Can't reason with crazy BM
This is my first post here, or anywhere for that matter...really my first attempt to talk to any one about all this but I can't take it anymore. I feel like I'm gonna throw up all the time and I cry constantly.
Here is as brief of a run down of the situation as I can give.
My boyfriend was divorced a little over 4 years ago. A couple months after his divorce we started dating. His daughter was 11 at the time. I knew him from work and already knew his daughter and we got along well. His ex immediately started with the manipulation of trying to turn her kid against me which sometimes worked where she would feel guilty for having a good time with me and act out at the end of a day before going back to her moms...small stuff that we recognized and dealt with fine. About a year and half after we started dating we bought a house and we had his daughter about 80% of the time. Her mom would ask for her when it was convenient or if she wanted to show her off for something like a wedding or the like but most of the time she would drop her for a three day visit and find reasons to not come back for a week.
This went on for another year and a half during which time we put her in private school and I became a stay at home mom in order to deal with all the driving involved with private school as well as the homework assistance as she was a bit behind coming from public school.
During the first 3 years after the divorce her BM managed to get engaged twice, and move 3 different men into their apartment. She has never paid for anything for her daughter. We even went so far as to pay off a few of her credit cards when she was having a rough time so she wouldn't keep making things difficult on our kid when she was their.
So, for the last year or so we have had two days a week and every other weekend. Except that I pick her up from school everyday and have her for 2-3 hrs until they get off work. We do homework, have a snack, walk the dogs...whatever. She is a nearly straight A student now - going into 10th grade.
Her mother has decided that a guy she met last year should be her dad now and they are getting married in September. So as of right now, we have not seen her in a month.
We have no rights because my boyfriend is not her BD. He married her mother when she was 9months old and has been her dad ever since. Even though he's been there from 9 months to 15 years old, the BM tells him, your not her dad anyway and JoeSmo is going to be her dad now.
So now this child that I've been the primary caregiver to for x amount of time is just gone.
The hard part is that her mother doesn't really care about her, she hates me and she wants to have control over her ex and this is how she can to it.
She went to the school to get her records for the year and they didn't even know who she was...they called me to make sure they could release stuff to her because they had never met her...in two years she had never been to the school where her daughter goes...not for a play, not for a game, not for an awards night...nothing. This isn't about her kid at all and it hurts so bad.
I had a life with this person...she's fun and funny and quirky and someone should see that.
I know that ever since i met her all she has ever wanted was for her mom to want her. Now she thinks thats what she has and it's not real. She is going to be so let down when reality hits. All I can think is the conversations we used to have when her mom would leaver her with us for a week and not show up. She would ask me "why doesn't my mom want to come get me" it would break my heart. I'd tell her she does, it's really hard to be a single mom and she's taking care of herself so she can take care of you...crap like that but i know that's not true...she never wanted a kid.
anyway...i know there's nothing i can do...it just feels better to write it out and get it out of my head. One of the hardest things is that they decided to move less than a quarter mile from our house so I drive by them 4-6 times a day. Seeing her out in the yard or anything just kills me.
time will change things i hope...
if anyone reads this...thanks...i feel better now
Right now we don't get to
Right now we don't get to talk to her. Her mom says he can pick her up and his parents can pick her up but that I can not be around her anymore. She doesn't like that her daughter listens when she is at our house and not at hers. We have rules and we enforce them, simple ones like keep your room clean. The fact that her BM doesn't enforce rules and they have screaming matches over it makes her mom feel like she is being disrespectful at her house and not ours. Thus she wants me out of the picture.
We have been through this before and walked on eggshells around her for quite some time but this time by boyfriend had had enough. He told her we are a family. If she wants to come spend time with our family she can....if not she doesn't have to. That however means everyone, me, her grandparents...who have been her only grandparents her entire life, her three dogs, everyone.
Her mom says "well you can tell her that you don't want to see her than" He talks to his daughter and tells her she can choose to come over if she wants, but i really don't think she will go against her mom. Her mom is so vengeful that she would make her pay for it for a long time...months. Silent treatment, chores, etc.
Anyway, there are people who are trying to do anything they can to get their mothers approval well into middle age so i don't expect anymore from a teenager...she wants to be loved. I can't imagine having to do things to get my mother to "like" me. My mother would love me to pieces to matter what I do....i couldn't do anything that would change that. To think of a teenager trying everyday to figure out the one thing she can to, wear, say whatever that will make her mother stop looking at her like she's in the way or the most annoying thing in the world is an awful thought, but that's what she does everyday.
My DH had to deal with this,
My DH had to deal with this, because his middle daughter is not "his" and he has no rights to her. BM used that little girl to torture him for years.
The good news is... she's almost 16. Which means she will be driving soon.
Tell your DH to keep in touch. A note slipped in her car saying "Hey, I still love you, and if you EVER want, I'd love to see you. No questions asked. I'm proud of you, young lady." If she doesn't drive slip it in her locker at school. If you don't know which is hers, ask one of her friends. Tell Dh to send her anonymous gifts that have a hidden meaning she will "get".
Then later, maybe once she graduates and has a little more freedom, they can reconnect fully. But even if not... that young lady would know she was important, and she was loved. And that is worth everything.
This post is heart breaking
This post is heart breaking
Hopefully once she is 18 her dad can be a part of her life in a big way again.
I hate your skids BM. She sounds like a user and loser.
So sorry for your heart ache.
So sorry for your heart ache. She will be 18 soon, hopefully she will come back into your life then and BM will have no legal say.
Thanks to all who had words
Thanks to all who had words of encouragement...i try to stay glass half full but you know some days are harder than others. It's not like she's being physically abused, and the guy her mom is marrying is very nice and treats her very well. So really this is a situation of a child who is loved and wanted by too many people. Yes her mother is making it rotten, but many many children have it much much worse. If she has to go to public school next year I guess that a "first world" problem i can deal with..not ideal but she will live.
Perspective is everything.
I've been told that people come into our lives for "a reason, a season or a lifetime"
as much as I hope she's in ours for a lifetime, maybe it's one of the others. She needed a dad and my boyfriend was there for 15 years, she needed a mom and I was there for 3.5 years...maybe she has both now...who am I to say.
We are trying everyday not to force our will into the situation. It is so darn hard sometimes.
Thanks again everyone for words of strength and encouragement.
Sadly there is not much you
Sadly there is not much you or your BF can do. This young woman will need you both more than ever when she comes to the realization that to her BM she is little more than live stock.
Be accessable, and when it happens be there for her.
Don't forget to take care of yourself in all of this. Get some help, find a therapist who can help you work through it. You very likely will need the support.
Wow, sad situation! I
Wow, sad situation! I certainly can identify too. BM left her sons with my husband when the boys were 2 & 4 while she went on to start her new life. She made absolutely no contact with them the first 2 years. I cam into the picture when husband had been divorced 3 years and they had one visit with their BM at that point. We dated for something like a year before she ever knew I with husband. She was busy remarrying and having more babies.
I raised my stepsons. Like you, I was the one always there for them. After 2 years of dating we became engaged and this is when things got ugly. The oldest boy especially had a hard time with the idea that his mom and dad were not going to get back together. he didn't like the idea that she had remarried and had more children and was resentful of the children she had. Rather than identifying fully (as a child it would be difficult) with what he was feeling, he lashed out at me, blamed me, attacked me, wanted me eliminated. The boys really needed help but husband felt he could handle it. BM loved the idea that her son hated me and was doing just like your husband's ex. She would get her son on the phone and tell him to tell his dad that he wanted to live with her. She told us time and time again that she was going to seek an attorney to get full custody of her sons. Once she was remarried she wanted her sons back and seeing how much her son was struggling I really think she felt I was not being loving towards her children which was not the case at all. Then she started filling the boys's heads with lies about her past with my husband, all in an attempt to turn the boys against us.
Here was this woman that abandoned her sons, then used their emotions to get what she wanted to try and turn them against their own care-givers......you know how insane that is?
Once the boys became adults they sought out their mother, the oldest moved in with her at one point. The other married in her town and did not tell us he was getting married, later said his mom would not have wanted us in her house which I found out only the reception was in her house. The boys so wanted the love and support form the mom that turned her back on them. I was the target for their hurt. I was the person in the wrong in their eyes. BM told boys (as adult) that I should not have been the one making any decisions concerning the boys, that I should not had any authority over them , etc and the boys lapped that up. I was the one raising them, she was like the distant aunt and had very little involvement and what little involvement she had with the boys growing up was destructive but yet I was the one in the wrong. They just didn't want me there.
As an adult the oldest boy asked to meet with his dad and asked him why he stayed with me instead of his mom. My husband was married to his ex for 4 years. he married her because she was pg but soon learned he was not in love with her. husband and I just celebrated our 23 anniversary but the boys cannot accept this even still.
My counselor tells me that until the boys come to terms with the abandonment from their mother I will continue to be the target and wronged in their eyes. I took myself out of the picture years ago at the advise of my counselor. My counselor said that I could have done everyone right, I could have been the best mom ever but nothing would have ever been good enough because I was not BM and that is would they wanted in their lives.
I hope your situation does not turn out the same. I hope your SD comes to her senses and sees her BM for who she is. I would suggest seeking legal to see if there is anything that legally can be done and I woudl suggest counselor for you and your husband as this is hard to deal with emotionally.
I wish you the best!
WOW AVR1962...sounds so
WOW AVR1962...sounds so similar. I just can't believe that with all the deadbeat parents out there that these woman wouldn't be thrilled to have people that take an interest in their children and love them.
It's so depressing. I had her signed up to volunteer at the logo park in the horseback riding facility again this summer because I got her into it last year and she loved it. Then she got into singing this year and I told her I would get her singing lessons. She told her BM who immediately said she would take care of it instead. Now, instead of being home with me all day this summer, a stay at home artist who can take her to all her stuff, go on walks, go to the park, etc, she is sitting at home all day everyday by herself...forbidden to leave the house because there are no adults there (she is a pretty young 15...still doing the legos and cartoons), until one of them gets home at 5:30. All so her mom can punish me.
Another level to the depravity is the fact that my SD has 5 half brothers and sisters with her BMs first husband, her BD who she sees about twice a year (when he makes his payments). Anyway, BM would get so mad if my daughter referred to these children as her brothers or sisters and would yell at her, punish her, etc.
Well now her and the new guy are trying to have a baby....do you think she is gonna feel that way about this one...of course not...she is gonna want our daughter to act like this is her sister...which she will..she has a huge heart.
One last note...my boyfriend was married to this woman for 10 years....at which point she came to him and said, "I cheated on you for the first two years of our marriage with your best friend, but i'm not cheating now and I think you should forgive me cause i can't live with the guilt"
Everything she is doing now stems from the fact that he couldn't get past her cheating and she thinks he should have. He actually tried which is more than i would have done.
My boyfriend and our daughter have always been a pair...since he first met her she has been his whole world, he was only 20 years old and she changed his life. They have been nearly inseparable until she was about 12 and started wanting to hang with me more and do girlie things....daddy's girl all the way.
I know if we can just hang in there...this will change...the foundation is there and the BM has never been able to tolerate her this long...she only is now because the new guy is a buffer and because the revenge is motivation for her.
It still doesn't make it easier.
In the next few days we are packing up all her clothes that are things she may want now and that she would potentially grow out of if she doesn't have them. We are going to drop them off for her. I don't want her feeling like we are keeping her things hostage and I don't know what her BM has told her as far as her things are concerned. I also don't want her to come back just to get her things. We are going to have a discussion about the fact that is she wants to come to our house she is going to have to take a stand on this and let her BM know. She needs to know that not only will she not get in trouble but that we will protect her from any backlash should there be any...one benefit to living so close. Her mom has said its her decision, but we all know that is not what is being said behind closed doors so she just needs to know we are there for her.
thanks again everyone...i know I ramble but i gotta get it out..i made a therapy appointment for monday
I just had to tell
I just had to tell someone....when my boyfriend and I made the decision to sell our new car and use the money to put our girl in private school because the public school was not working for her, she was nearly flunking out. We would have hours at night spent trying to work through homework where she was crying and not getting it done and not turning it in, etc. I took this roll on and I made a point of sitting with her, getting her into books that she liked. Getting involved with her school, volunteering as room mom and working at the games, all the stuff she asked me to do I tried to do. She loved to just have someone to read her homework answers to. Just someone to listen to her, that's all she wants.
Anyway, the point is...I got her final grades from this year today and she pulled an A average for first semester and a B average for second that was an 89, one point from an A. I am so freakin proud of all her hard work....
The hard thing is her mother has already pulled her papers for school next year...even though we offered to pay for if. She will be going to the local public. Where we live, not one public school in the area meets state minimum standards so she doesn't even have the option to bus to a better school.
I really hope she can keep up the hard work.
So so so proud to...i cant tell her so i am telling all of you!!!
do you have your own kids?
do you have your own kids?
I treat sd the same way I do
I treat sd the same way I do my kids but I can not with complete all utter honesty say that I love sd with the same love that I love my own kids. I didn't carry sd inside my body for 10 months. She didn't suckle at my breast. She didn't cry for me when she was an infant and didn't feel good. Those are bonding moments that bring a love that only a mother knows. And I don't have that wroth sd, and I never will. I am not saying I don't care about sd, I do. I want the best for her, but I don't love her like my own.
Neither my BF nor myself are
Neither my BF nor myself are able to have children. He found that out while married to his ex. They did all the infertility stuff and turns out he just doesn't produces living sperm...they say due to chicken pox at 18...who knows. I found out about 2 years ago that I have crazy shriveled ovaries and have had several surgeries for polyp removal and other crap...i am considered pre-menapausal at 36. I know..TMI...the fun never stops
We've talked about fostering but in all honesty we love our step daughter and hope things eventually get worked out. Other than that, we love to take vacations and spend our money on our hobbies so we may just be too old to start over.
Have either of you looked
Have either of you looked into the term "Presumed Father"?
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/presumed-father-laws.html
Since he took the child into his home, has been doing everything for her and from what I gather, the bio dad isn't around, I don't see why presumed father laws wouldn't be a two way street.