The Behemoth ALWAYS put calls on speaker phone. She'd let GG's calls go to VM, then if she FELT like returning the calls, she'd put them on speakerphone and monitor everything, complete with background whispering and prompting.

All three skids PASed out, the older two totally collaborated with the Behemoth and "lied to make mommy happy" by filing a phoney CPS report against us. Then after that they started having lame excuses as to why the couldnt' come to visitation, when GG was starting to "get" what was going on under his nose. As soon as disneydad went away, the CPS reports started coming, out, and the "i have to go to mom's family reunion" or "a friend's b-day party" excuses started coming out in lieue of visitation.

The youngest PASed out b/c he wouldn't eat his supper, and of course, the Behemoth wouldn't co-parent with him as she doesn't parent herself; just free ranges.

GG is "not allowed" to discipline or set boundaries for his children b/c the Behemoth, who WORKS for CPS as a caseworker, will not allow it.

If you have the salary of a doctor or lawyer, then you can lob large fistfuls of cash at the system to try and have dad's parental rights enforced, but there's no guarantee. Especially in places like here in NY where the BM is queen and dad is merely a wallet.

Every call that my DH places to speak with is daughter is sent to voice mail. 3 out of the normally 4 times a week that he calls she doesn't ever return the call. When she does it's hours later and SD7 normally is only allowed about 1 minute to talk, and it's usually while she is in the middle of something. It's always on speaker phone and almost always he has to deal with BM in the background telling her things to say to her dad, probably just to tick him off. The CO states that he is to have at least 30 minutes a day of uninterrupted phone calls with SD, unmonitored and unrecorded with privacy. It's so frustrating that he hates even calling because it get's him so down afterward. We have wanted to take her back to court for it, but financially it's just not feasible right now. He's had to deal with a load of false accusations, and she always puts SD right in the middle of the drama. We have wanted to walk away and give up a lot of times over the past 4 years, but we just can't let ourselves do it. We want SD to someday realize that her dad loved her enough to never give up, no matter how crazy her mom was. I can fully understand why you are having these thoughts though, and you need to do what you think is best for your family. Good luck!

First, I'm a newbie and I don't understand what SD, DH, BM, etc means lol someone?

Secondly, I wouldn't back off if I were you, that only gives her the power to continue her behavior. I stepped in full force with my husbands ex and let her know that I dont and will not tolerate any disrespect towards my husband or myself from her or her children. Over the last year she's been putting things in the kids heads about me, she even went as far as telling her daughter to tell people that I put bruises on her. Her daughter came to me one day and said look at the bruises you put on me, she's 5 years old, and I said no sweety you fell down when riding your bike and she said I know but mommy told me to tell grandma and daddy that you did it. We've since hired an attorney and are trying to get the kids full time now, we go to court next month. This is just one of MANY things she has done.

We leave the phone on speaker when she calls to talk to the kids when they are with us, only because she loves to fill their little heads with things they do not need to hear so since we've been monitoring the calls it has stopped.

I would say stay as involved as you possibly can, just because you are the stepmom does not mean you can't have peace in your home and be part of the childrens life. My stepkids know my rules and they listen to them and their mother is very aware how involved in their life I am, whether she likes it or not, I'm not going anywhere and I'm certainly not going to allow her to control my husband or my family as she thinks she can.

We had all of the above problems with crazy BM. It's still happening of course but I wouldn't cut off contact over something so silly. We have had some good luck with a childs cell phone (we got a firefly). This phone only allows calls to/from people you have it in. It has a mommy and daddy button and then you can pre-program in numbers. If someone is not on the list they can't call and you can view the phones history online.

She still yelled in the background but this gave the kids the freedom to call when they wanted and to simply walk away with our calls if they wanted privacy.