I don't know exactly how much I've shared in here over the past month and a half but my life has been far from peaceful.

Christmas was the breaking point for me. After everything that happened, I gave myself a real gift, it was a sort of new year's resolution: I will not allow BM antics to occupy my time, energy, or thoughts. Ever. DH is not to discuss her correspondences with me. He will keep me in the loop if there are ever any changes in logistics that deviate from the norm but he WILL NOT inform me of the excruciating details of BM's shit stirring.

It has been a very peaceful new year so far thanks to this new rule/resolution/whatever.

I'm not going to re-hash everything but here are just a few highlights of the events leading up my breakdown:

BM harassed DH every single day, multiple times a day, for two weeks before Christmas. She attempted to withhold visitation, she took away the skids' electronic devices so that they could not contact him, she shut down their social media accounts just in case they found a way to contact DH.

I contacted a lawyer but to this day, DH still has not followed through even though I offered to help pay for the retainer.

DH picked his son up the week before Christmas anyway even though BM said she wouldn't allow him to do so. Yes there is a CO. She tried to call the police when she came home and found that skid wasn't there. She knew where he was (because DH told her in an email that she responded to), she just wanted to cause a scene.

The entire time BM was harassing DH through email, she kept insisting on a face-to-face, in person talk with him. He kept refusing and told her that as a grown woman, she should be able to express herself in an email. She can't. She wanted to talk instead because she knew that every time she sent another email to him, he not only destroyed her in writing, but she was leaving a paper trail that would make her look very bad in a court if it ever came to that. He is very good at handling her. He ignores her insults, character attacks, emotional pleas, and lies. He always composes every response as if it is going to be read in a public forum.

Right after BM took away the kids' ability to communicate with DH she started angling for him to talk to them through her, on her phone. (She has been banned from any phone contact with DH because of harassment). Then she started saying that one of the reasons she "forbids" DH from having "extra time" (actually CO time) with his son is that she can't contact him by phone. This has been a thing with her for a long time now. She wants to talk to the skid on the phone every single day he is at our house. She brings it up every time she attempts to withhold visitation.

Actually, she CAN contact the skid through social media, facetime, etc but the boy just never responds to her. It's almost like he sees our house as a refuge where he doesn't have to listen to her annoying voice every damn day. Also, guess who got a phone for Christmas? Yep. The skid. From us so that BM wouldn't be able to stop DH from communicating with him anymore.

DH has had his son for an entire week now and guess who hasn't made one single attempt (we get a log of all phone and text activity) to contact him while he's been with us? Yep. BM.

So of course I am convinced that BM never really withheld visitation because she couldn't talk to her son when he was with us. She just wanted more access to DH. I'm sure all the crazy BMs ramp up the crazy around Christmas but this one has extra motivation for it. DH left her at Christmastime. LOL.

As you can imagine, I got really sick of all of this (remember, these are highlights, there is SOOOO much more that I just don't even want to go into). That's why I gave DH the talk. I cannot be involved in his battles with her. I'm too emotionally invested in him for it to not affect me. I was getting physically sick over all of the drama. Since he rarely takes my advise (like getting a lawyer) and since he does seem to manage to put out fires before they get too big, I just need him to keep me out of it. So far, he has obliged. I haven't heard one single word about BM since the day after Christmas.

I really hope this becomes a permanent thing.