I can see where Echo is coming from and that if you were to get custody they'd still have to have visitation with BM, but I've seen the damage that parents openly favouring one kid over another can do. I have 3 ss's who live with us full time. The reason dh got custody was that the court decided that bm was emotionally abusive and unstable and was not fit to have them full time. One of the many horrible things she did was openly favour middle ss over older ss. Older ss who is now 17 was yelled and sworn at every day, called stupid, smacked round the face and told he was a bad kid and useless, while middle ss who is now 11 was the golden child who could do no wrong. Everything was older ss's fault. Older ss was blamed for everything - if she left them in a room together for a minute and middle ss cried it was always older ss's fault, older ss was expected to look after middle ss and then younger ss when he came along and she continued blaming, ignoring and abusing older ss till dh and bm split when he was 9.

As a result, ss17 has had a lot of problems with self esteem, confidence and social skills and has a history of poor results and poor behaviour in school, a tendency to bully his younger brothers, particularly ss11 and for a long time he was unbelievably jealous and couldn't bear the thought that younger ss's were getting any privileges or treats and he might miss out. This was so bad it got to a point of him having huge tantrums if younger ss's went to bed 10 minutes after their bedtime and he demanded he also got 10 an extra minutes, when he was about 12 I remember him openly crying in a shop because we let younger ss's choose what flavour ice cream we were going to buy and loads of other extreme behaviour over petty stuff. He just had to play with their toys as he didn't seem to be able to cope with them having anything of their own, interfered with their games and seemed for a long time to have the emotional age of his younger brothers despite there being a big age gap. He told a child psychologist at about 8 years old that he wanted to kill himself which was documented in the custody case and the report was clear that he was emotionally fragile and very damaged by bm's treatment of him.

He is now starting to grow up a bit and is doing really well in college, though will always have issues with self esteem. He can be loud, obnoxious, selfish and still speaks to his brothers like crap, dh says in exactly the same way that bm used to speak to him. DH sometimes corrects it but quite often seems oblivious which really pisses me off. He can also be funny, thoughtful and hardworking and seems to be doing more of this lately. I was fully expecting him to get into trouble with the police and/or be on drugs/alcohol, getting girls pregnant and getting into fights, but so far he's managed to keep out of major trouble, probably because dh has told him that if he ever does anything like that he'll be going straight to live with bm whether he likes it or not.

The funny thing now is that ss11 is also growing up and is starting to see his mother for what she really is. He was for a long time her little puppet and was totally brainwashed by her, doing everything she said and believing all her lies, but now his attitude towards her is changing and he's definitely not under her spell anymore. He also had behaviour problems which were a direct result of bm but now he's growing up he's changed from a moody, withdrawn kid to a confident, clever kid who's great to have around and we're sure it's because bm's hold over him has been broken. She tried to brainwash ss10 but he's too attached to his dad and to strong willed and smart to believe all her crap. One day she'll get hers when none of them want to bother with her anymore. SS17 already has very little to do with her and I reckon the others will follow suit eventually.

That has been our experience of what can happen when one kid is openly favoured over another. What she's doing is emotional abuse and will certainly have a bad effect on your older ss and probably on the younger one eventually as well. Whether you apply for custody is a big decision and you probably would have to have them both as I can't imagine a court splitting them up (I know that was a big thing with our case, that the three had to stay together). It sounds like you're doing your best in making both boys feel loved and wanted, and I think doing more "grown up" things with your older ss without the younger one around is a great idea and will give him a feeling that he matters just as much as his brother at your house. We did those kind of things with oldest ss when the younger two were with bm and I think it did do him good to have a bit of time with us uninterrputed by the demands of smaller children.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope something can be done to stop bm's abusive behaviour - she's hurting her kids and sounds like a real bitch.

We have a similar issue. BM favors SD9 and mistreats SS8 (calls him names etc). We would like to get full custody but SS hasn't said he doesn't want to go with BM. He cries to us about her but doesn't want to be without SD9. DH has taken same approach - telling SS8 that if he doesn't want to go with his mom to tell him and he'll talk to judge about. I spoke to my therapist recently and she the same advice as Echo - to teach him how to handle the situation while with BM and not to add to him thinking he doesn't have to go to BM. Also that no matter ehat BM would still get visitation. We are torn with this situation because we want SS8 to be treated fairly and want him with us but not sure either what judge would say and not sure of the age the kids need to be to make a decision like this. We thought it was 8 in our state. Anyway sorry I couldn't be of much help since I'm dealing with a similar situation but hope it becomes less u settling for both of us. I really despise these BMs who cause so much torment.