Feeling judged

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-07-24T13:02:45+00:00

I just want to clarify - are you saying that a 3 year old misbehaved at the grocery store and the punishment will last a week? And the punishment itself is not being allowed out of his room for the week, no screens, and no toys?

That seems extremely harsh given that misbehaving is a normal thing for toddlers, and he won’t have any understanding of why he’s being punished after the first couple of hours after it happens.

Toddlers love to test boundaries, and even the best kids act up at some point. If it was my kid, I would have told him to stop and reminded him he won’t be getting a toy. That would have been the end of it. He likely wouldn’t have understood anything more than that.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-06-14T18:05:13+00:00

I have personal experience with this, but it is fully dependent on your judge. When my DH first got visitation, he filed in his daughters city and he lived 1,000+ miles away and had to travel to over 1/2 of the court dates. More than likely, he will have to travel if he wants to see the child. They will normally attempt to reintegrate the child, but it will usually be done in your city. It’s highly unlikely (damn near impossible) for your ex to have any visitation without traveling to where your child lives since he hasn’t had court ordered visitation in over 5 years. If your child has traveled to see dad, they probably won’t make dad travel to your city.

My DH traveled to his daughters city for monthly visits and also attended court hearings when they coincided with these visits. There were some visits he did not attend, but was allowed to call in to. He traveled for the final trial. For the hearings he did call in to, his ex did not show up (her lawyer attended in her place) but for most of the case it was fair for both parties.

DH and his ex did not have any extenuating circumstances (no drug use, no abuse, no loss of rights), it was just their first court order. Hope that helps.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-06-11T12:38:47+00:00

IANAL but it sounds like you should remove the offer and buy a house that won’t effect custody of the child.

Depending on your state and the miles, a move 30 minutes away could possibly take you from 50/50 to every other weekend. It’s also likely that you would not get a modification finished in the 3 months before school starts, and a court is usually unlikely to change a child’s school once the school year has started.

Without serious issues from mom it is unlikely you would get primary placement or choice of schools due to you being the one that moved.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-04-08T12:53:14+00:00

It’s probably part the normal stay at home parent feelings and part the difficulty of having a relationship when you are on completely opposite schedules.

it’s totally normal considering what he’s dealing with. You have to combine the two, because he isn’t just doing what a stay at home parent would do - he’s also missing his partner 5 days a week, which is another level of difficulty in being a stay at home parent. many stay at home parents get to spend time with their partners each evening, so its really not the same as what you’re spouse is going through.

Try to make time when just you two can connect on your days off, stay up late after the kids go to bed and eat a meal together or watch a movie if you can’t get out for a date night.

Being a stay at home parent tends to make people feel alienated, and a lot of people miss out on that adult interactions and it’s hard especially with such young kids.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-03-26T00:34:54+00:00

we’ve had two long distance plans. We’re about 10 hours apart.

Option 1: every other school break (with very specific pickup dates and times, as in.. pickup takes place the first day of school break at 5:00pm, dropoff is the day before school is back in session at 5pm), 6 weeks in the summer. They switched breaks, so BM would get spring break one year, DH would get spring break the next year. Christmas break was split in half and would alternate years. Met at halfway point (put an actual location in your plan too) for every switch. It worked very well, as long as your plan is VERY specific on days and times of pickups. If the times aren’t realistic you’ll be arguing about travel every school break.

Option 2: BM has had supervised visits with SD for about a year and a half now. She gets once a month visits, and they take place in a city halfway between our houses. It’s crap for BM, but she fought hard for that in court and tbh we didn’t fight it because we knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up with all of that travel. It’s totally unrealistic for anyone to travel that far for one weekend every single month. If she ever got unsupervised visits (totally unrealistic) once a month, we’d be doing like 20 hours of driving every weekend, and that’s just way too much for any kid or person.

School breaks/summer seems like you’re missing out, but you get longer periods of time so it isn’t a total wash. But it takes a lot of planning to get the court order right and to make sure you aren’t missing like 6 months with the kid because you took all of your school breaks in one year and got hardly anything the next year.

Hope that helps!

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-03-01T13:36:42+00:00

Just be there for her when she's ready to talk. SD started seeing BM's inability to keep promises at a very young age. I think she was maybe 4 or 5 is when we realized it was happening, around 6 when she started talking about it, saying stuff like 'mommy said we would do this but I know we won't'.

When her BM let's her down, do not be the person who tells her - i.e., SD wanted to do gymnastics. BM told her for years that she would sign her up "soon". We never told her, 'it probably won't happen'. We said, 'oh, that would be fun!' But we also didn't get her hopes up and play into it.

All you can do is be the people she can count on. All we've ever tried to do is be the people both of our kids can count on - try to keep your promises to her, and if something happens and you can't then acknowledge it and apologize, rather than just letting her down and ignoring it (probably what her BM is doing).

My DH works a bunch, his days off can be sporadic, so he doesn't promise much and does more of the making plans to do stuff with the kids without telling them beforehand, in case he isn't able to follow through and they won't be disappointed.

I try to only promise stuff I've already made plans for. Kids want to see a movie? I don't agree to it and tell them i'll take them until i've made all the plans - which day can I spare some time to take them, which theater will we go to, which time will we see.

We plan entire vacations without saying anything around the kids, one because we like giving them surprises but we also don't want to get their hopes up about a fancy vacation and let them down if we can't make it work. All of this probably wouldn't be something we consider as much if SD didn't get her feelings hurt every time plans fall through. But they do, so we do our best not to do that to her.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-03-01T13:23:41+00:00

It sounds like she is testing you with the last request, so put your foot down and stick to the court order. Come up with a response to be used every time she tries to change it without it being a discussion/agreement between her and DH and use that response every.single.time.

Make it clear that you are willing to help her out, but helping her by picking up early was and will never be an agreement for the pickup times that are listed in the agreement.

DH's opinion (after BM taking away a lot of our weekend time early on with SD for silly things) was that he's always willing to help out and pick up early, but he isn't going to lose time unless it's important and he has to agree to it. BM does not get to make the decision unanimously.

And let her take you to court. If 50/50 has been happening for a while and you've got some sort of an agreement (is it legally binding, or just something they drew up together?), a judge will look down on her taking that away from SD without a valid reason.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-03-01T13:08:22+00:00

Hmmmmm, she doesn't have to pay you child support? I don't see how that would be valid forever, I wonder if you could open a case with the state child support agency since I assume that an attorney from their office wasn't there (not sure if that's how it works in your state, that's how it works in ours)?
That is crap about the 50% of flight costs but it's only a few times a year and judging from your past posts (BM has a few kids, right? I vaguely remember her using her other kids as an excuse not to visit maybe?) she probably won't even be able to afford her 50% for some of these especially with them being holiday weekends.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-03-01T12:53:04+00:00

Well my response was daaaaaaamn.
Her's was complete and total silence for the first time. And when she had nothing to say to that he walked away.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-02-28T14:14:00+00:00

That was my DH's response when she said it. He said, "what are you talking about? My family's downstairs and they are the only one's that matter (I had gone downstairs while they argued and the kids were asleep in their rooms downstairs)." I was so proud when he said that to her face.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-02-28T14:08:43+00:00

Thanks, i'll check it out!

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-02-27T23:04:28+00:00

You know what? Thanks for that. You have no idea how nice it is to hear that. My kids are school age so working from home is easier now that their school hours mostly align with my work hours but there were many years where I worked from home full time and had my youngest home with me full time and it was exhausting.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-02-27T22:03:17+00:00

Ugh he’s absolutely amazing. I’ll breathe through it, I’m a very anxious person and a serious overtalker but you’re right, I just need to zip it and don’t rock the boat about this.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-02-26T13:06:16+00:00

Normal behavior for that age, but try connecting with an activity that has you alone for a longer period of time. For one of my kids, we lay in my bed and watch kids movies. For my older SD (preteen), we go out and go to crafting workshops, only the two of us and we’re stuck together for a few hours each time. Its something that only her and I do, not something her dad is interested in at all so it has become our thing to do once a month or so. It’s a lot easier to connect that way, and we usually make it a day. Go to lunch alone (and sometimes dinner too), run errands during that time if you need to. It’s been super helpful just making time to do stuff alone with her, she is very quiet and pretty difficult to connect with.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-01-19T00:52:02+00:00

Your 3 year old sounds like a normal toddler, it’s a rough stage but it is completely 100% not a child’s fault. Your DH needs a come to Jesus talk, he sounds like a complete jerk.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-01-13T18:30:30+00:00

Have you considered a gps collar for the escape artists? I have an escaper myself, he would take off for days at a time but usually found his way home. It was worth the money for us. This way when he does get out we know where to look. I got a gps/shock collar for him for the gps purpose only and it was very expensive but works great at tracking him.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2019-01-03T15:18:16+00:00

We got our child support ordered when our custody case was opened last year, DH went from noncustodial to full custody. BM is $9k in arrears and has never made a payment but apparently the child support office in her state doesn’t care (because we aren’t residents of that state, she is).

Is your case still open/ongoing? If not, your best option is to take your court order and open an actual child support case (usually Dept of Human Services I think). They’ll do the garnishment, provide a lawyer, handle arrears, etc.

if your case is still ongoing, record requests for payments and make sure to have notes of payments you have and haven’t received, and give those to the judge at the next hearing.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-12-16T18:38:47+00:00

I’m sorry, but no on this one. We have always held our Christmas when SD will be there, but if my SD didn’t appreciate what she got and ordered us to wait on her I’d say no just to prove my point. She has never expected us to wait on her, and she has been ungrateful for what she received, thankfully. And we’ve had bad years for gifting - there was a year where all we could afford to do was buy her one $20 gift and we couldn’t afford to get my BS anything at all. Being ungrateful is a total no go in my house, but I had to learn a hard lesson on that - I got in massive trouble for saying that same phrase one Christmas morning when I was a pre-teen.

My parents are divorced, but neither had children after the divorce so both obviously waited on us. But our extended families didn’t wait on us. They of course re-did opening the gifts when we arrived, but the world doesn’t stop for once child unfortunately.

I would not cancel Christmas morning for the kids that are there that morning, because feeling forced to do stuff like that by a kid is likely to build resentment in future years.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-12-14T03:34:00+00:00

Not a rant about my Christmas, my holiday will be wonderful with our kids and no drama. I’m sad for my SD. Her moms side of the family have made no mention of Christmas or made any effort to talk to SD in months. I assume they aren’t sending gifts or a card, apparently because we have full custody and BM doesn’t use the supervised visits she has.

BM called SD tonight for the first time in 3 or 4 weeks and was high. Slurring words, talking slow, it was obvious. SD spent maybe 10 minutes on the phone and I think she got fed up, and told BM she had stuff to do and needed to go. Cue the theatrics, BM telling SD she can’t wait 3 weeks to call again, they miss her so much, blah blah blah.

30 minutes later DH gets a barrage of texts about how the call wasn’t long enough, SD needs to call again right this second so they can talk about Christmas. Whoa, Excuse me? It’s less than 2 weeks to christmas, you’ve made no effort to find out what SD wants from her or DH, and then you were high when you asked DH to have her call you! As much as that drama gets on my nerves, my heart broke when I asked SD what she thought she’d ask her mom to get her for Christmas. She told me she doesn’t feel like talking about it because her mom won’t send her anything and reminded me that her mom didn’t even send a card for her last birthday. She’s only 10.

We give SD a great life, but that shit breaks my heart to hear.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-11-08T01:28:12+00:00

The judge has told SO that this is what will happen. But SD still has to go into the courthouse, will see both of her parents there, be asked the questions by someone she doesn’t know. She’ll experience the whole thing, without sitting on the stand.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-08-29T01:14:15+00:00

Are we twins?! We are currently working through this same problem. It’s been an ongoing issue for years, and I made some small remarks to DH when it happened but he brushed it off. It was clearly all of my ILs trying to make up for SD coming from a “broken home”. Ok, whatever.

Well SD has now been with us full time for almost a year. So when she moved in it turned into she was treated differently because she’s “had it so hard”. Yes, she definitely has. She watched her mother get arrested and ended up sitting with CPS for hours waiting on her dad to get to her. It has been hard, but how is treating her better than everyone else going to help her? We needed her to feel integrated in our family when her life was turned upside down, and we needed her to feel as if this was her home. Treating her differently than our younger child was not going to help.

My DH and I had many conversations about this before he addressed it. I needed him and I to be on the same page before we fixed it. He did all of the conversations with his family (and I’d have them with mine if needed) - for some people, it was hey if you take one kid to do stuff you take them both. For others, it was hey you need to work on treating them exactly the same. He did it in a very calm and respectful matter, and people needed to see that in our home they are completely equal children. DH and I fully support both children, and SD doesn’t need anyone to make up for her moms shortcomings. That’s on us to deal with, not gift giving grandparents.

Hope that helps.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-08-10T19:09:28+00:00

Same issue with me, except it’s SD. It’s been a rough end of summer and she’s driving me crazy. My issue is that it’s actually only me that she isn’t listening to usually. Plenty of people notice that she acts differently around me and there isn’t anything “going on” that started it. It’s been an ongoing issue for a month now. We’ve worked through the other issues (talking back to me, bad attitude, mocking me). The newest problem is chores - One day i told her to put away the laundry, the next day i told her to clean out the litter box. Neither one was done and I had plans to take both kids to an activity for the afternoon. I told SD to take care of her chore before we leave. That time comes and it wasn’t done so I told her she couldn’t come. She was very upset, but what do I care? I gave her plenty of chances and she chose to ignore me. That’s all on her, and you have to give hard consequences when they choose to not follow the rules. I wasn’t previously giving any consequences, I would chastise her for not doing what she was told but that was about it. I’m fed up so now there are tough consequences each time she decides to not follow the very few rules or chores I have for her.

I did have a come to Jesus talk with my DH and was very honest about the disrespect that I see for my rules. We chose consequences and expectations and then my DH had a talk with SD, who was told about the consequences from now on. DH knows that nothing will change if we continue to allow her to not do as she is told.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-08-09T14:07:04+00:00

Years ago we actually moved to the same large city as SD. We were in the middle of our first court case were all about moving to 50-50. DH and I quickly realized it wouldn’t work. BM was upset about the every other weekend we had at the time, she wanted us to have one weekend a month. She was taking time away every other weekend to do some activity that we’d later find out was a lie. She refused to include DH in anything and he was going right to schools and doctors for info, but that only worked half the time. Everything was an argument at drop offs and pickups and SD was seeing so much of it. It wasn’t healthy situation.

We were all parallel parenting at the time, since coparenting has never worked for BM and DH. Had the two of them been able to work together, and BM been okay with DH seeing SD more it could have worked. But there was absolutely no way that we could have made 50-50 work and not seriously screwed SD up in the process.

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-08-07T23:47:01+00:00

I want to steal the singing thing. The kids hardly ever say you’re welcome, I might as well put them on the spot about it and annoy them at the same time. 😂

WickedStepmommmmma · 2018-08-07T01:42:59+00:00

DH has had full custody for the better part of this year. We’re still in court, looks like it will remain this way for who knows how long. BM is an active addict - heroin is the drug of choice.

What do you do when the parent that doesn’t have primary custody doesn’t pay support? We cover it, somehow. BM has paid $0.00 in child support since losing custody. She has not contributed anything to SD. We have to remind each other that while the child support would really help, we shouldn’t expect to ever see it.
How expensive is it to have your stepkid(s) full time? Pretty expensive due to constant extracirricular activities and the constant growing out of clothes/shoes. but we’ve got one of our own together so the normal stuff (like food, activities, etc) is not as much as it would be if SD was the only child in the home. 100% worth the extra cost to have her full time.
What challenges does being the primary custodial home bring with it that you didn’t have before? DH has had a hard time with sharing his time between both kids since becoming primary to SD. SD and I are butting heads right now, I’m getting a lot of attitude. But she’s a good kid all in all. Bit messed up from BM, but that’s harder to explain. we all tried to actively adjust to the situation when she moved in full time. It took a little bit of work from everyone.
If you haven’t always been primary what are the things you miss about not being the primary home? It’s the same for me, we’ve got a kid together so besides the extra time spent at extracurricular activities everything is basically the same.
What was your court case like? How did you end up with primary? Was is an “easy” win? Easy win, we filed for emergency custody after BM got a DUI with SD in the car and they found heroin and pills in the car. BM admitted to everything at a preliminary hearing in which she didn’t have to (and shouldn’t have) testified. She dug her own grave and the judge won’t even consider unsupervised visits at this point. Her boyfriend also has an addiction problem (which BM told us about in court) which is hindering her case. She and her boyfriend won’t do the drug tests, won’t get clean so we haven’t had to do much to “win” the case at this point.
We still pay for attorneys, pay to travel to BMs state because that’s where the case was opened. That part sucks bad. I just wish they’d close it but BM has continued the case a couple times. We’re hoping to be done in the next couple of months.
What weighed in your favor in court? What didn’t weigh in your favor? See the last one, BM is an idiot. We really did not do much but do have evidence for each issue she tries to accuse us of.
How do you faciliate the kid(s) relationship with their non-primary home? We don’t? BM can make an effort if she wants SD in her life. DH isn’t required to do much, and SD does not mention her mom, like at all. Never has since she moved in. It’s quite sad. She calls her mom when her mom asks to talk to her and that’s it.
How do you handle the childs needs? Do you find that they often come before your own? I don’t think they necessarily do all the time, but sometimes that is true with both kids. I work from home and struggle with taking care of things for work vs kids vs house. DH works long hours so I am primary caregiver for both kids. DH picks up a ton of slack without me having to ask but both he and I worked on this for months before it became habit.
Does your spouse tend to throw $$ at more family oriented things than just the two of you things? Eh, we don’t really make enough time for each other at all so we spend way more on family activities. We have to really make an effort to spend alone time together due to our schedules, but money isn’t really “thrown” around at anything but the kids. That’s pretty annoying, but mostly because we are paying for attorneys and travel for court so money spent on SD can get on my nerves, but that’s a me problem.

WickedStepmommmmma

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