Hi there!
First off I want to apologize if this is one long paragraph. I am on an IPad and it doesn't always cooperate when trying to make paragraphs. I am part of the D14 board and just happened to stumble upon this board today.
A little background about me. I am 26 years old and pregnant with my first. Baby boy is due December 6th. DH and I have been married since December 2012. I have had guardianship of my 2 nephews (12 and 7) and my niece (9) for three years due to their parents being drug addicts, alcoholics, and in and out of prison. My husband has a son (7) and a daughter (6) from a previous relationship. His son is not biologically his. He met the mother when the son was 6 months old and stepped in as a father. The son does not know that DH is not his father, and for the time being it will remain that way. We see his two kids every weekend.
I am sure I will be venting here a lot because there is a lot of drama with the two different scenarios ( and I am very glad I found this board), but this question involves DHs son.
I have always loved him and accepted him for who is, but things have always been a little "off" with him. He is very socially awkward. He does and says some very bizarre things for a child of his age. He is beginning to see that he doesn't quite fit in and sees that he is a little off, and continuously says that there is something wrong with his brain.
About a year ago, there was an incident between both DHs kids, and my youngest nephew. Without going into a lot of detail, CPS was called on us by DHs ex. The claims were not warranted, and they investigated and dropped the case. The ex held the kids from DH for about 7 months. We went through court battles and the courts thankfully sided with us and we regained visitation, though at first it was no sleepovers. But now everything is back to normal. Because of this incident, I took my youngest nephew to go talk to someone and make sure everything was ok with him. His counsellor said he was a very normal little boy. With the claims against us, you would think the ex would take the other two to counseling as well, but she did not.
Once DHs two kids started coming back over, things were very different. We chalked it up to them not being used to being over with us. No big deal. It will wear off. With SD it did. But with SS, it just gradually got worse. He is a very angry little boy. He screams at me for no reasons, balls his fists in anger to my DH, kicks and punches my niece and nephews, tells his sister he wants to kill her (even pointing a toy gun to her head and saying he wants to shoot her). He has thrown rocks at our neighbors cat, hurts our dog constantly, all the while he is laughing. My breaking point was when he said that I should put my newborn baby in a hole and bury it because no one will like it anyways. When you look at his eyes, you just see an emptiness, and it is scary. He is constantly making inappropriate jokes. He makes my niece very uncomfortable ( he tries to touch her and stares at her and chases her to a point where it's not appropriate). He has talked about touching himself in front of all of the kids, and touched himself in front of them. He has talked about having sex. It is all very age inappropriate.
When all if this is brought up to DHs ex, she gets very defensive and yells at DH. She states all of this is normal behavior and their son is just mad at DH because he has a new family and has forgotten about their two kids (which he has not as he tries to spend as much time as possible with them). DH wants their son to go talk to someone about his behaviors, but she refuses. She is very adamant that she will not put him in counseling and she can fix all of his problems, though she doesn't feel like he has any problems.
Now for my question. Do any of you know if there is something that we can file through the courts to make her get him help? I am very worried about bringing a newborn into this situation. I am trying not to stress, but I can't help it with being pregnant for the first time and trying to protect my baby, trying to protect my niece and nephews, and trying to assure DH everything will be ok.
I know that this is long, and I apologize for that. I do not have any family or friends that have experience with blended families and the situations that come from them, so I have no one to talk to about it. Any help would be appreciated!
Re: Intro & Advice (very long, sorry)
Find a counselor with adoption experience and get him in ASAP. Have it court ordered if you have to.
We had joint custody at the time of SD (then 3), and the siblings' father was absent across country. We could fight for SD, but they had no one. So we made anonymous reports of suspected abuse, tracked their father down across country, called their school counselor and told them what SD was telling us and what behavior we had witnessed to make us worried for their well-being.
It wasn't easy. It has taken years of custody battles, BM dropping in and out, and CPS making us feel so forgotten and insignificant that we just wanted to give up. But after all this, the two siblings live with their father, never to see their mother again, and we have full custody of SD with BM only getting supervised visits.
My point is that things may be complicated by the fact that SS is not biologically your H's, but that doesn't mean you can't advocate for him. Unless he officially adopted him, you probably cannot get him professional help without BM's consent. But he can still make sure that his problems ate on the radar. Get in touch with the school counselors. Make anonymous reports to CPS. Maybe you can get him into counseling on your own time. BM might consent to it if it is presented as family counseling to help everyone adjust and communicate instead of just SS getting his head shrunk. Some psychologists understand that one parent may be resistant and will work with you.
Regardless of WHAT had happened to bring SS to this point, something traumatic is triggering this. And he needs help. For his safety and your family's. Keep us updated.