My fear, though, is what your DH said- that SD will have to take the heat as a result of his standing up to BM.

However, I DO think he still needs to assert himself to her, or fight for full custody. If BM is more concerned about her social life, and has the kid living with her just to collect DH's $$$$ every month (like my SDs' BM did), then going for full custody is probably in SD's best interest. Does SD primarily live with you? What's unfortunate is that stupidity is not illegal. My skids live with us now, but even when they lived with their mother, she never lived up to her responsibilities as a parent, forcing my DH to fight her for custody. Guess what? Now that we have custody, BM STILL doesn't take care of her kids- she gets EOW visitation, and on her weekends, drops them off at her parents'. Which I suppose I shouldn't complain about, because her parents love the kids, the kids love their grandparents, and the grandparents take much, much better care of the kids than BM did.

If BM decides to take it out on SD, get SD a good counselor, and document EVERY time BM uses a Parental Alienation Syndrome tactic against DH on SD. Also, both you and DH need to let her know that no matter what happens, you both love her more than she could ever know and that you will always support & be there for her emotionally. If BM decides to take it out on SD, sit down with DH and the counselor to come up with a game plan that will help your relationship and SD at the same time. If SD could see her own counselor, then that would be great, because then she could feel more free to talk to this person, and she can work with her counselor to learn appropriate ways to deal with what's going on in her life.

About BM's being out in la-la-land, so is my skids' BM. Some of the BMs discussed on here have BPD, but my SDs' BM does not. She's just out to lunch. What sane person with any shred of humanity and decency would do what she does to her kids?

Welcome to StepTalk!

He used to be the same way. He was utterly terrified of telling BM no because he knew that if he did, Blabb (my SD8) would feel the wrath of BM's anger. Not only that, but BM would keep Blabb on his visitation weekends if he ever stood up to her. This absolutely infuriated me because that stupid woman was using their child to control DH. BM knew that because daddy loves his precious little princess, he'll do whatever BM says.

Until I started nagging him about it. I told DH that she's going to continue to use Blabb to control him... and the only way to knock that off is if she realizes that she can no longer use Blabb to get what she wants from DH. I said that DH needs to start standing up to BM, and if she starts keeping Blabb on his weekends, take her to court because it's against their custody agreement, and it's HIS right to have those visitations. What's she going to say to the judge?

"Well, your honor... exDH wouldn't give me an extra $300 on top of CS, so I kept Blabb on his weekend as punishment to him."

The judge would laugh in her face.

This finally got through DH's thick head... so now he's doing a lot better standing up to BM. I'm so proud of him because he's improved a lot.

It's hard work, but if you keep pushing DH to grow a set, he might eventually work it out with BM.

When I met BF that was exactly the situation, BM hoofed all over him, and he just laid there and took it, for fear of what BM would do to SD or withhold visitation. Let me tell you, it drove me INSANE. Gradually, I did research and pushed him more to stand up for himself. We also had the advantage that SD was old enough to know her mother's manipulative and spiteful ways, and knew better when BM would say "your father doesn't want to see you this weekend" Basically she would no longer believe anything BM said about her dad.

And ultimately all this backfired on BM, b/c through my urging and pushing, BF just got custody of SD. BM is a miserable person, angry and spiteful, and she made this girl's life very difficult for no reason other than she could. Now the tables are turned. Of course BM doesn't have to pay us any child support, and has no interest in seeing SD, I guess as punishment for abandoning her, but that's a whole other issue.

You also need to keep perspective. If he stands up to her, what's she going to do? get off the phone and scream at SD, or something like that about what a dirtbag her father is, something like that. But the other side of it is he has to fight to remain a part of his daughter's life, and withholding visitation is exactly that, a threat to his right to be her father. If some short term yelling and screaming on the part of BM facilitates maintaining a relationship that should last a life time, it is a price worth paying, IMO...

Keep posting, do research on his situation, and help him assert his rights slowly. Good luck!

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Albert Einstein

I think a majority of relationship go thru this at first....BD is scared to stand up to BM because she uses child as a weapon against him. But like the previous post said, in this case sometimes you HAVE to just go thru the courts..if she plays hardball, play it back. Sometimes they will back down before it gets that far.

MY FH had the same issue..he would run at the drop of a dime for BM..until I came along and started showing him how he controls her. He didn't see it that way, he saw it as doing for his son. Until she threatened not to let FH see his son. He told her ok, I'll see you in court..that same afternoon she called back asking what time he was picking up son.

"He grew up in my heart, not my belly"