Is it okay now to emotionally detach myself from my step children?
After court battles over custody, that stretched on for years and financially devastated us, the kids are now living with their bio. mother. They have spent half of their life with us and half of their life with their bio. mom. Bio mom is as mean and rotten as they come, enough said. My hubby has 4 kids from 2 previous marriages. We raised the oldest 2 without any help at all from bio. mom. But this is about the youngest two. The youngest girl is now 15. She has always begged to live with us again, as does her younger brother 13. Now, all of a sudden she is engaged to an 18 year old boy, which her mom thinks is great. We most certainly do not. Not only that, but she didn't even tell her father (us) about this, we had to read it on Facebook. I should note that bio. mom has told both her kids that it is okay to have sex at age 14. WHAT???? Here is what is going on in a nutshell. 1 - Dad is supposed to have visitation every other weekend, but for a couple of years now bio. mom only lets him see them for spring break, Thanksgiving, a few days after Christmas and almost a month in summer. That covers less then half of Dad's entitled visitation. Bio. mom does not consult Dad, she just tells him when she will "allow" them to come and see their father. He has JOINED custody, but she leaves him out of everything. They live 4 hours away and we meet half way for pick up and drop off. 2 - Without the long list of who did what and so on, we do NOT speak in a negative way about her and her husband, whom our daughter claims has been molesting her since age 6. Since there is no physical evidence, he has gotten away with it so far, despite experts saying that our daughter is telling the truth. None the less, we do not speak about them in a negative way, but let the kids vent, with they do a lot of when they are with us. And trust me, it is VERY hard not to do so. 3 - Daughter is now very upset with us, as Dad would not allow her to bring her boyfriend (actually fiance at that time) to our house for spring break. 4 - On Facebook she keeps posting photos that are just shy of soft porn. Her laying in bed with him kissing and fondling etc. Dad has asked her to remove them, but she has not. Bio. mom thinks this is okay. And just for the record, daughter post her life just about minute by minute on Facebook all day long. 5 - Bio. mom has gotten daughter a summer job, and Dad had to find out via Facebook that she has decided not to come for visitation, which by court order she can't decide. 6 - My hubbies mom is taking her on a dream trip to Alaska, for which she can skip time from her part time summer job. She got very rude and cussed at her father when he tried to discuss this with her. She says that she is almost 16 and she should be allowed to make her own decisions. When her father told her that he had a legal right to see her she got even more mad. 7 - All of a sudden bio. mom writes dad and email claiming that we have spoken bad about her and that she is thus going to deny him any visitation at all, until she decides he has been punished enough. 8 - Youngest son wants to come and live here, visit here as much as he can. However, he is given no say so in the matter. And since daughter now does not want to come, bio. mom has decided that he just can't come either. All of this bickering and fighting has gone on and on and on. I have tried my very best to love the kids like they are my own, and it has caused me so much pain emotionally that I have literally lost my mind. I'm back on even keel now, and then all of this starts back up. Is it wrong for me to finally take a break by emotionally detaching myself from all of this? Yes, we could go back to court and fight fight fight... but I'm just flat out tired of it all. I'm always made out to be the bad guy and cause, when nothing could be further from the truth. Am I wrong to feel this way? Is it fair to our youngest son who wants nothing more then to be with us at all cost? I'm just the step mom, and I have no legal rights, so why should I continue to drive myself crazy? This has been going on since 1999 for me. I'm emotionally drained, and financially too.
Marriage & Divorce - 4 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
Yes - good luck.
2 :
Oh dear. You need a (mental) vacation more than anyone I know. How is your relationship with your husband? I don't know how you've made it through all this!
3 :
you are right to feel this way and most people would being in the same situation, have you thought that as it in my state once a child reaches the age of 13 they can decide who that they want to live with
4 :
He needs to fight for his rights, and try to stop this marriage. http://dads-house.org/EducationalManual
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