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nuthouse den mother.

Lauren973's picture

I am not a mean spirited person by nature. But if I could have any wish in the world right now it would be to be locked in a room filled with voo-doo dolls that look like BM.
Where do I START?
Today STBH and I are waiting to hear from his atty. about wether or not there is to be a meeting for mediation between BM and STBH and the sharks. The question is hinged on custody. If BM agrees to hand over passport to BF, and to grant joint custody both legal and residential, then they will meet to settle the financial issues. STBH could care less about the money. BM claims she only wants money for her daughter's welfare, but to her, welfare is very oddly defined. If she says no on the custody issue, there will be no meeting, and we will file motions for custody and take legal actions against BM for kidnapping. Once again, we give her enough rope to hang herself.
As of this moment, BM does not know that STBH intends to fight for custody. She could find out any moment. Instead, she thinks she is simply waiting to hear wether or not STBH's attorney is able to make the meeting tomorrow.
So with the pending financial meeting, we discover that a sign has been placed in her storewindow saying business for sale. Curious timing no? I mean She lives in an apartment that is twice as expensive as ours, takes international vacations every five months, carries a real louis vuitton purse, but just a week before the finances are to be discussed she has to sell her business because she can't make ends meet?
So all of this happens to occur over the weekend of the child exchange. Now, I go to every exchange and carry a tape recorder. But I admit, I go this week with all guns loaded because there is just SO much a woman can take.
BM never thanked me for stepping in to pay for her daughters schooling. Instead, (she had her attorney send a letter to STBH requesting that we reimburse her for the entire past year's educational costs. When I made arrangements to pay for her daughters school, it was under the condition that BM actually GET her to school as her attendance was so poor during the previous year. She did, for two weeks. Then we get a call from daughters teacher saying that BM claims she will be unable to pay for april, (the month she closed her store and went to costa rica) and that I would have to pay that for her. I mean, does she even notice that she looks like a fool?
When we arrived at the exchange, BM dropped to her knees and began sobbing in front of daughter and police (stbh is protected by restraining order) about how she cannot keep her business afloat and has to sell, and how she cannot afford her rent and is getting food now from the local food pantry, and how she cannot afford the gas to take her daughter the ONE WHOPPING MILE to school. (Hello, PARIS FOR TEN DAYS and Costa Rica for FIVE???? seems if she had her daughters best interests in mind that could have bought a LOT of gas and food, no?)
She went on to say that her daughter needs to be with her dad more. (yes, we think so too. So hey, here's an idea - why not let him HAVE her more often?????). She tells us that daughter needs her mother to be stable and that while she has tried to keep it together, she is losing her mind. (so glad we are taping this.)
So STILL not having thanked me for paying for school, she proceeds to ask if we could pick daughter up and take her to and from school for the week. Yes, me, the very same woman she has accused of abusing her child. She is now asking me to take charge of her and drive her to school. I say no, unless she is willing to submit a letter which states that she completely trusts her daughter to be in my care. She had the weekend to think about it, and otherwise she would have to walk with daughter to school. Its only a frigging MILE. Frankly her a** could use the exercize.
So, the weekend goes swimmingly. Sunday comes along, and we drop daughter off. BM IS A WHOLE different woman. Walks in angry and begins yelling at STBH that she is going to simply take her daughter and move to south carolina where she can afford to live.
AGAIN, STBH is protected by a restraining order. We are IN the police station. Of course, the police are the husbands of her girlfriends. Not a WORD from them. So I chime in so that he doesnt have to speak to her. I tell her that we are all suffering financially, and that perhaps she should not have taken two vacations in five months. At which point she tells me that their finances are none of my business. (I assume she means that its only my business so far as I am capable of paying for her daughters clothing, pool membership and education when STBH is not even granted parenting time and I am not even her SM yet, but copy that, not my business.)
She begins crying again to STBH that she just needs to speak to HIM about her daughter, alone. So I get up to leave and as I am walking out of the station, I warn them to be adult in front of their daughter. What am I? The frigging nuthouse den mother??? As I leave, she literally SHOVES daughter into my arms saying "here, take her". Now it's pouring outside. And again, this woman has accused me of abusing her daughter. WHY AM I STANDING IN THE RAIN WITH HER WHILE THEY DISCUSS MONEY INSIDE THE POLICE STATION WHEN THEY ARE NOT PERMITTED TO TALK?????
So when they are done, they walk out, and she hands him a letter and tells him to have me call her at 10 pm to discuss me picking her daughter up and taking her to school in the morning. When we get home, I look at the letter. It is a card - the drawing on the front of it is a cat perched over a canary cage, with a canary in it. Hmm. Coincidence? I think not. Ity reads:
I am giving Lauren permission to transport _____ back and forth to school for the month of June. I am trusting Lauren to have _____ in her care.
Not exactly the letter I asked for.
So I call her. Speaker phone, tape recorder in hand. An HOUR long "conversation" (her usual monologue) about how bad her finances are. I keep telling her to discuss daughter, and to talk about the letter, and wether or not she trusts me (for the purpose of the tape). On and ON and ON she goes, not only does she trust me, she says, but she would like to open a business with me. Can anyone say FRUIT LOOP? And WAIT --- did that letter say the month of JUNE? I only agreed to TWO DAYS.
At some point, I tell her I have to go, and we get off the phone. In the morning, I pick up daughter and its pouring. Now mom owns a childrens consignment shop. Daughter is in BM's arms, in the rain, no raincoat. Lunch for the day is pizza (as BM is raising her daughter to be vegetarian). She is two lbs underweight and two inches shorter than the low average for her age. BM ignores daughter while yapping at me about her financial situation again.
Yap yap yap yap. She is like a little dog biting my ankles.
Now, I am off to pick up her daughter and go through it all again. And waiting for the attorney to call is like doom.
I am literally sick to my stomach with hatred.
Does it ever get better???????

Comments

Lauren973's picture

a moral obligation. The thing is, I really love this child. And if I were that little girl I would sure hope someone would help me the way i am helping her. However, I am SURE there will never be any appreciable return on that money. That is what having children means. And yes, I know I am not her BM, or even her SM yet... but with the way things are going, its likely she will be in our custody full time soon.
I have bent over backwards to try and make this better for all the parties involved. What else can I do? I love STBH and daughter. I don't want a life without them. Unfortunately she comes with the package.
The decision to pay her schooling is manifold: 1, reduce BM's actual parenting time. 2, have daughter socialize with children rather than just mom and mom's friends. 3, neither other parent can afford it. 3, it makes me look better to the courts when custody battle begins.
The way I've seen it, it hurts me so little to pay and helps daughter so much.
Is it really a bad decision? I am just not feeling very sure.

Anne 8102's picture

Lauren, only YOU can decide if it's a bad decision. It's not your responsibility and you have no obligation, but if you want to give this child the gift of an education, then that's 100% your call. Most of us do things we don't want to do or spend money we don't want to spend on our skids, not because we have to or even because we want to, but because that's the code we live by. We all sacrifice for our kids and skids in one way or another because we assume the responsibility of "parent," even though we have no obligation to do so. My husband took in my son as his own and has been his sole provider for years. Eventually, my husband adopted my son, so now BS9 is his son, too, but he didn't have to do that and the only thing in it for him is, well, he's gotten a son out of the deal. We've got a yours, mine, ours and theirs family, meaning one is mine, one is ours, two are his and one his ex-wife conceived via an adulterous affair during their marriage. We would have to buy a scoreboard to keep track of who is responsible for doing what for whom and there's just not enough time in the day to track it, so we both give to all the kids equally, whether we spawned them or not. Look into your heart, think about your future and make the best decision for you.

~ Anne ~

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission."
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Lauren973's picture

In giving anything for her child, I am following my own moral compass. The problem with that is that the more her BM projects her insanity into our lives, the more my moral compass also points me in the direction of the room with the voodoo dolls. I really wish there was some form of universal justice. This woman would come back as a parasite on the back of a bear cornered by a trapper. As it is, she seems untouchable. She skirts the laws like a common grifter.

Dkirk's picture

I completly understand you, my stepchildren's mom left them to go to England to meet a guy she met on the internet. Their mom talks about me to the step kids and tells them how much of a B*&% I am and how useless I am. HELLOOOOO!!! I'm not the one who ran off to England, She is a total nutbag, always has been and always will be. I need to just find a way to keep my own sanity through it all in order to keep going on and raising another woman's children with no apprecaitation at all!!!! It totally sucks because I feel just like giving up somedays. She lies her butt off to her kids about their father and me, she lies in court, she lies and then she lies some more. She brings the children into it also which is NOT fair for those kids J 15 and T 14, at awkward ages already and now their heads are completly messed up. Just keep your game face on in front of those kids, that's what I do, I want to show them through my own expamles that there are ways to act (mine) and then there are ways NOT to act (their mothers). One day they will look back on all this krap and hopefully see they don't have to be a bad person like their mom.

Cruella's picture

ARe you talking about my skids BM???? Sounds just like her. She did the same thing only she didnt' come back from the other country. She just started throwing her demands on DH from where she lives. The children actually have to travel around the world every summer to see this woman who abandoned them.

Lauren973's picture

I've read your posts for a while. My BM is very similar to yours, and also to Nymh's. They could really sweep the category in the pageant of the whack-a-do's. Not a bad idea really, we could sponser the contest and the winner could buy gas and food for their kids, or just go to the spa or something.

Cruella's picture

The kids BM is one french fry short of a happy meal LOL!!!

I vote for the spa!!!!!!!!

Dkirk's picture

I have one bio son of my own, he is 7. I have 3 step kids and I WOULD NEVER EVER leave them, I don't understand what goes through their heads. This is crazy, do your sk go to another country through court order? My sk's think they should be allowed to see their BM without a court order after spending thousands of dollars to get custody of them just so BM doesn't take off with them. How do you explain that one to them? BM lies her butt off to them about their BD and me, I just keep thinking your lucky as hell that their father and I love them enough to make them a home in our house, other wise their butts would be sitting in a foster home and BM wouldn't have given a damn.

Cruella's picture

My skids BM left 3 kids and moved to another country. They were really young and to this day we have to deal with all of the abandonment issues. I am no therapist. I don't understand the children's loyalty to a mother that left them but it is thier Mother. It several years but we had to constantly get on them about being appreciative about what people do for them or they got nothing. They found out that BM wasn't going to do a thing for them. They asked and got turned down quite a bit. BM doesn't do a thing for them and spends her time with the children complaining about us. They don't expect much from her anymore. They expect the world from DH and I. Well we are their day to day parents so that isn't a surprise to us. They look at me as their mother. I never once told them to look at me as their Mom. It just happened naturally.

The main thing is not to act hurt even if they hurt your feelings. Many of time I got a temper tantrum from them but I stayed solid as a rock. I acted like I didn't care if they turned blue. They know I am not trying to be their mother so if they try to emotionally blackmail me by saying I want to live with Mom, they would be on the first plane out. I totally disengaged. They learned a lesson. I only have the typical kid behavior from them no different from mine when they were growing up. Occasionally the youngest 2 will call me "Mom" and that is not something coming from me. Just know the kids are going to love their Mother no matter how bad she is. If you don't feel appreciated don't do for them. You dont' have to.
I know exactly how you feel and exactly what you are going through. Our situations are very much the same. Just know that DH got joint Physical Custody and because it was too much of a life change the judge kept them in the US.