This is about my BS, who is 14.

Last year EVERYONE (my skids, my husband, my mother and father, people at church, anyone else I met) wished me Happy Mother's Day. My then 13-year-old son was there. He heard them. He didn't say a word and I had to make a point of talking to him about it at 7pm at night. He said he was waiting until he gave me his card. I pointed out that he had all day to do it AND all the people who wished me well. It would have cost him three words.

It's not blatant but it's there in the little and big things that shows that BM is trying to make sure I don't have too much/any influence over the skids, not even in a helpful way. And she isn't belligerent, it all come from a place of being a "good parent" but it's wearing on me.

Why is it always an extreme? The skids have to be told to shower but my kid is taking multiple showers a day.

He's early teen and I have smelled his funky feet twice in two years because he has always taken a (single) shower every day before he goes to bed. Lately he's been taking multiple showers a day. They aren't long enough for "that" to be happening. (Or he's very fast at "that.")

My guess: he likes the way his hair looks when it's freshly washed and gets too frustrated trying to fix it with just water and a comb so he takes a shower. He's obsessed with his hair.

I have handled helping the skids get DH a present for Father's Day because we are married, I'm here in the house, I know what he likes to do and they like to do, I have the ability to work with the skids on whatever it is. DH told BM the first year we were married something about me helping the skids get him a father's day gift. Every year except for one she has also gone with the skids to get him a gift (not sure what happened that year, and I thought she had finally let it drop...I was wrong). And, the gifts she has helped them with are nothing that DH wants or needs.