Little background: My SO has been living with me for years in the same place. We've had his SS half the time the whole time. Its not an ideal living situation, we need a bigger place in a better area, but it's stable and secure. BM was living with her family as she had been since she was a child until they moved out of state (got evicted) and then she bounced around (possible stayed at motels/hotels and lied about it) stayed with and aunt and now her friend. She is now being evicted again from what I can understand not for doing anything wrong it was simply always a temp. living situation. SO has had the same job for a year and only got a new one because the place he was working at before for 5 years closed. Again not the job he wants to be in but he is working on finding something new/ getting back to school and understands financial stability/ the need to keep a job especially with a child. It's not something he likes, but he does what he needs to do to provide. BM had a job, left by no call no showing, which I know because she had him as emergency contact and they called him saying she didn't come. Then was unemployed for months, got a part time thing. Left that. Claimed to be nannying for her aunt on court papers (her aunts children are teens) and then got an office job that she's had for about 6.5 months. Added note, they are going through custody, which I think is good and necessary since they can't agree on things someone needs to step in and recently signed judgement papers for 50/50 everything and agreed on what school he would attend this fall. Also at the beginning of going through custody she took SS away for over 3 weeks and pulled him out of school claiming he said he was scared. All the day after she was served, when she filed her paperwork for custody first. And she went to his school and waited for SO to drop him off and took him right there in front of his teacher.

The point of this is she has been talking about trying to move for probably over a year since her family was thinking about it. First to go be with them. Then just basically anywhere that is not LA saying its too expensive and she wants to start over and live her own life. SO had a chance to move before baby was born but stayed to be with the child and will always make the the choice to be with his son. But she wants to take SS obviously and SO is not in a position to be following her around nor does it seem like it's a stable decision for SS. She's been unable to establish a stable job or living situation here (and I say that with all respect to her current job, but 6 months is not long enough to establish a pattern) so has no grounds to say that moving is the best thing for him. It will suck if she tries to bring this all back to court again and be time, energy and money wasted that could be going towards SS from all of us. But what I want advice on is how can we support her as a mother who is trying to figure out the best situation for herself? SO's thing is she can go wherever she wants and do whatever she wants, move for good, move and finish school whatever but if she wants to relocate SS then she needs to prove herself here first. And then it is something they can discuss. I'm behind that 100% it makes total sense, I wish she understood.

But is there more we could be doing to help her? I am annoyed of course but I just want to make sure being annoyed is not clouding my judgement for how to make this situation better. We cannot make plans for SS based on her dreams for her life and good lord I wish she could see how much she refuses to compromise making every decision a fight, but is there some way I'm not seeing for us to support her and the life she wants to live while dealing with things as they are now?

I know this was a rambling vent, and there's plenty more but getting some off my chest feels good.