Visitation seems to be going well, but...

[stressedstepmom]

That is what DH is going to tell BM when he wakes up (he worked overnight) I am just really pissed that she called my cell around 5 a.m.  This is only the 4th day like I said and she is acting like the boys have forgotten her. Heaven forbid if they are just busy and having fun. I just told OSS that he needed to call his mom and he did but she didn't answer. I am going to call the lawyer when I have some alone time today and tell him what is happening and see if he can call the judge's assistant that DH and BM went before last week. This man seemed really put off from what she was trying to do, and I think he would be really interested in what is going on. I also think it would be better coming from our lawyer than from DH.  It has always been a control issue with BM but this is too much. Thanks for your advice.

[custodyhubby]

My hubby also works overnights!

And, my SD's BM also acts like she's forgotten about her. And, she has called our house phone as early as 6:30 a.m. to "reach her before school". It's a blatent interruption of privacy.  I tried to explain to her that 13 year olds are self absorbed, don't always think of what the other parent is doing/feeling, and is just plain "a busy teenager with a life".
But, BM always makes her feel badly for "not calling her, not thinking of her, not including her" blah, blah.  Not for nothing, but most 13year olds don't want much to do with their parents anyway! They'd rather be with friends etc.....

[Bolivar OH]

X is a control freak who is trying to micro-manage your visitation time.  Please vent,, I did a lot of venting when I first came here.  It clears out the mind.  Hell.... now that I think of it........ is still do a lot of venting.

Yes, you have rights.  State clearly that unless there is an emergency do not call the children.  She is interfering with your visitation time and any other calls I will conceder harassment.

Remember you can NOT control her behavior, but you CAN control your reaction.

My X is a vindictive control freak trying to micro-manage my relationship with my son.  I have been praying that my X gets a boy friend.  Hopefully your husbands X gets a boy friend.  Does anyone know of any dumb men who would like to date and evil nut-case in OH?  At this point I would hire an actor to fill the spot.  Does anyone know of any good actors who would like to take on the role of nice guy dating a Psycho-B*tch from Hell?

[stressedstepmom]

I talked to our lawyer earlier this afternoon and he flipped. He suggested that DH first call her and try to work it out that way but that if that didn't work he would definitely take action against her. DH is going to try and set up one day a week for her to call the boys and of course they can call her whenever they want to. He also said for us to keep the cell phone so that at the end of the visit we can log all the calls she makes to it. As of now the cell is turned off and put up but she still calls it constantly. If she doesn't agree with what DH suggests then she is only hurting herself because she will have to explain her actions in court.
Our PBFH has a boyfriend. Don't think they have been dating more than 5 or 6 months but it seems to be serious. I read somewhere that sometimes PASers will stop all PAS activity for a long period (the last 5-6 yrs haven't been that bad...a few episodes but not her norm) but that once they get involved in another relationship that it sometimes comes back and worse. That is exactly how our situation is. I think part of it is this new b/f but I also think she feels threatened because we live a lot closer now and DH wants more time. She is a control freak though, and she sees it as that those boys are just hers. She is acting like they have never been with us but the fact is that this is the 7th year I think that they have been out of the state to visit us. So it is nothing new for her, she is just obsessive. She can't or won't believe that the boys are having fun and not thinking to call her everday several times a day, she has to look at it like we are refusing to let them.

[nosonew]

I haven't read the other replies yet...but first and foremost, somehow, that phone needs to "get lost" during the entire visitation.  Turn the thing off.... Second, make copies of all the messages.  Third, use them against her! That is BLATANT PAS, and even if it is not called that in court...NO JUDGE will like hearing that!  

You need to research PAS....as I say, Knowledge is power! You have to know what and WHO you are dealing with!  Please google search PAS, and read, read, read!  Hope you have a great attorney!

[stressedstepmom]

I have researched PAS and am in the process of making copies of PAS related items to send to our lawyer and also to the therapist that I just set up an appointment with.  The cell phone has been turned off the whole time, OSS checks it but not that often. I have been transferring all the damaging calls to my phone. Now we just have to copy them. The therapist that I just talked to seems like he will be really good, I was on the phone with him for quite a while and he wanted all the history. He is also going to listen to the messages and then most likely the phone will be taken away. That way she can't say we were just being unreasonable and we will have a professionals opinion that what she is doing is hurting them emotionally.
Last night she called OSS cell phone at 1:30 a.m. First she calls mine the night before at 4:30 a.m. now this. She left a message at 1:30 and was crying (seems to be the norm for her messages) and said she just wanted to hear his voice and her normal please don't forget me plea. When I told the therapist this he asked me if she was an alcoholic. I had just been thinking the same thing last night when I heard her message. Reminded me of a sad drunk the way she was carrying on. How do we go about investigating this without getting a private investigator or is that our only option?
Also the therapist said that he could release his transcripts to the counselor in NY but that we may not want to do that because BM may be allowed access to the transcript then.  Has anyone been in a situation where there will be 2 counselors and if so what is your opinion on that?

[hagatha]

Since you didn't mention any other calls on the cell phone I will assume none of the kids friends have the number. So the only calls made to the phone are by mommy-dearest.  And she may or may not have an addiction problem.

You can really have fun with this.  Encourage the boys to call ALL their friends daily, and talk about everything going on. Really rack up that phone bill. Or the phone can get knocked behind a chair, the sofa, the fridge if left out. (ok I am being a wee bit nasty)

Contrary to others opinion I wouldn't recommend sending it back to mommy-dearest. Encourage them to call. Be open about "allowing them the ability to interact with mom". What you will be teaching them is you know it's ok to love mom. Even if she isn't ok with them loving dad.
Someday, they will understand what she was trying to do and they will remember how you guys reacted to her nonsense.

The Witch

Remember . . . KARMA is a Wonderful Thing!!!

[hagatha]

Since you didn't mention any other calls on the cell phone I will assume none of the kids friends have the number. So the only calls made to the phone are by mommy-dearest.  And she may or may not have an addiction problem.

You can really have fun with this.  Encourage the boys to call ALL their friends daily, and talk about everything going on. Really rack up that phone bill. Or the phone can get knocked behind a chair, the sofa, the fridge if left out. (ok I am being a wee bit nasty)

Contrary to others opinion I wouldn't recommend sending it back to mommy-dearest. Encourage them to call. Be open about "allowing them the ability to interact with mom". What you will be teaching them is you know it's ok to love mom. Even if she isn't ok with them loving dad.
Someday, they will understand what she was trying to do and they will remember how you guys reacted to her nonsense.

The Witch

Remember . . . KARMA is a Wonderful Thing!!!

[stressedstepmom]

I know that BMs b/f has the number (he has left a few messages) and I know that a cousin who is the same age has the number.  DH told OSS he needed to call his mom 2 days ago and OSS replied that he had left a message. So later that evening DH mentioned it again and OSS called her but was reluctent (sp) to do so. I think he understands how she is and that it does obviously affect him (She did a similar thing last visit but it was through IM and everytime she would log on he would log off). The last message that she sent to his cell she is openly sobbing through the whole thing and says that no matter what she does/has done it is only in his best interest. She again does her standard please don't forget me plea but it is really bad in this message. We have been able to intercept most of the damaging messages and even though they are saved he doesn't check them, but she had left the last one right before he called her and we weren't able to intercept it.
After talking to the lawyer and the therapist about all of this in depth we are trying to come up with a way to either take the phone away or limit the useage (or maybe just send BM a certified letter stating what therapist says about the affect her messages have on boys and ask her to stop). She has already planted in his head that if we do either of the first 2  that it will be really damaging to him. Once the therapist actually hears the messages on Tuesday we should have a game plan about that.
As far as racking up the minutes we have already thought of that. But the phone doesn't really seem to matter to him. Also when he calls her it is free because they have the same service. We have always encouraged both boys to call and write their mother. Communication has never been a problem on our end, only hers.
One thing we have noticed though is that she only gets this obsessive with OSS. She seems to smother him with all the attention but the YSS is left out a lot. YSS is also very unemotional, can't stand any type of affection. YSS also seems to have a lot of anger problems and I know that a lot of that is probably due to that fact.
DH received notification yesterday of which law guardian was appointed to the boys(I googled him but couldn't find anything). BM tried to have this visitation stopped and when judge allowed it BM stated she wanted a trial to stop next summers visitation. The notice states that any records (medical, school, counseling) need to be involved. Our therapist said that since we are in a different state that different laws apply and we have the option of not releasing those. But I think that as long as we don't have a bias guardian that it would be in our favor since the phone messages and early morning calls with be discussed in there. Plus BM won't be able to have the boys in counseling until after the law guardian gets involved (all of this happens 2 days after boys return home). So it will basically be a he said/she said type of thing but we would have the therapists transcripts to back up our side.
We have never dealt with a law guardian so I am not sure really what to expect. I have read articles on the subject but there isn't a lot of information available about how it works with the parents in different states. I don't know if DH will be able to talk to him right away, or if they will do it over the phone or if we will have to go there every time DH is needed. I will worry about all that later, for now we will just enjoy the time with the boys and keep intercepting all of BMs messages. She is just a real pain in the ass but I have known that for 10 years!

[prince13]

I can relate to all of this! DH's kids now have a cell phone at our house, too. I despise the thing and what it represents...her way of controlling what goes on at our home. Anyway, this began last summer following an ugly court battle. They sent the cell phone "for safety" reasons as Dad is so abusive (ugly ugly court battle, but the kids were still here so obviously we know she is a liar). Well, as some of you here know (I am Pagan in chat) we didn't see the kids all Fall and had another court battle. Things have been going really well since the therapist has been involved. He truly has the kids interest at heart. The kids are here for the summer, but the damn cell phone came back with them. However, DH and I are not supposed to know that they have it. His 13 year old daughter lied to him and intially told him she didn't know where it was as Mom didn't give the kids the phone all the time. Well, when his daughter is not here (shortened visitation per last court) 11 year old son has the phone. They each hide it in their backpacks. On one of their Mother's weekends I found the phone. The child is using it to call Mom during the day when we are at work which I think she MAKES him call. I don't get it as there are scheduled phone calls 2x/week anyway. I feel this is so that she can "spy" on what goes on in our home. I feel like we have no privacy whatsoever anymore. The sick thing is that when the 11 year old did use the home phone to call his Mom (we record conversations for our personal use only) she says to him "did you get the cell phone?" and she just panders to him missing her etc. I want to vomit! When he doesn't talk to Mom all the time and she is not around he is a happy go lucky kid enjoying his time here. Granted, he still is unable to tell Mom that he has fun at Dad's house.

So, my big question for all of you.... is What do I do with the phone given that DH and I are not supposed to know that the kids have it here.
This weekend they are with their Mom so I did turn it on to let the battery run out as I did notice they don't have a charger for it here, and our Nextel charger will not work with their phone. Do I take it and hide it and have it reappear in August when they go back to their Mom's? Really, why do they need the frickin' cellular when they can use our phone to call her if they desire? If they are home alone during the day they are not allowed to answer the home phone unless they know the caller id#. Too bad for BM that she uses a calling card to call from work and it shows up as unknown/ or blocked. We just feel that it is a safety issue and too easy for an 11 or 13 year old to slip and say "Dad isn't here etc...".

I am looking for advice on what to do about the phone. Please advise.