Hello, I am new to this forum. I came here today seeking something to help me get out my frustration and after reading an abundance of posts, I can see that for the most part I am super lucky. My partner came into my life just after my daughters 1st birthday, her own father while in contact is not present at all so over the course of th last 2.5 years my partner and her have bonded to the point he is her dad. My partner as 2 kids SS6 and SS10 - both great kids who I get a long with majority of he time. My daughter loves them and tells anyone who will listen that they are her brothers. We are a family. They live with their BM and come to ours as much as possible, which has been difficult due to my partners adhoc roster over the past 8 months. Hopefully soon this will be week on week off.

For a while the BM was kind to me. Which was shocking becuase my partner recounts stories of her being violent, keeping the kids from him and general bullying. I was pleased she was ok with me, this was the best possible scenario. On ocassion she has pushed the boundaries but for the most part it was all tolerable.

Until about 3 months ago, her behaviour changed and she started displaying more of what my partner had described to me. She started becoming really unreasonable and now that is an understatment. I have tried and tried to remain empathetic to her and I always try to imagine how I would feel in certain situations if the tables were reversed to understand her better, but I am fast running out of compassion.

She puts my partner down constantly, accusing him of coming and going as he pleases with no real intersest in being involved - even thought he only reason he hasn't been able to have them regulalry due to his work.

She interferes with our time with them. She dictates to us what time we put them to bed, what we feed them, what we do with them, how we spend our spare time, what we spend out money on ect. If we don't do anything exciting with them on a regular basis (which is near impossible, we both work full time and are saving for a house) then she accuses us of being lazy.

She complains she is the one who has to run around and organise everything to guilt him into giving her what she wants, but when my partner goes and organises something himself, she flips out. A perfect example, my partner briefly had to start work at 7am - I also start at 7am - so we enrolled the skids into before school care at the same place my child attends - because it was our time and our job to organise something and as soon as she caught wind of it she threw a tantrum and now we can't have them during the week. She even said that since we can afford to pay for before school care my partner should pay her more child support. He already pays abot 1/3rd more than what he is meant to as per their private arrangement.

Not having them during the week means we have them every weekend, while she has a social life and goes away with her partner, we are elbows deep in all of kids every weekend. As much as I love the kids being together and spending time with them, I desperately need a break.

She doesn't care what my partner thinks about schooling, afterschool activities, parenting ect. Both skids have afterschool sporting commitments 5 nights a week + saturday mornings. My partner has begged her to drop at least 1 sport, especially since SS10 (in 5th Grade) is about 2 years behind in english where he needs to be. We arranged a tutor for him, which she couldn't care less about and cares more about arguing with my partner about how she asked him to do it months ago. She has pretty much made sure there is no time for tuturoing which makes me really sad for SS10 because I worry about his future.

She makes the most unreasonable requests and for everything she accuses my partner of, she displays the same behaviour herself. If he pushes back, she usually just says "Well do you want them or not" or "Don't worry you won't be having them". I know she can't legally keep them from him and I am prepared to spend out house savings on fighting for his rights - becuase I can't stand the thought of the next 11 years going day to day giving her what she wants - BUT is it just better to ignore her and do what we can the best we can? I don't know what path to take, both options have serious consequences and I am worried that if we continue to give in to her to keep the peace, we will create a monster in her. I cannot let her control my home and my life. I feel like a glorified babysitter most of the time, even though I care for her children when they are in my home as close to like my own as I can. I cook for them, clean up after them, make sure they are warm and happy and I don't get a say in a single thing. Even worse, their dad doesn't either