- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Single Parents
"Rules" at one house vs another
Hello ladies. I haven't "introduced" myself but I think I am a single mom now. My, still H, and I have been seperated for 9 weeks now. When he left there was ALOT going on and we both had said we were going to work on things. He has a prescription pill abuse problem and I asked him to move out due to lies, abuse of finances, etc. He moved out to get clean and try to put his life back together. I also had issues and wasnt the best partner. Anyway I really really wanted to work things out and still do but I cant make him want to soo I am trying to move on.
We havent worked out our custody arrangement or child support with the courts and attornies because this is all so new. But I filed for and was granted temporary full custody of our 2 children, a DD 16 months and a DS 5 months. He has visitation I guess. He flakes on getting them about 75 percent of the time pretty much.
So when he does have them I TRY really hard to not micromanage or say he needs to do things MY way. To complicate things he lives with his mom right now and while I love my MIL, our way of raising children is so WAYYYY different. To give a small example, she doesnt believe in immunization, she would rather be a "friend" to her children and smoked pot with her kids when they were teenagers. There are some pretty important things I want to be followed especially as I am alone, have a serious medical condition, working full timeand cant afford day care. The schedule I set and the things I do with the kids I do because I HAVE TO to keep myself and the family together and okay.
I will ask them to not nap them after 3 pm and will come to get them at 6 pm and he or his mom will say oh theyve been sleeping for 2 hours??? They give them food I tell them absolutely not to, including full bottles or straight juice for my DD. and MIL said it was so "funny" my DD was drinking COFFEE. They plop her down in front of the TV with cartoons for hours, ruin alot of the clothes I send over and I almost never get them back, and a lot of other things.
I dont want to come on here and complain. We all have so many other things to deal with, I want to try to be positive as much as I can. How do you all handle things like this? Do I need to just let it go and realize this is going to happen all my life? That is pretty much what I have been doinig. I sat down with them both and explained it, asked them to try to work with me and didn't get anywhere. And to be fair, they have asked me a few things and I agreed and really did make the changes they requested. I feel like I have them 90% of the time so I know what works but maybe thats selfish and presumptive. I can take big girl comments so bring them on if I am in the wrong!!! Thanks so much ladies and sorry this is so long
This discussion has been closed.
Re: "Rules" at one house vs another
I can relate, but unfortunately the only advice I've ever gotten is if it isn't truly harmful to the kids there's nothing you can really do. Yeah, straight juice without being watered down isn't ideal and isn't very good for DD, but is it gonna seriously harm her? No. Yeah napping after a certain time will make your DS cranky and stay up late, which will suck for you but again, not seriously harmful. On the other hand, if I found out XH was letting DS drink coffee at 2yrs old I'd have a serious problem. And I would want to tell him that he is too irresponsible to be trusted. But in the end DS is his son too. But then again I'm pretty new at this single mom stuff so I will hang on to see what everyone else says too.
Thanks for your response. Yes i am very very new at being a single mom. Up until about 5 days ago I thought we were working things out and were going to be a family again. I am pretty devestated about it all. I don't think I have slept for more than 1 hour in a week.
I did confront him about the drinking coffee thing and his response was, laughing, I onlly gave her a tiny sip and it was so funny she loved it. Now when she sees me with my starbucks cup she begs and crawls all over me to have some of mine.
I am suing him for full custody with visitation for him. I don't think he is NEAR stable enough to have the kids for more than a day. In their whole lives he has never ever had them for more than a couple hours. Even though I dont WANT his mom to raise my kids I do at least have the comfort that she is there and will watch them and make sure they get taken care of in the most basic manor.