The latest drama BM wants to pull is the fact that she wants us to "switch weekends" again, because she says that SS has a birthday party that he really wants to go to. First she asked if she could pick him up early, and then she said to switch weekends. Although now I'm pretty sure she set this argument up, because she has now told my husband that SS "won't be able to keep his scheduled visit", because "he has plans that day". Indeed he has plans, to spend time with his father and other family. So, anyway, I guess that means that when we go to pick him up, she will refuse to let him go with us. But she's still telling us to "let her know" what's going on, even though she's already trying to dictate.

After my husband told her that we did not have to switch weekends, she texted our cell phone. So I told her DH was at work, and asked her what she wanted. She kept repeating how it would mean "so much" for SS to go to his friend's party. Yet when we invite him to our children's birthdays, his half-siblings, she says "You want him to come, you come get him"....which she knows is not easy, and it's asking a lot to want their father to take hours out of the day just to get SS on the day of our kid's parties.

Anyway, I said that we can't switch for the next off week (Oct. 5th), because we already made plans.So she said "then what about the next week after that scheduled visit?". I said that's not until late October, and since SS hasn't visited since August 17th, that's really pushing the visit off, which is wrong. So she replied "It's also wrong to force [SS] to miss an opportunity to socialize with his friends".

I had also mentioned to her how I wasn't sure if things would work out for this weekend's scheduled visit, because our daughters have a school event to go to, which starts at 6pm (that is the time we are due at BM's house for pick-up). It's an Ice Cream Social, and there's a lot of fun activities for the kids. Any family members are welcome as long as you pay the door fee. So I told her that we were thinking about asking if she would please consider dropping SS off, so that we could all go. She replied "I'm not dropping him off, you can't bend for me, I won't bend for you. Pick him up at 6 or you lost the weekend".

At that point I told her that if she wanted to discuss it more, she could call~ I was in the middle of hanging laundry, doing things for the kids....and the cell minutes were running out. All she said was "There's a reason I stick to text"....blah blah blah, she won't talk about it. But then she kept sending texts even after I told her I couldn't receive or send any more, saying "Sorry for being hostile but I'm angry about the situation" (I won't touch on that topic too much right now) and "Besides, there's a big difference between what I'm asking and what you're asking....I'm asking you to bend for him, you're asking me to bend for you, not him"

So I emailed her, letting her know that by saying how she wouldn't "bend" a little in order to let SS go to this with us on our scheduled weekend, that she had no room to talk about how we want to "force" SS to miss an opportunity to socialize. Well then she goes and sends me an email that ONLY addresses my husband, where she says things like "There's a lot I could say about 'your wife's' emails, but I can exercise self-control", and how I made it out like the social was something we were just going to go to and put SS "last on the priority list". She says she later realized she was wrong and that we DID want to include SS, but then she says "HELLO THIS IS ME ADMITTING I WAS WRONG!". So she says she would be willing to talk about SS going, but that if she drops him off when she doesn't have to, we would "owe her" dropping him back off. We told her that we will find out if we can do that, but we're still going to take the girls, because they already get shafted in this whole situation.

Well I emailed her back again, because I'm sick of her bringing up issues, saying untrue and petty things about me to my husband, and then trying to act like I'm the third wheel here. Why did she send the email to my address if she just wanted to threaten and manipulate my husband....she could have just contacted him.

I told her that she can plan on us picking SS up when we are supposed to, and she will need to pick him up when she is supposed to. And I know she is going to try to guilt-trip us even more than she already has, and lay it on thick. But this is far from the first time she's done this, and with a few rare exceptions, she gets the final word~ when she hasn't wanted things to work out, they haven't. When she says he won't visit, he doesn't. When she demanded us to swtich weekends when she said she had a wedding to go to, and wouldn't be around to pick SS up....she ended up going to the wedding.

Now I understand SS may want to go to this party, what kid wouldn't want to go to a party they were told about? But I am sick of being berated that we're "not thinking of him". I'm sick of the fact that she doesn't give a damn what has happened and is happening to our kids, but she expects us to bend over backwards to put SS and her first. She tries to make us feel bad for not being more "mature", like we're not switching weekends because we're "selfish". That's what she had her mom yell at DH when he said he shouldn't have to switch weekends just because she had some wedding to go to....that it meant DH was making everything about him and not SS.

So this is the dilemma that's eating at me....she wants to make it seem like we're the bad guys by wanting to have SS here when he's supposed to be here. And we could just say "fine, we'll switch weekends, even though that's not what's ordered". But I'm tired of giving in to her. And regardless of what she said about how she asking "for him", she had earlier said how we wouldn't bend for HER. Would we be enabling her to make her think she gets to make other plans for SS on the custody schedule? She had no qualms about telling DH that he had better pay every penny of support or else she'd get on DRS' "ass", but the custody order doesn't matter? I can't stand the hypocrisy. There was a time DH and I tried really hard to maintain our cool, try to be civil to her....and she just gets off and bossing other people around and taking advantage of things. She just has that smug, trouble-making Cheshire Cat expression, and an Angelica (from the Rugrats) way of talking that makes you want to slap her straight. But no.....I can't do that. *sigh*