Goldie I feel really bad for your SS. I know you keep saying that he agreed to the move, he's a child he didn't necessarily know what that means. You can't move back and that is what it is but do not keep holding up the fact that you had his approval as if it means something. Adults struggle with agreements they made that they didn't understand, so he gets a pass for giving you his blessing and not realizing how much it would suck.

I will agree with your SS that spending hours driving every weekend is a waste of time. I used to commute 1.5 hours each way to work and it felt like I was wasting my life during that commute. That isn't your fault, but I see what he is saying about that not being quality time. I also see what he is saying about your kids having it better than he does. They do have it better than him. They get to be at their own home every weekend, they get to be with his dad (which he thinks is the prize) and they get to live their life however they want while he doesn't get that freedom. His father up and moved far away without him. His mother isn't an involved parent. So yeah he gets to think it's unfair and sucky, because it is.

But life is unfair. And hopefully the therapist can help him process that he will never have everything others have, and there will be people in his life who just have it better than he does, his step siblings for example, or the Gates children or the Hiltons. Life will not be fair to him, it isn't to anyone. Hopefully he will learn to cope with that reality. His dad moved away, that means this kid's only options are 1) see him less 2) waste hours driving each weekend to see him. And the therapist can help him realize that being upset about it doesn't change the reality. The life he led previously is gone, there are no 50/50s anymore. There are no 7 days with dad until breaks and summers, so he needs to adjust.

”SS said that both BM and DH are happy with their new families and SS has no choice but to show up and do whatever our families want. I felt pretty sad for SS.”

This is completely false though from what you've been saying. SS dictates the entire weekend down to his time with the puppy and what is made for dinner.

DH is just negotiating with a terrorist and it sounds like that therapist played it cool to get them to come back.

Why did DH move away from his son. Especially as involved as he was? I could NEVER do that.

I am not taking up for SS but could you imagine the problems your kids would have if they only got to see you 2 days a week? How would YOU feel if you only got 2 days a week to see your kids?

Edit to add...is there any way you can move back to be closer to SS?

You would be OK with seeing your kids on that schedule or being in a car that long EVERY weekend and one day a week? I think not. Neither would your kids. SS sees this as DH moved away and is now a parent to your kids. And it is true basically.

There is no way DH will be able to keep up with this for long.

Hi Goldie,

I think it's going to take time and it might get worse before it gets better, but at least there's a positive here - they went to their first therapy session! Due to the complexities in this situation, I think therapy is the only shot you guys have at solving this all, especially because DH can't see past his guilt in order to manage SS. Hopefully this therapist will be able to not only provide SS with the tools to cope but also provide DH the tools to parent. If not, then I also agree with the others that DH might need his own therapist but I'd wait a bit to see how this therapist works out.

I'm sorry that a lot of people give you a hard time on this forum. It's uncalled for and makes me embarrassed to be part of the community. I think out of most here, you have the most serious problems in which need appropriate and realistic solutions, not this petty bullsh*t. Might I suggest that you post blogs instead of posting on the forums. When you post blogs, you can delete other people's comments. I'd also contact Dawn, the site moderator, and ask her for solutions when you are feeling harassed by certain members. She might have some creative options for you.

Good luck and keep posting. I read your posts with an open mind but haven't posted a lot as I don't have much to offer. I think this is just a really complex and difficult situation and it simply sucks.

DH needs to find a way to move back. Somehow. Anything is possible if he really wants it. Please read imasmom post and take it to heart. She is right on the money.

I feel really bad for your SS.

I don't understand why the dad didn't insist on his son moving with him if he is the more involved parent? I know the kid is 13 but he's still being taken to the movies to see Disney cartoons for pete's sake. It sounds like the BM was open to the kid moving since he was given a choice.

Where are the adults in this picture and who has the balls in this situation other than this toxic, entitled, manipulative little brat POS crotch dropping punk?

Time for everyone and I mean everyone to stop catering to this little POS kid. Each and every time he gets catered to out of guilt instead of turned over a saw horse in the wood shed for a meeting between the razor strop and his ass only enables his bullshit and reinforces that he has everyone in the picture by the short and curlies and controls their balls.

Grrrrrr!!! If this kid was in my world he would be one miserable little waste of skin. You and DH are only showing DS and DD that toxic bullshit is rewarded while appropriate behavior is not worth the effort. Time to make this POS an example and teach him some raw and completely unpleasant facts about the consequences of his manipulative crap.

And this pseudo-science syndrome of the month idiot "therapist"...... fire that useless POS and find one with half a brain and some testicles. Male or female makes no difference, just one who has some professional gonads and will not pull this touchy feely waste of time enabling bullshit that only empowers this kid to continue his manipulative crap. Instead of everyone in the picture being miserable because of this little fuck trophy it is time for him to be the miserable one and everyone else to be happy. He can play ball or he can be miserable and it needs to be a very tight box that he is kept in regarding how much of him will be tolerated.

Bring the pain and bare his bratty ass immediately and publically each and every time he so much as thinks about whining, pouting, or doing anything other than exactly what he is told when he is told to do it. Kid love standing in the back of the theater with their noses in a corner or in a restaurant with their noses in a corner while everyone else in the family is enjoying their meal. Show him the difference between how well behaved non-manipulative and non-bratty children enjoy life and how he experiences abject misery in relation to his crap behavior. He will learn or he will at least just shut up and be stone-faced. Either way is an improvement over his current state of having no redeeming qualities what-so-ever.

No more eating in his room instead of eating what is served at the table with the rest of the family, no more sandwiches if he doesn’t like what is prepared. He eats it or he goes hungry. If he so much as whines or pouts ….. razor strop meet kid ass. No more rewarding him with movies when he pouts over not getting what he wants. No more feeling sorry for him for anything at any time for any reason. Sorry is between shit and syphilis in the dictionary and he probably does not want either of those so the only sorry in the picture should be what he feels when his mopey, pouty, manipulative kid ass is getting smoked by the razor strop.

Holy crap this kid pisses me off.

Ship his ass off to Military School where the young cadet leaders will chew him up and spit him out. They love whiney little brats like your skid and they eat them for a mid-morning snack.

Abject misery is the order of the day for this kid until he pulls his head out of his butt. No one should give one pico-second of thought to him until he learns that he either catches a clue or he suffers while everyone else is enjoying life around him.

You and DH need to knock of the guilt and grow the hell up or this kid is a lost cause already and your own will not be far behind. No more getting to decide how often he comes, for how long, or who he lives with. HE is told, he complies, or he receives consequences. Yes, divorce is hard, families sometimes have to move and when that happens one or more family members may not like it. But... tough shit. Suck it up, and get with the program or by miserable. Quit trying to understand this crap from this kid, set the rules of behavior, enforce the rules, and stick with the program rather than being his beck-and-call bitches any time he pouts, whines, cries, etc.....

IMHO of course.
Grrrrrrr!

And one more thing... slamming doors in anger or frustration? That was a near death sentence in my parents home when we were growing up. Other than the occasional spanking (well deserved) our father never hit me or my brothers. Neither did our mom. I came the closest. I was in my early teens and mom had been riding me pretty hard because of my attitude. The straw that broke the camel’s back on a long tense day between mom and I was dinner. She snapped at me at dinner, I snapped back, I was told to leave the table and go to my room. I stood up, a little too firmly threw my fork on my plate (bad move), shoved my chair under the table a little too hard (another bad move), stomped down the hallway (ditto on the previous bad moves), and slammed the bedroom door of the room that my little brother and I shared (that was the culminating bad move). I heard a fork tink on a plate, a chair scoot out from the table, firm footsteps coming down the hall, my door flew open and the true extent of my bad choices came to play. I had climbed onto my top bunk (in hind sight I should have flopped on my little brother's bottom bunk). Dad firmly removed me from my bunk, thumped me onto the floor, straddled my chest on his knees and punched the hard wood floor next to my head and said "If you were not a kid I would kick your ass. You never speak to my wife in that manner, you never disrespect the home that your mom and I work hard to provide, and you never act that way in front of your little brother do you get my message young man?" followed by another fist to the floor next to my head and a firm shove of my chest as he stood up. He then calmly closed the door, walked down the hallway, pulled out his chair, and finished his dinner.

I learned my lesson.

The same lesson your Skid desperately needs.

If any adult in his life loves this kid they need to step up and jerk a knot in his tail so tight that he will not be able to shit a mustard seed without asking for someone to loosen the knot.

Again, IMHO of course.

This kid really chaps my ass!!!

I have to ask, op, when you asked your as if it was ok with him that you moved, would you have seriously not have moved if he had been against it at the time?

If so - why are you upset that he now believes he has an adult say in where you live and how you run your lives?

If not - then why ask at all? To alleviate any guilt that resulted?

It is abusive to put a child in the middle of an adult decision like that. And it's equally abusive to throw that back into his face when things didn't turn out as he'd envisioned. He didn't understand the full consequences of what he was agreeing to - because he's a kid.

Also, bearing the fact that your husband and stepson are going through some major issues, do you think you could pull an Elsa and just let frickin' Kung Foo Panda-gate go? This is why a lot of posters have difficulty taking you seriously - your words say you feel bad and care about your stepsons's feelings, but your outrage over him "spoiling" a third-rate kid's cartoon suggests otherwise.

Rags I have been reading this forum for over 5 years and all I want to say is I agree 100% with everything you have said in this post.....Rags for president.....