If you could go back in time, knowing what you know now

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Hi there

I am new here, but I have been reading a lot of your posts and I get the sense that there is a large variety of family structures here. I was hoping to put something out there to see if you could go back in time to the beginning of your step family situation(I am at the beginning of mine) if there are specific things you would change. Here they go:

1. The biomom rebels against any evidence that I exist. If her kid talks about me, she gets a time out. If I go to drop off and pick ups, she begins to pay too much attention to me and she starts making attacks on my family, like false accusations. She thinks I should not behave like a parent and tells her child(who is 4) that she is her REAL parent. However, her own new husband is involved in everything and even spanks the child. Clearly there is a double standard.

Speaking from experience, if you were me, would you stand back as much as possible to keep biomom happy and out of your hair and thus stop going to drop off and pick ups or other things that make her sense your existence, or would you feel that she will be succeeding at bullying you and thus would you continue on in your life as your family feels comfortable?

2. Bio mom makes false accusations towards anyone she doesn't like or anyone who is behaving in a way that she is trying to control. Do you call the police and start documenting it that way or what?

3. This one is controversial. I've been in step kid's life since she was just 1 years old. She does not know life without me. My default behaviour with her is to always treat her like she is my child and with love. My instinct often times is to reject her though, because she is something else's kid. There are times when even her breath in my house disgusts me because she belongs to another woman. I feel driven to remove her from my home, as I read a lot of you feel also. But other times it is the opposite where I love her and truly value her as my own child. Again though, my default is to always accept and love.

My question is, do you wish, given your experience now with your step child as she is older, do you wish that you chose to always show her love and always treat her like your child and always embrace her even though it might have felt 'natural'? In some ways I don't want her to feel like a real part of my family. I dont want her to come here and feel like her daddy is more hers because she was there first before me. I dont want her to feel like she belongs equally with the children I have with my husband(we have 2 together). I dont want her to feel equal to our family here.

Or do you wish that you had always worked to include her and to make sure of the opposite - that she belongs here, that this is her real home, that her and her dad are tightly bonded forever, that her and her sisters are tightly bonded forever, that her and I are also. That she is treated and valued the same in our home as she is in her mother's home. That she is an absolute equal who I parent.

I worry. I feel like because the biomom works every week to express to the child that i am not a 'real' parent('real' is a new word she is trying out with the kid - it is confusing the hell out of her), that all of my efforts to include her will be wasted. I anticipate a lot of stress. I feel like I could just treat her like the biodad's weekend visitor and stay out of it. But I realize this is an essential time to form a parental bond with her. I feel like if I give in to my randomf eelings about wanting to push her away, that one day it will happen(she will be pushed away and I will have lost her to the 'evil side'(biomom's slander). I feel like it is important to sustain our bond. She is very attached to me and loves me dearly, but again, the biomom attacks this relentlessly. So far all it is seeming to do is making the child go in the opposite direction - she calls me mom and tells me she wishes her mom would stop telling her to do things... she says she is confused about what is a joke and what is real and that her mom keeps making her say 'jokes' to people that turn out to be false allegations towards us(see the dangerousness of our situation?). But I guess it wont matter for the biomom. She will do what she is going to do regardless. I am being bullied into a behaviour that she prefers. And I feel like it is working.

Would you let go of her, or would you sustain the healthy bond?

Thank you all kindly.

How would you have done that

How would you have done that - going hard???

How though? How do you come

How though? How do you come at her hard and fast to protect your nation? If i knew how, I likely would!

We are in the process of setting up the child into therapy. We feel this might give a chance of the mother being accountable for her brainwashing and such. Only issue: we need her PERMISSION as a joint custodian to do so. Family services says they will take her to court if she fights it. I worry.

By not moving an inch just

By not moving an inch just because she threatens to hold visitation or any other form of blackmail, emotional or tangible, against you. And if she tries, beating her to a pulp with the court order, filing as many contempt charges as you need against her for her to get the picture. Anything that is deemed unfair or her trying to play games with you is met with silence, ignore, or a sharp shut down of the "Fuck no, and fuck you" variety.

DH and I learned this early. You don't negotiate with terrorists.

Any bad rumors or stories that other people are drinking in are met with "Oh... I'm not surprised BM said that... she has a history of mental illness and raging jealousy issues... poor thing. It's okay though, we don't really pay it any mind." so that anyone who even thinks about believing her will feel stupid and taken advantage of.

The road my DH took is that he wants to protect this family (me, him, our kids) at any cost, even if it means ending up not having a relationship with his kid. He will (or so he says) have to problem shutting the kid out of our lives if the kid tries to make it hell.

Anyone who tries to give him/us advice are met with "This is none of your business."

He doesn't respond to anything that doesn't require his immediate attention (like medical emergencies or the CS check not going through.)

Also by looking at everything BM does as having an ulterior motive. And refusing to play along just on optimism.

The problem for us is that my

The problem for us is that my husband is a huge coward, and very very weak in the face of stress. He is very naiive and doesn't seem to get that he needs to watch his ass.

When I met him, he was still his ex's slave. He was such a push over and she totally had taken advantage of him. His needs were non existent and he had no life because he was doing everything for her and for the kid while she partied every night.

After much pointing out things and counseling etc he started to say no to her, and then she becmae nuts, withholding the kid, trying to ruin his life. Then she started trying to screw with me and my family, and I said either you take her to court and get this sorted out or im gone. He took her to court. i had to write every last thing int he court paper because when he wrote it it looked like a 10 year old wrote it: he had no grasp of his needs and how they were being violated. It was strange.. like he had battered wife syndrome or something but in a male. When he served the papers, the ex filed a false report and said he molested his daughter. This case was closed same day after they interviewed him, but it damaged him on a deep level. Its been over a year and he still needs more therapy. He ended up giving her everything she wanted in court because it was too stressful for him with dealing with her false accusations.

Now although they share custody, he gave her everything. He couldn't fight it anymore because he was so immobilized by stress. He had so much good proof about her character and false accusations and all this stuff... proof that she is mentally abusive to her child... such a strong case... but the whole time before court he whined and cried and stressed that he never wanted to take her to court and felt I 'made' him. I was like, dude, chick is running your life and abusing you and your kid, and that's ok with you?? That's fine by me, but I will not enter a relationship with a man who allows this. Ultimately, he chose to keep me around and protection was a price to pay.

It sounds like your husband is very protective of you and yuor family. This is not the case with us. Mine has to be forced to do everything. doesnt have one original protective thought in his head.

When push came to shove, he just signed what she gave him. She worded the access all weird too so that you couldnt understand that she would have her for a solid week straight, and after he realized this he still refused to go back to court to fix this. She abuses her kid - why is he okay with this?? And she added all this other stuff in there that gave her a lot of power... and now that he has gone through therapy, and still the biomom got WORSE in terms of abuse and false accusations after getting her way in court, he still wont deal with it. He refuses to take her back to court because he is so afraid of what happened before. he knows there will be plenty of false allegations.

I WISH he would learn to assume the biomom always has an ulterior motive. This is always me - it;s exhausting doing it alone. Because after I do it, and figure somethign protective out, I have to do all the work to protect us because my husband doesn't understand how.

We are down to only bare - minimum communication, which is great. But biomom is mad about this recent decision and is trying to unload consequences(withholding the clothes we send child over in, sending chokable things in her daughters SHOES for our baby to choke on, no longer sending her health card, etc).

Everything else though is still such a struggle. When I try to talk about it he only comes up with a few things that he has done which were helpful, rather than looking at his behaviour as very passive and very destructive for everyone around in.

In a way I feel like he doesn't deserve to have a new family. He doesn't want to take responsibility for his past, and lets me deal with it.

I am so jealous that the

I am so jealous that the biomom is out of your life. You are so lucky.
were you in the child's life from birth?

With all the interference

With all the interference from another selfish Bm, I would say just be a friend to your skids, tell them you are not trying to be their Mum, but you like them and want to be a friend to them, why a mother would put their children into such a confusing situation I don't know, I would stay out of Bm's way at all times, I expect the selfish cow is jealous and is using her own children to get at you, you can't control her behaviour but you can control how you feel about her, think of her as a crazy, pitiable women, she really is'nt worth your time and energy, with practice you can stop her effecting you, in essence you disengage from her, when my Bf's ex caused us problems, it did make me resent my Sd even though I knew it was'nt far, so I know how you feel, you sound like a kind woman who cares for her skids, please don't let this crazy woman spoil life for you and please never let her know that shes bothers you, you are the better person.

I feel like I should stay

I feel like I should stay 'behind the scenes', and this is what I am doing now. The birth mom though invents things in her own head that she 'suspects' or 'feels' happen in our home, which don't. She thinks I am like all over her kid and trying to steal her away. I do have a good bond with the child. This makes the mom psycho angry.
But I also feel staying behind the scenes makes the mom feel like her bullying is working and might reinforce it. I don't want to have to stay behind any scenes anywhere. I am staying away from drop offs for now because I dont want any false allegations. The dad brings the child's grandmother with him as a whitness that he is never late(she pretends he is late etc). Lots of false allegations.

What a bitch, please just

What a bitch, please just stay away from her, seeing you will just make her worse, in your home, you must do as you wish, remember your Sd is used to being close to you, so giving in to Bms pressure is not fair to Sd, your Sd is lucky to have you, at least she has a sane woman as a good example, as she gets older she will realise just how awful her mother is, that will be sad, I wish that this woman would see the error of her ways, so stay strong, don't let this cow bother you, as I said before she must be so jealous, the best way to deal with her is to live a happy life with your family.

Thank you, you have good

Thank you, you have good advice to offer. In my home I can do whatever I want and she has no access to make judgments. She's only got her imagination. However, I am a very confidant, successful, and good looking woman. Her daughter is crazy about me. She tells me I look like mermaid and that she loves me. The biomom also really wanted to get back with my man at several points, but he wouldn't do it. So there's that she lost the man she wanted too. I've got it all in her opinion. So I can see why seeing me drives her nuts. Especially that her daughter comes running in to my arms and has to be told to say bye to her.

The worry and current problem is that she will stop at nothing to destroy it all for us.
FML.