newbie's story....long

[krazyfamily_6]

Hello to all!  New to this site and wanted to share my story and ask for advice.  

Here goes.........*bear with me as I do not understand all of the abbreviations yet.......LOL

I have been with my husband about 4 years and we have been married a little over a year.  Husband has one son, age 9, and I have 3 children ages, 8,6, and 4.  Husband was not married before and we have no children together.  THe children all get along great and we have had pretty much NO trouble blending our family.  

My husband and his ex share custody of their son.  It is supposed to be set up that we have SS for every weekend, every school holiday, and all summer vacation.  Usually ends up that we have SS 90% of time. (which we love......not complaining)  Husband's ex has repeatedly left SS home alone since he was 6 years old, let's him stay up until after 11pm on school nights, doesn't make him do his homework, never knows where he is when we call to talk to  him, instead of getting  him off to school in the morning, she has him set his alarm and get himself off to school while she sleeps, always demands to have him at least half of the day on our holidays with him, she doesn't even come home some evenings until after 9pm.......that means SS is alone from 3:30pm until she decides to show up.  She is not involved in anything that he does......sports, school, whatever.  We are at every single sporting event, school conference.........you name it.  Did I mention that we do ALL transportation and she does none??  She also recieves almost $400 a month in CS.  If my husband says anything negative to her about her "parenting" than big fight outburst and she tries to withhold parenting time or tells SS that we hate her........so on and so on.  It has been nothing but a nightmare since day one.  

I guess my question is WHY does she insist on retaining residential parental custody???????  My only honest answer to that is MONEY and BENEFITS.  My husband has told her several times that if we took residential custody that he wouldn't ask her for a dime in CS, she could have the same parenting time schedule as he has if she wants it, and that she could visit him anytime she pleases as long as we don't already have plans.  She still refuses.......WHY?.?............she says she is afraid she will lose her medical card and school grants if SS lives with us.  WTF???  That's a reason to keep him , huh?  Did I mention that she works part time, goes to school part time...........has no babysitter, and even on days off , spends absolutely NO time with her son???

SS is getting tired of the whole routine but craves his mom's attention so badly that he buys all of the BS she dishes out to him.  She showed up for ONE of his football games.............and then didn't show up to his awards dinner after she told him she would be there.  HE was so angry and hurt that I cried.  When we asked her where she was her response was that she "forgot".  She keeps saying that when she is done with school she will be more available to her son and he will benefit in the long run BUT she has been a student for about 6 or 7 years............keeps changing majors and picking up more classes.  Now she tells us "just a couple more years" and she will be done.  SS will be almost 13 when she is done!!  

Where do we go from here??  We've tried taking custody and she played this poor me act for the judge as to how hard she is struggling being a single mom and how we were so mean for trying to take her son away and so we were only awarded the joint legal/physical custody but she is custodial parent for school placement.  Did I mention that his 1st grade school year she moved 5 times and he went to 4 different schools?  Missed 28 days of school, tardy 19 times?  Ended up getting  held back and her answer was to medicate him.  Moved twice his second grade year...........barely passed onto 3rd grade this year.  

We now only live about 15 minutes away from SS but had lived 1 1/2 hours away before and still spent more time with him than she did.  We are currently picking him up after school to make sure his homework gets done and that he isn't left home alone.  Then WE do all the driving to take him back to his mom's for school the next day.

Last draw for me was last week my husband went to pick up SS and he wasn't home.  Called ex on her cellphone and she didn't know where he was either.  Combed the neighborhood for hours looking for him and no luck.  We were scared out of our minds...........Bio mom didn't even come home to help look for  him.  We finally found him at his mom's cousins house playing outside at 9pm!!!  What do we do??  

Thank you all so much for listening...........I know this post was extremely long but needed to vent so badly!  If anyone has any advice to give please feel free to respond.  

Hope to be able to help one of you out with advice soon!
-krazyfamily_6