Help, how do we deal?
Okay, where to start. . . well, this week my husband who is a very good father and is making very good attempts to be assertive with his BM has had a terrible run in and it never seems to let up. There have been many things that occured this week but the biggest issue is that she called this evening while my stepchild is with her and yells at him for going over her head in regard to discipline in our home, saying that stepchild no longer wants to come over to our house, they have joint custody, which was a out right lie that he called her on and that he will no longer be able to pick his child up from school on the days that are not his night. And that if I want a child so bad he needs to get me pregnant and that I can't be disciplining her child. Her calling and yelling on nights that she has stepchild is a frequent occurance. My husband has never raised his voice or accused BM although he could on plenty. And we have a team approach in our house on discipline and love and it we try our best to have him lead but I have to have a voice. I am her parent and she is my family. Point is we have always had to take the higher road and there has not been any change and in fact it has gotten worse the stronger the three of us become. So, WHAT CAN WE DO?
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Thank you for your input! I
Thank you for your input! I very much appreciate it. In fact, so much so that it moved me to tears a sure sign that this is just too much.
I have tried to see it from her view this whole time but its over. We have to take care of ourselves. Good advice and we will take it. My husband doesn't want to document because he thinks that she won't take him back to court and I think he is being nieve. It doesn't matter its juat a good idea anyway.
What have been your strategies for dealing with it and trying guiding the kids through it all? I would really like to know.
Have you gone to family therapy? We are stating to pursue it. The more help the better we have thought.
How do you manage?
Personally I would get BF to
Personally I would get BF to email BM and let her know that he will not be indulging her in phonecalls when the Skids are with her. If there is an emergency then he expects a phonecall otherwise can she email him wrt to skids.
He can let BM know that whilst he realizes that the 'rules' maybe different between homes, the rules are set at your home and both BF and SM work hard to uphold the rules, and will continue to do so.
Then if she continues to call, get BF to say - please pop your concerns on email, and hang up. If she emails, respond to non urgent emails on a weekly basis. If she continues to harp on about how she doesn't like the rules....just get BF to repeat "that whilst he realizes that the 'rules' maybe different between homes, the rules are set at your home and both BF and SM work hard to uphold the rules, and will continue to do so."
Hopefully she will get bored sometime in the near future. Goodluck.
Good advice and we will
Good advice and we will follow. Just having support is the biggest, thank you.
I appreciate your feedback,
I appreciate your feedback, thank you! It is so hard. How do you manage?
I agree with Enmorbare.
I agree with Enmorbare. There isn't much you can do about BM's behavior. But you can do things in your home to avoid BM's attacks. She cannot control what goes on in your home anymore than you or your DH can control what goes on in her home. Continue to discipline the way you guys see fit, she has no authority to overrule it.
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“Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.”
keep and record all messages
keep and record all messages from BM! Because when you do go to court (AND YOU WILL!) you can play them for the judge. We had this same situation. In front of other people BM is completely sane, but then we played some of her nasty harassing messages that were left on our machine and the judge saw a different person altogether.
Liked your feedback, thanks.
Liked your feedback, thanks. The other is that you mentioned that we may be going to court. I wonder this as well as BF does not have to pay child support and I fear BM is planning to pursue this after 6.5 years of not. We would gladdly and prefer to have more time with SD to help alleviate the financial strain on mother, currently there is joint custody, but this is not general practice. What are we to do? We are willing to pay for things as they come up and as she requested and she lives more lavishly than we. This would cerainly put additional strain on a relationship that is not great. What do you recommend?