desperate father and step mother

[mandi]

My husband and I have been married for going on 3 years.  And this whole time we have had nothing but HUGE problems with his daughter's mother and her boyfriend.  My husband is in the Navy and before he went on the USS Roosevelt following 9-11, he took the mother to a mediation, not even a week after he was gone, she went and go a "family friend lawyer, for free" to file a motion to stop the agreement.  Saying that she was fasley lured to the office of a lwyer that my husband hired, which i might  add the lawyer did not charge them for the mediation for the fact that my husband was about to leave for deployment because of the attacks, anyhow, i am trying to make a long sorry short.  Her boyfriend has been a big issue, they have my husband's daughter calling him daddy and he makes all the desions on what goes on with my husbands daughter and my mother and father in law live in te same town as they do, right down the road from each other and she will not take the daughter or aloow the grandparents to pick her up and take her somewhere.  We believe that there is some sort of emotional and mental abuse going on in the household.  We have a police report of one time they were called there becuase of them fighting and the kids were there, by the way, they have a boy together.  Everytime a holiday comes up that my husband and i are suppose to have his daughter for a long period of time, she makes a big deal about it and then ends up lying about aomething and taking my husband to court and she gets away with it.  Like my husband does owe some back child support from when his daughter was born until the time he did the mediaiton, which she signed the papers saying that she agreeed with the amount that he was paying and then turns around and now every little thing, she takes him back to court and they end up telling my husband that he needs to pay her so and so right now.  As anyone knows, the military, for what they have to do, does not make alot of money and we are just barely getting by as it is.  And then she ask for freaking interest on the back pay like my step daughter is a freaking car or house or something.  What kind of crap is that and of course she is awarded it.  What kind of system do we have??  I love my step  daughter more then anything in this world.  Like she is my very own and i treat her like this, i astually sit here at night and day and cry because i know she needs our help and she is in a bad household, and we just really do not know where to begin.  We have now already been through 2 lawyers  because oh these guys helped and were so good at others battles, but we just feel like they are not doing what they can to help.  Granit, neither one was an actual family law lawyer.  I am just looking for kind of led way.  The mother is in contempt of alot of the things int he agreement they both signed, i mean is that where we start?  Filing her in contempt?  What?  We are so stressed and having to move from FL where she lives to CA does not help on our stress.

Please if anyone has any answers or advise of us, let me know.
*~Mandi~*