Horrible BM
My husband and I have been married for almost 2 years and together for four. I've been in my SD life since she was 4 and I was 20. Growing up in a blended family already, I had no problem dating a man with a child. She's fun and sweet and I think I hit the jackpot with stepchildren when I look at everyone else's problem they have with theirs. It's her mother whose the problem. My DH told me stories from how his ex girlfriend and ex wife never got along because his ex girlfriend would go out of her way to be rude. I barely speak to his ex wife unless I'm picking up or dropping her off becaus DH has work. We never had problems until recently where she went to Facebook posting about how my husband has no right to claim her on taxes and no right to have custody of her. And then she went and filed taxes with her as a dependent despite it being our year occurring to court order. We've gone through the motions with that but I'm concerned that once she finds out what we had done she'll try to get sole custody of SD like she tried when she was still an infant. She went as far as to say my husband abused her and Sade. Courts threw it out because my husband was hospitalized the whole while SD was an infant and way too weak to abuse anyone. Since she did that and then this whole IRS thing, I feel like she'd do about anything. Well eventually file for custody for her when we work out our financial issues with his medical bills. And concern is that when my husband and I eventually do have children, I don't want BM whispering in SDs ear about how that child gets this and that and she doesn't. Why do BM need to be so difficult? I jinxed myself when I said I didn't have any problems with BM, huh?
yes you are stressing about
yes you are stressing about crap...
disengage from BM, get her out of your head, and live on... you and SD have a good relationship, you and DH have a good relationship... why bother changing that now..
believe me SD will turn into a brat and BM will manipulate her to be nasty towards you, know this and prepare for the day, but still simply disengage...
you married the guy not the child and not the ex wife... if she does anything against the CO - DH should solve it not you
In my experience the most
In my experience the most effective way to deal with an unreasonable blended family opposition is to aggressively confront their manipulations any time they try to manipulate. Basically it is a bring the pain to the fullest possible extent as quickly as possible model.
It works. However, it takes a significant commitment of time, of effort, and potentially of resources to effectively protect your family and your SKid's best interests from a toxic blended family opposition.
In our case I put a recorder on our home phone line (yes, back in the dark ages when people had home phones) and we recorded every call and conversation from the SpermClan. We kept a log of every face to face conversation, we saved copies of every written communication from them, we kept every medical/dental exam report documenting his condition upon return from SpermLand visitation, and we logged every story SS told about SpermClan behaviors when he would come home from visitation all juiced up by their manipulative and neglectful crap.
When they forced our hand... it all was presented in court.
We never let them off of the hook... ever .... over the entire 16+ years we lived under a CO while SS was a minor.
Handing them their asses legally, publically, and financially was my fondest hobby and I was very, very good at it.
My goal was to raise my son (SS-24) to treat people with respect but to assess their character and value them in his life accordingly. That concept was integral to preparing him to be able to protect himself from the SpermClan's manipulative crap as he got older during his CO'd visitation and as he progressed into adulthood.
He is now 24 and has no issue keeping them in check and protecting himself from their crap as an adult. They have not changed much over the decades and make periodic attempts to guilt money out of him to "help" raise his three younger also out of wedlock SpermIdiot spawned half sibs by two other baby mamas. His answer is consistently "No." followed by a dissertation of their idiot decisions that continuously keep them in a state of financial crisis.
They would try the same things with us and would use SS as a conduit to try to manipulate my wife into dropping CS, paying for their share of visitation travel costs, sending the Skid's too small clothes and shoes to SpermLand for use by the younger unrelated to us half sibs, etc.....
So, if you want to minimize the interference of this BM on your life and family and protect your Skid from her as much as possible, get busy and keep her pummeled into submission with every tool at your disposal. The best of which is very likely the CO. Learn it, love it, and live it. The side that knows it the best maintains a significant advantage over the other side.
Good luck.
My DH was always linent when
My DH was always linent when it came to the CO except the taxes since the money we received went to a college fund for SD. The court required him to have a fund. So she's basically taking from her daughter. My husband has things from when she was younger, like moldy sippy cups and the array of illnesses she seems to get. We've taken her to ER a few times and been chastised because she was close to having pneumonia (we only get her on weekends). It's frustrating. But my husband is going to follow CO to a T, including visitations and whatnot. If she ends up breaking CO by keeping her from him, he would be granted custody of her. I feel bad for hoping she does that but I feel my SD would do better in our care health wise.
You need to stop worrying
You need to stop worrying about what could happen in the future. Like Rags said, everytime the BM refuses to follow the CO then your DH needs to swiftly take care of it by filing the right paperwork whether it be via court or IRS. He has to be the one to take this on and take care of it because she is HIS problem, not yours. Don't get involved, make a point to stay way way out of it. Just know that if BM reacts badly she's going to do it regardless if you are involved or not. She knew she wasn't suppose to claim the kid this year so she's just testing your DH to see if he will let her get away or give her a reaction. He doesn't need to react other than send his copy of the CO to the IRS when he filed his taxes.
Every time Bm refuses to
Every time Bm refuses to transfer child for visitation. CALL the police and have your court order in hand at pick up point. THEY are required to enforce this court order. Look up your states codes for child custody interference and site them to the police and have them charge her with custodial interference.
Court orders are not "different" just because they are signed in Family Court. They MUST be followed with the same tenacity as a Protection Order..........think about that for a little bit.
Best advise I can offer is stay off of Facebook. I know it is hard but try.
Your DH would have to be in the clinker for a very long term for her to pull off SOLE CUSTODY and that is a stretch. One more thing is you can NOT control a bad Mom...you just can, anymore than she can control you. She is what she is and when you realize that---you will begin to live your life fully the way YOU should.
Be well.
My stepdad had that happen
My stepdad had that happen with his kids. Called police and had court order and they told him oh well, that they couldn't force her to do anything. And I also live in south so I'm sure they'd lean more towards the BM.
My DH and I aren't even
My DH and I aren't even friends with her in FB. We found this because sister in law was on her page. I just screenshot them if they're needed for what ever reason.