cancer, he didn't. She started her control tactics, began commenting on everything in DH's life and kept visitation as short as possible. BM kept taking DH to mediation every year and she bullied him with threats of keeping SS away unless he agreed. When SS was 3, DH saw SS every other Sunday from 9 am to 2 pm with DH doing all transportation (we lived 1.5 hours from BM at this time) and the opposite Sundays from 4 pm to 8 pm at BM's house with BM present. The most we had was when SS turned 5 and DH got every other Sunday from 9 am to 6 pm with DH doing all transportation. DH begged for overnights and BM refused, stating she wasn't comfortable with DH having SS or that it wasn't safe. 

This whole time, BM made it clear she didn't want DH back. In 2017, SS was 5 and BM informed DH that she was moving SS 6 hours away out of state because she met a woman and wanted to be with her. DH sought legal counsel who informed him that we had no say due to lack of custody and just to create an effective long distance schedule. BM offered DH one overnight every month and 3 one week periods in the summer with BM doing all transportation. DH accepted because he had never had overnights. This schedule only lasted a year and BM changed it saying that the one overnight per month was too much for SS. She then offered every other school break and two two week periods in the summer with DH and BM splitting transportation. This is when things ramped up. BM started making false allegations, emailing novels daily, etc. We couldn't enroll SS in childcare or get medical attention for SS. BM kept pushing for DH to visit SS at BM's out of state, wanting DH to commit to either 7 weekends or 3 weeks of out of state visitation, stopping all visitation in our state. BM's GF even started getting involved in the abuse, claiming she was SS' other parent and even forcing SS to call her "Mom". They went as far as telling SS that DH was just a donor and they were his parents. GF was listed as the other parent on all of SS' medical and academic forms, blockingnDH's ability to access information. SS would tell us about the PAS but he didn't realize what it was/meant. He would just parrot BM's beliefs. It was hell for 2 years so DH took her to court for joint legal to stop the abuse and give him some power and more visitation. DH was only asking to go from 4 weeks of summer visitation to 6 weeks and keeping every thing else the same. BM made sexual abuse allegations during this time and ramped up the fighting. We spent a year in court and $30k to have the judge change nothing and tell us "pay CS and let SS go." Court wrapped up in 2020. BM and DH now only have email contact about once or twice a month. DH does his twice weekly FaceTime with SS and we follow the CO for visitation. We have given up fighting anything else and basically just let BM do whatever. BM won't be satisfied until DH has no visitation with SS, which is why she is picking apart the summer bit by bit. 

Since court, SS has worsened. He displays entitlement, rude behavior and just a generally poor attitude. SS believes that BM and GF are his true parents and DH and I are just "other relatives." The dynamic is obviously different between households. DH and I have given up pursuing anything outside of what we already have with SS10. I gave birth to DD earlier this year and DH is really great with her. BM sees this and it makes her mad because DH isn't as close to SS, which is BM's own making. BM's most recent control tactic has been making up medical conditions for SS since DD's birth and trying to get us to pay ridiculously high medical bills for "treatment." I think this is her last straw to keep control over DH. BM recently got engaged to GF but you can tell based on her recent actions that she still isn't happy. 

summersuxx's picture

wow the system has royally screwed you guys. And yes a lot of our situations are similar! DH also was scared to break up with BM because he was afraid she would commit suicide. Then she got pregnant and I hate to say she "trapped" him cause it takes two to make a baby buuut.... BM also tries to paint DH as a bad father but honestly she's too stupid to properly build a case against him. She would love it if he dropped off the face of the earth but still managed to pay CS somehow but unfortunately for her the courts awarded my husband a proper amount of visitation and he's considering going for 50/50 next year.

CastleJJ's picture

I'm so glad that the system worked for you guys and you got decent visitation out of the deal. I don't get what it is with these mentally unstable BMs. 

summersuxx's picture

i really dont understand it either. BM tells everyone she wants nothing to do with my husband but has told others that she doesn't think i'm right for him and he needs someone like her. B*tches br crazy

CLove's picture

Theres a lot going on here! Thanks for the introduction. Our stories are all very similiar the differences are nuanced. Good that you have a court order. Good that he is building a positive relationship with his daughter, in spite of the BM struggling against it. I advise you to read up on posts here and look into the issues specific to Blended Families. They are the toughest "model" to manage, from what Ive read. 

Many issues will come into play for you: parental alienation syndrome is probably the biggest threat right now from what youve mentioned. The power plays that BM is doing, the weaponizing of the child against your husband. Once he gets his time, thats what they typically like to do once the child is able to discern who is what. At this age, kiddo just wants mom and dad and doesnt know anything else. There are things you can do, and emotional mindsets that you can move into, that will help either forestall or deal with it, if it does happen. 

Some OTHER things to watch out for, is "Disney Dad Syndrom" whereby your husband will feel guilty because he only has SD parttime and he has his bio full time so they try to "make it up". And there is also something to watch out for that happens mainly with SD's and thats "mini wife syndrom". All things that stem from the father and all things that are dealable only through him.

Additionally, something that will need to be addressed is life insurance policies. One for SD as beneficiary and one for you and your kiddo...I dont know your financial sitch but this is something that always seems to come up!

So - hopefully this wasnt too much - but I am feelilng ebulient today.

Biggrin

summersuxx's picture

i need to do more research into this "mini wife syndrome" because i feel sometimes SD exhibits those traits... And i honestly feel it is just a matter of time before she starts resenting me and thinking that i am the reason her parents are not together. Right now I can see she wants to like me but will eventually feel the pull towards protecting her BM's emotions she might eventually start to despise me. I'm mentally preparing for that as a possibility lol

 and thanks for teaching me the word ebullient lol