New to the Blog

doodlebuggmommy

Hello everyone new to the blog and thought I would ask some advice.

 My husband has son from a previous relationship and lately BM has been getting on my nerves a bit.

A bit of background. I started dating DH in 2010 and we had a whirlwind courtship and got married six months after getting together (we had been best friends for a year and a half previously) The first time that I met BM was really akward. Because of my husbands job we dont get to see SS very often because of DHs work schedule (15 on shift 6 off shift) So because of his job we dont have a set time that we get to see SS its more or less a "we will be in town these days can we have SS" ( we live 8ish hours away) but lately BM has been taking SS for a few hours the past couple times we have had him right in the middle of our visit. DH doesnt seem to mind so much because she has been a lot more civil since she married her DH and the thing with her DH is she has been basically shoving him down our throats. SS calls her DH daddy (  which probably bugs me more than DH) but she always finds a way to put a damper on our visit and alot of the time does stuff to be annoying for example BM wasnt going to let SS come see his little brother when he was born when PIL were going to bring him and shes confronted us at SS school saying that we didnt give her enough notice and what if she had plans (which she didnt) I just dont know what to do, Im by far the more confrontational than my DH but BM just rubs me the wrong way and I can almost guarentee that she bad mouths me and DH infront of SS. *sigh any words of wisdom?

karatechrissy

Holy run on sentence, Batman! Aside from that, I can understand your SO has a crazy (but from what you say regular) schedule, but is there any way to make the co more concrete? I wouldn't just be Himm hawwing while BM takes the child randomly in the middle of the visit... I'd e telling BM that she needs to wait with whatever it is until visitation was over. I'm also disgusted by 99% of step parents who allow/encourage a child to call them mom/dad. While I think it's sh*tty of your BM, you have to (in my opinion) just bite your tongue on that one. You can't dictate things to BM's or BF's. Anyway, I think your CO needs some looking into. Is there any way for your SO to move his job a little closer at all? 

Holly_1007

I agree the CO needs to be looked at, but based on his schedule can't you sit down and do the math and see when he will be off ahead of time?

DH works a rotating schedule 4 days on 2 days off.  I sat down in January and counted every day out and created a "schedule" on excel all the way through august.  our CO is EOWE so its not an issue but atleast I knew what days he was off etc.  I suggest doing this.  it honestly took me an hour to do 8 months once I had the template set up. 

Then I would start communicating with BM as far ahead as possible.  try to plan things in 3 month chunks.

BM is always going to piss you off.  wait around and read some of the other posts, there are some BM's from he11 on here (including our own BM) you cannot control what she does or says to SS in her house (including calling the step dad "daddy") Even if you have a clause in your CO that says not to bash the other parent (cant remember what this is called) its VERY hard to prove.

Just do what you can with SS when you have him, make sure he knows he is loved by you guys and accepted. if DH is comfortable having a conversation about calling the other guy dad then go for it, if it doesn't really bother DH (as these things dont irritate men nearly as bad as they do women) then just drop it.  its his kid ya know?

doodlebuggmommy

LOL apologies for the lack of grammer I'll try better. I dont thing it is her DH that is encouraging SS to call him daddy, it's more likely her that is just the way she is. SS used to call him Daddy*insert name* and used to call me Mommy*insert name* but now he just calls me by the name. As far as I know we dont have a CO because they settled it out of court. I think it will definately be something that we need to look into straightening out, just dont really want to ruffle her feathers because PIL might lose the day that they get to keep SS overnight. (They have him every monday night overnight, they used to keep him overnight up to five nights a week.) Hubby is looking into a job where he will be working 8 days on shift 6 days off shift but we will still be 8 hours away just because that is where the work is.

doodlebuggmommy

Yes very true I guess it just makes me sad because this guy seemed to have randomly popped up and she married him. Like I said in my other reply DH is looking into a different job with a different rotation so I guess we will have to see whether or not he gets that and then it will be easier. BM has just been really difficult like for Easter we tried to get a hold of her for something like a week and a half and she wouldnt reply to us. Finally we got a hold of her hubby and he had said they didnt have any plans yet. So we gave him our suggestion and he said it should be fine and then later she contacted us and said she wanted to take him for supper with family ( her hunnys family I think) so we agreed just to keep everything chill.

fellesferie

holly71087:

BM is always going to piss you off.  

This isn't fair. I get that there's often a pretty overwhelming anti-BM sentiment on this board. We don't know the OP's back story.

OP: 

Can you afford an attorney? Parental alienation is hard to prove, but depending on BM's disposition, it might be worth the time and money for a lawyer to send her a letter telling her to knock it off. 

I'd encourage you not to think that she does stuff just to annoy you. Just because she's not willing to work with you or do what you want, doesn't necessarily mean that she's doing something JUST to hurt you. 

I do a lot to work with XH, but that doesn't mean I do whatever he asks. I put my kids, my family, and my convenience ahead of XH's wants and convenience. We're also long distance. And I have, for instance, begged him to work with me on summer scheduling. I have my family's summer vacation, summer camps for DS, taekwondo scheduling, gymnastics for DD, and other family commitments that I need to schedule. Since he's dragging his feet, I have to move forward. And if he were to show up here and expect me to drop everything for him, he would be disappointed. And I have no doubt he would think I was saying no just to persecute him.

I like PP's suggestion that you try to work out a schedule w/ BM. Can you agree to 30 days or 60 days notice? If she's amenable, you could write out something simple, and both sign it and have it notarized. That would at least give you something to fall back on if she tries to back out of agreed upon drop offs/pickups.  

doodlebuggmommy

We can't really prove that she either is or isn't bashing us but that is just the kind of person that she is. DH and BM were only together for a short time when BM got pregnant, DH was about to break up with her until she dropped that bomb. He proposed to her and tried all he could to make it work with her but it was just not going to work. We have been trying to just let stuff she does roll off our shoulders for SS sake because he is a happy kid for the most part but i mean come on the last time that we got to see him was for Christmas and without fail everytime SS is with us she calls in the middle of our time, but she wont get SS to call DH. Im trying to get hubby to think more about getting something better set up but everything is so up in the air right now.

Thanks again to everyone who is posting

doodlebuggmommy

Another problem is that if we went to court would we have to do it in Alberta or BC where BM lives. And with the work my hubby does he would probably miss a bunch of work because he would have to take time off of work unless you can pick a court date. Does anyone know of any free legal advice we can look into in Alberta?

fellesferie

Unless you have a court order, there's little to nothing that your husband can do. 

And while getting a court order might be expensive, it will offer YH a lot of protection that he won't otherwise have. Before you decide what you can and can't afford, talk with BM, figure out what child support payments might be, and see if you all can't mutually agree on something.

It's in her interest to work with you, too, since your husband's child support obligation will then be filed with the courts.

I have no idea how Canada works, but in the US if you can both agree on a CO without having to waste 100s of hours with attorneys, it's really not overly expensive to file a CO.

You shouldn't sweat BM calling while the kiddo is with you. I call DS about every other day when he's not with me. I miss him, and I want him to know that we're thinking about him.

You can add things like phone calls into COs. You can, for example, ask that BM make the kiddo available 2x/week for phone calls. And that any missed phone calls are returned within 24 hours.