De inimico non loquaris sed cogities.
And then your going to be no good to anyone sweetie. I have been reading your myspace posts, have looked at all your pics,and have watched the things you vent about, the things you find joy in, and the advice you give other struggeling and discouraged sm and I KNOW you are a wonderful lady, heck I would be blessed to have a sm to my children like you. But, and here is the but...you have got to let go some. We are all aware of how much you love your ss, and it takes a strong woman with a big heart to love a schild like you love him. Your concern for his wellbeing is overwhelming, but the fact is the bm and dh are ss parents.I have a bumper sticker on my personal vehicle that says "Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad". I believe this to be the truth in reverse as well, but there will always be boundaries we should not cross, as doing so is just going to make you more stressed than you need to be. You are right to voice your opinions, you are right to discuss important issues with dh about ss wellbeing,but sweetie I have to agree on the note issue. My dh did this to me a couple of times early on and though I knew what needed to be discussed(as dh and I had previously discussed the issues I should bring up when I had ex on phone) The fact is that sometimes the ex drags the convo a different direction and you are forced to defend/explain or clarifiy what the crap the ex's ongoing diatribes are really about. Having the note put in my face was a distraction to what I was immediatly trying to deal with .These types of ex's like to change the subject off of themselves and put things back on you and if dont get your voice in somewhere(by acknowledging their b.s complaints towards us) with these people they will simply hang up in their tantrums(which ends you ability to even discuss one of your issues or they go on some kind of sreaming and ranting war,that leaves them not listening to a damn thing(issue) you need to discuss. In order to keep them on the phone and attempt to redirect the convo back to where we need to take it, we have to run their childish little verbal obstacle course. Dont be so angry with dh, I believe he knows and does care about bs, you both have just gone through court, you both have had the stress that built up to the court date, plus many other stress factors that we each deal with daily...Take the time to share with him as you have been doing before hand what dh needs to try and stay focused on when talking to bm. Maybe sit down together and write up a list of things to be discussed and keep this list in veiw(like hanging on the back of your bedroom door)somewhere dh will know where to go in order to review for himself what issues he needs to broach during the conversations with bm. What gets discussed, cross off, what does not,leave on list, this will give dh a heads up where to begin in the next conversation with bm.And if something needs to be added, then do so. Just simply ask him to go to the list on HIS OWN to review the issues everytime he has her on the phone, just as a reminder to himself.Huggggggggggssssssss sweetie.

I was reading your post sitting next to DH on the laptop. I Started laughing at the notes thing. I do the exact same thing when DH is on the phone! I think it is our controlling personalities. Just glad to know that I am not the only one that drives DH insane. Just remember that it is harder for the husbands to deal with BM's, I think. We are more detached from the situation. Just remember that BM's make it a point in life to drive us insane. Just keep doing what you are doing and caring for SS. You cannot change that woman no matter how much you try. Just remember to keep your husband as your ally and not your enemy.

Take a deep breath! If SS's foot does turn out to be something bad, then maybe that will give you some more ammo for court. Have you guys thought about trying for custody? (Oh, and BTW, DH and I had good timing too when we met ;-))

...if our DH's would just freaking do what we tell them to do?! I try to "coach" mine, too, Katrina, because he's just not good at some things and I'm maybe a little better at those things. Unfortunately, it makes him feel stupid and inferior, like he can't do anything right. Sometimes I just want to smack him and say, "Well, if you would do it right, then I wouldn't feel the need to help!" Sigh. I try to help, but what I think of as HELP, he thinks of as me taking over because he's too much of an idiot to do anything right. And it's not that, but I worked for years as a paralegal and I kind of have an idea how some things work with the legal aspect of the skid/ex-wife thing and he doesn't have that kind of experience. Instead of accepting my help, he spurns it and then has to deal with the consequences or he takes it, grudingly, and grumps about me telling him what to do. He doesn't have to do everything my way. He just has to get off his ass and do something. Blah.

~ Anne ~

"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other." -Walter Elliot