My husband has a nine year old son from his prior marriage. Together we have a four month old. My husband has a rotating visitation schedule with the BM (every other weekend and holiday and every thursday night) with a first right of refusal-meaning that if the parent of the child cannot be with him for over 5 hours then that parent has to give the other parent an option to have their child with them.

My husband works in an environment where his schedule is very erratic and changes constantly working at all hours of the night, weekends and holidays. He cannot keep up to the visitation schedule and expects me to pick up where he cannot. For example: He is to pick up his son tonight at 6pm and keep him overnight until tomorrow at 6pm. Well, my husband works from noon today until 3am and he expects me to pick up his son at the BM's house and keep him overnight. My husband will get in at 3am, sleep until 11am tomorrow and then by the time his son goes home he would have only spent a few hours with him. What is the point when he is not spending time with his son?

My husband gets upset when the BM does not abide by the "first right of refusal" and sends his son off to the grandparents while she works. But when it is my husband's turn to follow the rules he expects me to lie about it and take on full responsibility for his son. I help him with his homework, take him and pick him up from school, schedule doc's visits for him, etc. He takes NO responsibility at all for him. Again, my husband thinks because I don't work an actual job that I am a stay at home mom and can do all of this. I have a better relationship with his son than he does! But my husband tells me that he works a lot and pays all the bills (mind you I have school loans, scholorships and financial aid coming in and earn just as much going to school as I would working part time)so it is my duty to help him out. He just wants to go to work and not worry about the house stuff, come home be served his meals. He thinks because he makes 8,000 a month that it is ok to expect this.

Now, I love my step son however, I go to school full time, take care of our 4 month old, our dog, the house and his son. I clean up after all of them, take care of myself and have a full time schedule with school. I am my husband's secretary. I take care of EVERYTHING for him down to making his appointments, telling him what days he has his son because he doesn't even know his own visitation schedule, replacing his used razors with new ones, picking up and dropping off his drycleaning etc.

He threatens me that if I cannot help him out and continue to do my "part" then I will have to put my son in a daycare, quit school, and go back to work (at 10/hour)and I only have a h.s. diploma. ALL of my family is out of state and I have no one here to help me. I wanted to hire a nanny to watch our son so I can go to school but then he places strong restrictions on that which only leaves me to hire help to come to our house which is so expensive. Then he complains about the money being spent if I hire someone to come to the house!

Ugh, So I need an opinion from the outside as to what to do about all of this. I did not sign up for this and I feel like I need to go to school and get my education so I can work and find a job that pays better than 10/hour to help support us. (mind you my husband lost his job four years ago and it was I who set school aside to work full time to support us until he got back on his feet)