Checkmate BM!
So SS11 had a smart phone when he came back into SO life and was on it all the time. When ss11 is with us SO doesn't let him have the phone since he wants to do outdoor activities without the screen. So eventually BM said she could no longer pay his account and so of course he had no more contact with SO.
When SO requested to speak to SS11 daily on the phone BM said it was unrealistic to have their son call him every day. She said she would never intervene if SS11 wants to call SO. But we all know the truth.
So eventually, my family had an extra line on our account so I bought him a simple flip phone only for the purpose of contacting SO. BM said we can do whatever we want and she would not intervene.
A week into him having the phone SO said everytime he called him the phone was off and only spoke to him once that week for 2 min. On the weekend SS11 said mom wants me to keep my phone off all day.
SO confront mom nicely about not interfering and she said "I have him turn off the phone because I don't want him texting and calling his friends. He did it all the time with the phone I got him and with my phone. He's 11, he needs to focus on HW" the. Recently she said she had caught him texting and talking to school friends trying to plead her case for why his phone needs to be off.
The account is under my name so of course I check his phone record and what did I find out?? Not to my surprise she was lying because the record shows all the numbers he texts and calls and all are family members. Judge is gonna love seeing us prove her trying to manipulate us and accuse her own son of being irresponsible.
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Comments
Phone and parent access via
Phone and parent access via them is a common problem on the site.
Whether the issue is what age kiddo should have a phone, how often calls should take place to tracking the kid (and therefore opposite house comings and going) . Taking phone away other parent bought blah blah.
Unless there is something in the CO on the subject, at this point the most BM would get is a 'now now' from the judge. Many Cos include when (time) and how often. Example, Dad may call Jr Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 6pm and 7pm .
Some of these BM/Dad call and/or text the kid from the moment kid arrives at opposite parent's. They take and ban phone, will only allow it to be on during the 'official' calling period et et et. Some kids use the phone to constantly report to opposite parent. Yes, some even use phones to video the opposite parent's home , a new car, paperwork from parent's desk. It gets really crazy.
Some have a phone for usage at each home so that parent of the home has control over monitoring and putting parental control on device (as your kiddo gets older next comes what sites kid visits online through phone, lol). There are examples around the site of teens sending naked pictures of themselves.
Your best bet is probably getting down in the CO the phone, calling/texting when/how. Then if one parent denies the scheduled communication contempt shows.
Honestly, don't get your
Honestly, don't get your hopes up. Unless you have a very unusual judge, he/she won't really care about this stuff. What they will see is two parents playing tit-for-tat with the phone stuff. BM got him a phone and your SO took it away so he could play outside, so BM turned it off. SO got him a phone and BM had him turn it off so he could do home work. I'm a little confused myself about why it was OK for your SO to take BM's phone away, but not OK for BM to turn off SO's phone?
Family court is a weird animal. It's court, but not really. The judge will not care about back and forth complaints about not following the CO. It will make your SO look bad to go in there with a phone log to prove BM lets him call other people, when he himself took away the phone BM gave. The judge already knows BM kept the kid away for YEARS, and the most your SO got out of that was every other weekend.
If I can give you advice that I had to learn the hard way? Don't get caught up in the "win/lose" stuff about court. It creates an adversarial mindset that bleeds into your interactions with the kid. Yes, BM is caught up in it, but you and SO have to figure out how to avoid that as much as possible. Focus on building the best relationship SO can with his son, not on "winning" against BM.
This is not even close to
This is not even close to checkmate. We dealt with medical neglect, educational neglect, custody withholding, live-in BFS physically abusing SS....
None of it was "checkmate." This? This is checkers and your BF is losing.
We had proof of DRUG use and
We had proof of DRUG use and possible dealing and the judge still gave the Psycho unsupervised weekend visitations. Visitations where she continuously ditches them. I wouldn't hold your breathe on a judge loving this.
Fail to see
What some people fail to see is that each family has their own game and every player and mentality is different. Okay so one person may have a worse case, but why invalidate someone else? This site is to get validation from other stepparents. That is why I am here. This is a small victory for us because it proves at least on 1 occasion that she is lying. And we can prove others. We can prove she is shaming BD which the court told her not to. She withheld an exchange which warranted a welfare check because he wasn't at the exchange site. She has medically neglected his needs and educational. So for us, in looking at the positive so we van have some glimpse of hope, this is a checkmate. In a situation that has change my life and all of yours as well, I am trying to fight like hell to find a positive and hope when all i really wanna give up. Thanks for the support
You might want to listen to
You might want to listen to the advice that all these experienced stepparents are giving you. We've all been there.
It may be a great personal
It may be a great personal victory and vindication that you aren't crazy. All of us can support that.
However, none of us are going to give you false hope that this will help end her PAS and POS ways. It *might* happen, but you'd have to have a pretty open-minded and progressive judge for that.
We have members here whose children (as in their own bios) were being physically abused for YEARS and BEGGING to not go back who were being forced by judges to go on visitation. Drug use is fairly rampant, and many judges want to preserve the mother-child bond at a costs - even the cost of the child's health and safety.
No one wants to think a parent could be that cold and conniving, and that includes judges.
Your hopes are high for the
Your hopes are high for the judge. Communication via cellphones isn’t something judges blink an eye about. Why? Because those exact judges know how easy it is to miss a call or text from someone so they will apply that logic to a teen and his parent he isn’t necessarily close with then chalk it up to teen angst. So many time these BM’s wiggle right on out of these loops instead of being held responsible for their alienating. It’s a tough lesson to swallow.