My SD 9 has lived with my husband and I for almost 2 years. Her mom was strung out really bad and eventually was found guilty of 5 different possession with intent to sell charges. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison. However 18 of those years were suspended, she will get out of jail in Nov. My husband has joint custody but it is listed with the BM has having physical custody. My husband and I are not trying to keep my SD away from BM but we want to protect her from the craziness that BM brings. Since being with us, her grades and behaviors have drastically improved. BM loves her daughter but has put SD in some horrible situations throughout her short life. Will a motion to amend custody requesting physical custody be awarded to my husband fix this situation? Should we file for sole custody? Is there anyway for me as her step mom to be included on custody to help with medical/school decisions? Advice please
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Sooo I need some advice.. for the last 3 years baby mama has been terrible when it came to communication, visitation, and child support. She has told us on multiple occasions I was irrelevant to her and she won't ever acknowledge me I. Her daughter's life... I was fine with that. Just recently she sent us a message asking to speak with my at our next visitation that she wanted is to apologize and start over. So we agreed to sit and hear her out. She apologized for everything and said she wanted to build a relationship with me to have a better foundation for my step daughter.. we exchanged numbers we've talked as what seemed like friends, and she's invited us out, shes offered to hang out and so on.. as much as I love how great this seems and how this could only mean food things for us and visitation with my step daughter I'm hesitant to think she has other plans in mind... She's opened up alot to us on a personal level, and we are seeing my step daughter more, so i don't see what real benefit she's getting..so I am super confused on how to react to this new relationship..
Ok so here's the deal my husband parents are divorced and are both remarried. On my husbands side alone my step son has a Granny, Grandpa, Meme, Papaw (name), then great grand parents Grandma (last name), Grandpa (last name). On BM side he has a Nana and a Papaw (straight Papaw no name added) and his great grand parents but I can't remember what he calls them. My stepson has been calling my parents Papaw (name), and Gigi. No big deal everyone has a name right? WRONG! I'm 9 months pregnant with my parents first grand child and my first child. From the start my mom has hated Gigi after going through everything we could think of that's the only one that she remotely considered because frankly everything else was taken and now that's what my step son knows her as. My dad it's not so bad he's just Papaw (name) and that's fine and dandy. This may be weird but I'm an animal person and when I used to take my dogs over I would refer to my parents as Nana and Papaw never really thought anything of it I never wanted real kids anyway, then bam I met my husband 2 1/2 years ago fell in love with him and his little dude and I'm now preggers. My mom made a comment last night that she doesn't like Gigi and all of the good names are taken and that she loves my stepson very much (which she does no doubt about that) but this is her first grand baby and never thought she would be called Gigi she would prefer Nana or something different. WHAT DO I DO?!?!?! I don't want to confuse the poor kid anymore I mean he's just 4. However I understand how my mom feels also any advise? Please help my baby is due like any day and I know she won't be speaking any time soon but really feel if we are gonna change a name it needs to be quick. Thanks in advance!
It is good to listen to what children want, but what they want is not always best or realistic. You should not let her stay in your home. She is an adult and it is not your responsibility to plan her accommodations for her visit. You could be nice and recommend a couple of hotels or a good travel booking website, be courteous but don't get overly involved in the details. Your focus should be more on SD's schedule for the visit, when will she be picked up and dropped off, etc...
URGENT ADVICE NEEDED!!!!!
My SD6 is failing first grade. At the beginning of the school year she was issued a homework book that she is supposed to work in every day, for it to be turned in on Thursdays & graded. It was collected after 5 months, right before Christmas break. We seen this book less than 10 times - NO WORK EVER COMPLETED except for what we got her to do. That is pretty much 5 months worth of failed homework grades. Now that it is the new school year, she was issued a new book. We did not see it for the first time until yesterday. The first weeks worth of work was incomplete as usual. We will spend the next 4 days working with her to get her a head so (and will continue to do so) so she receives as much extra credit as possible the remainder of the school year. Has anyone else had a similar issue and did your SK's teacher compromise with you in order to make sure they were still receiving their grade & their education? Because every time she is at "mom's" no work is done! NO ONE helps her, no one seems to care she is failing at their other home. Second problem is - how did you handle your SK coming from a home with no rules, only to come to your house to act out? And once you instill rules & regulations into their heads the moment they go back to BM's it is all blown out one ear leaving us to start over & deal with temper tantrums & acting out like they never learned anything?! HELP PLEASE. We are at our wits end!! -ANON
I'm looking for any and all advice. This is for a friend.
My friend has a 13 year old step daughter. Her husband, the step daughter's dad, recently got full custody (legal and physical). Long story short, her mom is incarcerated for drugs and she also let their daughter miss a lot of school. Step daughter's grandfather (mom's dad) threatened my friend's husband and told him that he will be taking him to court for visitation. I don't know if he will/can be granted grandparents rights because her mom still technically gets visitation (supervised). Either way... we've come to an interesting finding. The grandfather's soon to be ex messaged my friend and told her about all the evil scheming going on in that family. She said that they tell the girl to pretend that she is sick and miss school so that they can use it against them. They've made her write a letter to the judge to say she wants to live with them. They say that they are going to buy her a bunch of things like clothes, etc and say that they have to provide it because her dad can't. They reward her keeping quiet by not making her do chores and buying her "stuff." They also bought her a phone and iPad and are trying to use that against her dad, too. They tell her to put a lock on the phone and delete any texts they exchange. What I told my friend - get a no contact order against the grandfather for the time being. This is clearly mental abuse/brainwashing. Next, send the phone and iPad back to her grandfather via certified mail. Then, get her into counseling. I told her to approach her step from a place of love, and not to lose her cool and get upset because that will only push her away. Also, the grandfather a couple months ago poured anti freeze into their gas tank and they had to pay nearly 600 to get it fixed. Her grandfather also buys her Victoria Secret underwear and bras... I understand it's nice to have underwear that make you feel confident, but from what I understand, this stuff is a little "too sexy" for a 13 year old...... Anyways, ladies, any advice is appreciated .
How old is old enough to leave a child home alone? We just found out that sd10 stays home alone past 9pm once she falls asleep so that bm can go out to go to the 'gym'. We are extremely concerned about this news, but don't know what to do with this info since we saw it on her private facebook account! Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Side note- Sd10 is not mature, and not responsible..typical 10 year old girl, maybe even a bit more immature than most. Thank you!
I've been with my husband for six years & have gotten really close with his daughter, my stepdaughter over the years, through deployments I've moved up to where her mom was & she was super nice, she let my stepdaughter live with me while I was up there. It was cordial with my stepdaughters mom , but we were by no means hanging out together. & she respected that. Anyways, since my husband got back from deployment & we moved away, we found out that her mom was in an abusive relationship with multiple boys, so we sat down & said that we need to have my stepdaughter for a while until you get your feet on the ground. She said no way, so we had court papers filed & we had a strong case bc my stepdaughter saw all the abuse & was even involved with its so when her mom found out what we were doing she said my stepdaughter could move down to school with us & stay the summer, & all we care about was my stepdaughters safety, not custody or child support, so we said okay & then when school came around & my stepdaughter still wanted to live with us she was like um no she can't live there, my husband was going on underways & so she didn't want my stepdaughter to have to live with me (he was gonna be gone a total of two months the whole school year) well, my stepdaughter lived with me five days a week for a year so I don't see the problem? So after that we just dropped it bc we wanted to still be able to contact the daughter. Well the daughters mom called up my husband & asked if she could move down here & create a life here with us & he said he'd love to have his daughter here, but we're not interested in being a "family" with you to where you come over multiple times a week for dinner & for us to always be there for you. We'll always be there for the daughter, but not you. So she acted like it didn't bother her, & ever since then, she's tried to cause problems in mine & my husbands relationship & has kept my stepdaughter from talking to me. I've tried calling/texting 25 times the past month & a half & have received nothing back, I miss my stepdaughter & idk what to do. She's 8 so I've known her since she was two. I love her like my own. I'd like to think after 7 years she'd be over him... Could I be wrong? Idk why she's salty about us wanting to be there for my stepdaughter but not wanting to have play dates with her other kids or hangout like we're a family. I need advice. Thank you
I have a friend who is also a stepmom. She's older and the kids are in their mid-20s to mid-30s. I was venting the other day, and she gave me a big piece of advice -- she said basically do not get over involved, do not get as emotionally attached as you want to, that there was little you could really do anyway and she would've been a lot happier during that whole time if she'd done those things. Her own step kids have essentially gone over to the crazy side and won't talk to their father now anyway, despite everything she did to help a high conflict situation -- they still want BM's attention and seek it out that way. So I guess I'm just wondering -- at what point is it OK to pull that trigger and just disengage from it? What does that even look like? I don't want to hide in my bedroom when the step kids come over or avoid all their activities with BM present. I don't want a divorce, either, and I think my relationship with DH is very good, though I don't think he fully understands what it's like to be a real stepparent. Have any of you just disengaged? Advice? Thoughts on what my friend said? I'm really tired of the effort it takes to pretend it doesn't hurt.
My main question, who here has gone to court without a lawyer and your husband actually got what he wanted and HOW!!??
We only get my step daughter two days a week, in the middle of the week, and my husband is seriously the best dad in the world. His ex got 5 days when they went to court the last two times because the judge said my step daughter was too young to be away from her Mother, and the second time it was because this was the schedule she is "used" to and she is still too young to switch without confusion for her. SO, now my step daughter is 6, I feel like we should get her one week on, one week off. How do we do it? With getting her in the middle of the week we literally see her for a total of 8 hours between work and bedtime :( *sidenote, BioMom is NOT nice and will definitely try to prevent this from happening. She has taken us to court for "contempt" three times for days we had our step daughter that she didn't think we should and each time was proven wrong and had to pay back our court fees, she is NEVER nice, tells my Step daughter to tell me very mean things, tells her she isn't allowed to love me, etc. Her mom lives off the govt, works part time for $8.00 an hour, we pay child support, and honestly would still pay it if it meant we could have our SD more often! We have a house where she has her own room (this used to be brought up as a problem when she had to share) a huge backyard, and close to her school, our daughter, her sister also misses her very much (as do we), BioMom is not in a relationship and lives in a bad neighborhood in the same town as us. Just giving some details in case any of this matters? lol We want our girl more! |
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July 2017
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