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Deadbeat Custodial Mom

Really annoyed stepmom's picture

So I’ve been married to my husband for 7 years.. we have a daughter together, and I have a 13 year old daughter that he has adopted. We have an amazing relationship. He has two boys, 9 & 8 who we have every other weekend, every school break, every summer from the day they get out of school until the day before they go back to school. My problem is the mom is seriously a crazy psycho deadbeat. The boys grandma has the boys the majority of the time they are with her, Their mother may have them a total of MAYBE 3 nights a week. She goes out drinking/ partying  EVERY weekend. (She’s like 32) she has another new guy that is already staying at her house and she’s taking them to stay at his house, ( her ex boyfriend just moved out 3 months ago.) we honestly rarely ever deal with their mother for exchanges because their grandmother has them ALL the time. We have had discussions with the grandmother who tells us she knows the boys would be better off with us but she’s not going to tell their mother this and she doesn’t want to lose “her boys” . As a mother, who my whole life is dedicated to my girls, how does she not want to spend weekends with her kids? Ever? When the boys were here this summer, they had been here for 8 weeks straight, their grandma wanted to have them for a weekend to take them to her other grandaughters birthday party. They went with the grandma, they saw their mom for 10 minutes, and she left because she “ of course made other plans with her friends” AFTER 8 weeks! Spent 10 minutes with them. Then the boys were back with us for another 4 weeks before school started. But acts like on Facebook she’s the best mom ever, but Instagram shows her real life of partying. By the end of the summer the boys were so much more well behaved. They had stopped back talking and having kicking screaming spitting meltdowns. They had stopped compulsively lying about everything. They started having table manners and manners in public and respect for others and things. Now we get them back on the weekends and it’s like we have to start all over. The boys are both in therapy every two weeks. They are both on medication now for ADHD, and the oldest is also on zanax for anxiety... they both constantly are in trouble at school. My girls - no meds, no therapy, seriously teachers favorite students. I know the boys would be better with us. Last weekend she was supposed to pick up the boys from our house ( which is 2 hours away from their house where they live with her) she was supposed to pick them up at 5 on a Sunday night (school night) at 5:00 we had the boys dressed and ready waiting for her to go home, we asked where she was , at this time she told us she wouldn’t be here until around 10pm.... ON A SCHOOL NIGHT. TWO HOURS FROM THEIR HOME. She had been in Dallas the whole weekend with her new boyfriend that we haven’t met yet, and I guess just decided that she had more important things to do than come pick her kids up at a decent hour. and so she proceeds to FaceTime the kids and talk to them belligerently , so we knew she was drunk. When the time came for her to pick them up we had a sheriff here waiting and told her we weren’t waking the boys up and putting the boys in the car to drive through the mountains so late until they both passed a breathalyzer. NOPE! They REFUSED to take a breathalyzer and got in the car and left. My husband had to take the kids two hours to school the next morning. The next day of course she was texting my husband saying she wasn’t drunk, she just wasn’t playing his games. PS this is the 3rd time over the years we had a suspicion she was drunk at pickup, one time went to jail with a dwi. For whatever reaason the sheriff said this time he could tell she was intoxicated but he wasn’t sure he could get a dwi on her new boyfriend who was driving but he had admitted to having been drinking and also refused a breathalyzer, plus this is the first time we met him. We went to. Court after the first two times of her showing up drunk, and  apparently she hired some big time attorney and he judge already knew he wasn’t turning over custody before we even went in. We know the boys would be better off with us, but afraid of losing in court again. Need suggestions on How to handle her never having her kids, bringing all kinds of men in their lives , being drunk around them, how to handle the boys when they come here out of control when I know it’s not their fault but also can’t let them be heathens, how to not have hatred towards her for the mess we have to try to fix when we have the boys.. 

tog redux's picture

Court sucks.  It's a crapshoot based on what judge you get, really, and it's hard to get kids away from a mother.  Does she hang onto custody for the child support involved? Doesn't sound like she much cares about being a parent.  Maybe this sounds crazy, but would she turn over more custody time if your DH didn't change the child support? He might be able to get it changed down the line and get more official custody - but at least his kids would be safe with you guys.

It sounds crazy to recommend but this is one of those situations where the kids are really being neglected and it might be worthwhile.

Really annoyed stepmom's picture

I thought I responded but I guess it didn’t post- so I apologize if I respond twice.. but yes it is definitely about the child support, but also her image, and control. To be able to say “I’m a single mom, I let you have them extra, I do you a favor letting you have them extra..” She had told their therapist at the end of the school year last year that she just couldn’t handle them and was tired of them and they just needed to go live with their dad.. the therapist told my husband that he needs to offer to continue to pay half child support but let us have them. She responded something about how she’s so ready for the summer to be over so she can get her boys back and she just couldn’t live without them... yet she just went 12 weeks with only seeing them for 10 minutes.. every other conversation he has tried to have with her is just shut down and she doesn’t respond. I just don’t understand.. is every other weekend not enough for her  “me time” ? Oh by the way it’s tuesday night a school night and she is out with her new boyfriend again without her boys. Also, I hate looking at her social media, it puts me in the worst mood every time I see her out drinking.. but, I feel like if I don’t, I won’t really know what goes on with the boys,  because of how much she coaches them on things to say. I feel like not knowing, I’ll be less understanding when they lash out about something and misbehave. For instance her last boyfriend “got in a fight with one of her friends and pushed her and they ran in the house and locked him out and he broke the door down and his mom busted her toe on something and had to give herself an IV” coming from the youngest boy, but during this time of the youngest trying to tell this story, the oldest kept interrupting saying “ no no no it wasn’t that bad no it’s all fine now no everything is settled and it wasn’t that bad” also this past weekend while  they were here getting ready for bed the youngest was saying stuff like “ she just needs to go home she’s not even coming to get us she’s lying” they were in bed when she got here, the therapist told us that the youngest wouldn’t really say much about it other than “ kept repeating , they just thought she was drunk but she wasn’t and my dad just doesn’t like her boyfriend.” And NONE of that was mentioned to them from us. We didn’t say anything about the boyfriend, or anything about her being drunk. So yes. Next step I guess would be offer her full child support and get them, but the image of her being a bad mom. And also it’s no skin off her back she collects a check and her mom keeps them so why give control up to him.. so frustrating and seriously it’s been a struggle for this many years and it’s just gotten significantly worse with each man that she dates... the guy she’s dating now has two kids that live in the same town as him and hes been out with her the past 4 weekends in a row and he hasn’t had his kids, sooo he’s obviously a pos as well and not going to make her any better of a mom. Just feel helpless and like trying to make the boys be good humans is just a waste of energy and effort because it never sticks and it’s always starting over. 

Really annoyed stepmom's picture

She is a nurse- not sure on her hours but apparently pretty flexible.. she goes to work at 7 and IF she does get the boys it’s usually at different times - between 430- 6, but a lot of times has been off at noon. Doesn’t work any weekends. 

Rags's picture

Going to court is like diving into a septic tank for a swim.  Win or lose, and we have never lost, I have always left a day in court feeling like I needed to take a bath in boiling water and scrub with Brillo pads to get the skeeve off of my skin.

For some reason Judges seem to be blind to the skeeve that the toxic blended family opposition represents.  In our case SpermDaddy and SpermGranny filed for custody.  We countered with a motion to end all visitation.  They came to court with nothing but their toothless Moron grins on their faces and we came loaded for bear.

We had police officers testify to the SpermIdiot's arrest for gun violations, he had a gun in the kid's diaper bag and ran from the police on foot when pulled over, we had his former underage girlfriends testify that he gave the Skid whiskey at  a party to get  him to quit crying, we had dozens of witnesses and reems of documentaion on the depravity and toxicity of the SpermClan but to no avail.  The idiot in the black robe with the Fischer-Price wooden hammer commented that any child "would be blessed to have the love and support of this family".  I damned near barfed over the the rail towards that black robed moron.

They didn't get custody, we didn't get their visitation removed.  However, CS went up and the 26 weeks of visitation, then 15 weeks of visitation they wanted when Custody was rejected was reduced to 7wks.  So we won.  We won every time.  But never was it a pleasant feeling worthy of celebration.   The only thing more disgusting than a toxic blended family opposition when you get to court is the detestable morons who seem to ply their crap on the bench and often on either or both sides of the court as counselors.  It is now wonder that damned near everyone hates lawyers.

Even with only 7wks of visitation my SS saw his SpermDaddy for only a few hours per visitation.  Even over the 5wks he was in SpermLand over the summers.  He spent all of his time with either SpermGanny or his GGPs. Pretty much anyone they could dump him off with.

We owned their idiot asses but they never cease to piss me off beyond all limits.  Particularly SpermGrandHag (SpermGranny).  I have sworn that when she finally leaves this mortal toil I will be standing at the edge of her grave pissing on her coffin as it is lowered into the polluted ground she will infest for all eternity.  In front of her entire toxic clan.  Of course I won't but the thought is extremely tempting.

You have this toxic BM by the short and curlies.  Keep dragging her boozing neglectful ass to court. Eventually you may just find a Judge with half a brain who will do the right thing for these kids.

 

And use white space please. Reading massive blocks of uninterrupted text makes it very difficult to get through posts and you are likely losing a number of readers because of it.

Good luck.