why would she do this now? (venting)

[tulip]

Court is next week. Bm has bee trying to settle before court, because she doesn't want to go. She is willing to give dh custody, but they can't agree on visitation. The temp court order says she gets e/o weekend and 1 eve during the week, not overnight.

Last week, she did not exercise her evening because she was going through "emotional withdrawals" and was very upset. She said to tell the kids she was sick. This week, she got the kids. She has been bringing them home between 7 and 7:30 (when she takes them) on the evening visit. This time, she told the kids to call dh at 7:30 and ask if they could spend the night with her. He said no, and they got into an argument. Then she said she was going to bring them home between 8:15 and 8:30. This was a school night, and ss normally starts getting ready for bed at 8:00 and goes to bed at 8:30. At 8:40 she called and said that ss was in the shower and sd was still working on homework. Obviously dh wasn't impressed. They were supposed to be home already, and he said sd should have been doing her homework earlier instead of playing. Then she starts laying into him about how this project she was doing should have been started sooner than that day. And she started screaming at him that sd fell asleep on the bus and she wants to know what the he** is going on over here that she is so tired. Duh! If she's concerned about her being tired, shouldn't she bring her home so she can go to bed?

There really is nothing he can do, because the co does not say a specific time that she has to return them, but she brought them back over an hour passed bedtime. Then she had the nerve to ask him if he had spoken to his atty about getting things settled before court. He said no, we're going to court. The next day, the kids said she had told them they probably wouldn't be able to go to church on Sunday because it's mother's day. The temp co says he can pick them up and bring them to church on her weekends. I asked sd if she thought mother's day was a good reason not to go to church and she said no. So I told her she should ask her mom to go to church with them if she wants to spend the morning with them.

[hisliltulip]

She's just flexing (what's left) of her muscles.  Trying to get a rise out of DH and to "show" that she still has some control.

When CO is finalized, request specific times, or she might just pull getting them home at 11:59pm.

Hang in there Tulip, finalizing it in court is the wisest move for you guys.

[SLYarnell]

I think it was VERY wrong of you to throw this issue back on your stepdaughter.  It puts her smack dab in the middle of a fight between her mother and you and her father.  Not a good place for any child to have to be.  To me this sounds like an I am gonna be right no matter what I have to do to make it so.  Taking the other side, will it kill the children to miss church ONE Sunday so that they can spend Mothers Day with their mother on HER weekend??  hmmmm  probably not, and it certainly will be in your favor if not in the mothers eyes, the eyes of the court when it comes time to decide final orders.

Just my opinion...

[hisliltulip]

Have YOU ever dealt with a BM that is a meth addict?

Between trying to "keep the BM happy", keeping the kids happy and SAFE, it is a huge juggling act.  Which Tulip and her husband are doing the very best they can.

I understand the whole "Mothers Day" thing, I'm a Mom and a Step-Mom, but the rules tend to change somewhat when dealing with a drug addict.

And it's not like they are taking the entire day.  Church services are a couple of hours, tops.

[tulip]

I didn't "throw this issue back on sd", I asked her opinion, because I was curious how she felt about it. We don't tell the kids they have to go to church. They want to go to church. I don't remember one time in the past two years when bm has been awake with the kids during church hours, including mother's day. Before the judge ordered that dh could pick the kids up for church on Sun and return them to her after church on her weekend, whenever she felt like being a b**** she would not let them go. And while she slept, they would sit and think about how we were at church, and they could not be, and it made it them very sad. No, it doesn't "kill them" to miss church once, but it does make them feel very bad. It's one of the few things they can count on, and to take that away without even asking them how they feel about it, I think, is wrong.