Hello fellow stepparents, I am a long time reader and this is my first blog.

It’s really sad how many of your stories hit home with mine and DH’s. That there are so many of us dealing with high conflict, alienating, gaslighting, narcissistic, abusive, controlling, deranged, psychopathic, pathological lying, money whoring, malicious BMs (did I miss any adjectives? Because all of those are our BM!), not to mention their alienated, entitled and generally messed up offspring.

I’m so glad I found this site. It is crazy trying to explain crazy to people who haven’t been through it, so I’ve stopped trying.

DH was married to BM for about 3 years, they have now been divorced for 10 years, and they have SDteen and SStween. 

DH and I got together 7 years ago, we’re married and have a Toddler together.

BM ceased contact the day DH introduced me to the kids - we had been together over a year at that point. Never mind she was remarried and already had another child with the now ex-husband #2. The alienation began hardcore at that point. She had the kids calling ex #2 daddy, started calling DH by his first name, when toddler came along, toddler (newborn baby at the time) was “NOT OUR SIBLING!!” But the usual alienation followed, DH became the worst person on the planet, in the skids eyes, we are liars, we are horrible people who want to take them away from their mother. We have been through the entire family court journey, BM invented multiple mental illnesses for DH complete with backstories! She also accused him of domestic violence, so for 3 years he had supervised visitation and when all of it was proven to be lies that she invented, did anything happen to her, was there any kind of justice, did she have to repay us for the supervisor? Of course not. And she told the kids all of the lies she told to the court which just compounds things even more. DH got kids EOW and half school vacation times.

Since then, we have endured an almost constant stream of emails and text messages full of more false accusations, gaslighting, allegations that we are emotionally and psychologically abusing the kids, thinly veiled threats to cease contact, demands to change the court orders, demands for more money, threats to go back to court, you get the idea, though probably 90% of the emails are about the almighty $$. DH ignores most emails and only responds to things that he has to, and I am sent all emails so that DH and I are on the same page. 

We have had the police come to the house 6 times in the past year to do welfare checks on the kids, courtesy of BM, we are treated like criminals by the police, who knows what she tells them. She gets the kids wound up, screaming and crying on the phone and then calls the cops.

We have good weeks and bad weeks with the kids, unfortunately the  good weeks are becoming few and far between. They turn up and it’s nothing but negative, everything we do and say is wrong, it is a constant barrage of rude, disrespectful back talk and shitty attitudes, “you’re lying! You’re a liar!” I got that because I told SD she couldn’t be at school at 8am, the school is closed and she can’t go in and I’m not leaving her on the side of the road, she says I lie about everything. SStween has to constantly be entertained or he becomes destructive and he cannot be left alone in a room with Toddler. He has intentionally hurt Toddler in the past and if he gets angry or frustrated will hit, pinch and smack Toddler. He makes a mess of the house, and goes into a rage if you even ask him to do his homework. He is failing third grade, was already held back in first grade (BM blamed this on DH and the court case). BM will not agree to SS seeing a counselor. I had recently disengaged from him completely but had to somewhat re-engage due to circumstances, I’ve really tried with him over the past 6 years but I’m done wasting my time and energy. SDteen is a straight C student in 7th grade, she half-asses everything only doing enough to call it done. This applies to everything else she does in life as well. DH makes them both read and do homework while they are here, but they do nothing at BMs house other than YouTube and video games. Neither of them are athletes and BM won’t sign them up for anything that happens on a weekend because she wants to spend her weekends out of town at her parents’ beach house with whatever guy she’s with at the moment.

As for the good weeks we do have, there are times when both SS and SD can be very sweet and loving to Toddler and SD to me as well, they will be nice to DH and it’s almost like the alienation isn’t happening. As I said though, those weeks are becoming fewer and fewer.

I fully expect them to be completely PAS’d out in the next few years, BM has told them both once they are in high school the court orders don’t apply anymore and they can decide if they want to come here or “be with her”. We have been trying to do what we can for that not to happen, but at the same time, we have rules, boundaries and we will not go Disney dad. What kind of example would that set for Toddler? Needless to say, the phrase, “Im not coming here anymore when I'm in high school!” Is heard frequently when they don’t get what they want.

What has finally brought me to post is what’s happened in the last few months. Things have gone from ok and manageable, to bad, to worse, and I just don’t see it getting better.

DH had a medical emergency, it isn’t terminal, but it wasn’t minor either. He will be back to 100% in a few months. We had skids that weekend. I picked them up from school, we went to see DH in the hospital, they know what’s going on and they were ok. BM lost her ever loving sh!t because DH didn’t tell her he was in hospital and of course if he can’t personally look after them then the kids shouldn’t be here, cue the abusive emails and text messages! Just what he needed! He ignored those. Skids were ok, overall pretty well behaved for me, kind to Toddler, no blowups from SS, I called it a win. I also really chose my battles because I was terrified, stressed beyond belief and trying not to lose it at any given moment. 

Flash forward 2 weeks, I pick the skids up from school again, DH is home from the hospital, I remind them he needs to rest and be calm, don’t ask him to do things for you right now, he can’t carry anything, be nice to your dad, etc. They were fine in the car, happy stories of what they were doing in school, asked me if DH was ok, but the moment we walked in the front door it was like a switch flipped. The negative and sh!tty attitudes kicked in and it was the weekend from hell. Nothing but back talk, rude, disrespectful, screaming at DH, me, SS pinched toddler while I was dealing with SD, I had to tell DH to go in our bedroom, take Toddler with him and lock the door to get away from them. SS was throwing and breaking things, like seriously, WTF happened in the time we didn’t see you to cause this? 

I would finally get things calmed down then BM is calling them and it starts all over again when they get off the phone. We have court orders for phone calls, we can’t stop them. I was waiting for the police to show up but fortunately they didn’t, at least I got that reprieve.

I dropped them to school that Monday and we didn’t hear a peep from BM or skids between then and the next weekend. BM didn’t answer the phone when DH tried to make his court ordered phone calls to the kids. Unfortunately the next weekend was almost an exact repeat only this time I took Toddler out for the days and left them home with DH. He said it was a nightmare and he had to ignore them most of the time so he didn’t get too stressed out. Same again though, haven’t heard a peep from any of them until today. DH gets a call from a mediator, BM has a laundry list of things she wants to change in the court orders and DH has to go to mediation to say no. We are guessing she will try to open a new court case since DH won’t agree to her demands in mediation and she’s going to try to claim some change in circumstances due to his health.

With DH’s health issues and how awful things have been with skids over the past few months (my weekend alone with them was a 1 off ok one), do we continue with this madness and stress and all this bullish!t on ourselves, on them, or do we just give up and stop trying to have a relationship with them? What happens with Toddler? Despite how they treat Toddler sometimes, Toddler loves them asks about them all the time and misses them when they’re not here.

DH hasn’t come to grips with losing them yet despite how awful they treat him. They haven’t even told him they love him in over 5 years, except when they’re trying to manipulate him to get something (which he doesn’t bite to and tells them off for). I have no doubt they will be PAS’d out in a few years, but I can’t take this every other week for that long.

Have any of your SO’s said enough’s enough? Have they decided to stop seeing their kids as opposed to the kids/BM making the decision? Did they close the door permanently? What were the effects on your family? How is your SO coping with that decision?

I get it, if the kids decide, then they’re the ones who have to live with that decision. I’m just picturing years of this ahead and I don’t know if I or DH can deal with that and how it may impact Toddler.

And if you made it through all of that, thank you, I know this was a really long rant but I had to get it out!