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Am I overstepping my boundaries?

allpar2's picture

Submitted by allpar2 on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 9:51pm

We were recently married. I now have an 8 year old step son. Prior to my living in the home, he slept with his father at our home and with his mother at her home. I refused to allow ss to sleep in the bed with us and he refused to sleep in another room. So we compromised with an inflatable mattress in the floor by the bed until we could transition him to the other room. He loved this by the way. He was a happy camper and we have been gradually getting it further from the bed everytime he came. In the meantime biomom has got remarried and has put him in his on bed at their home and he sleeps all night in it. So thus he should be able to sleep in his own bed at our home. WRONG.. but anyways I have no problem with him in the floor on the mattress but biomom didn't like it. So she told him that we had spiders and he shouldn't sleep on the mattress. So he cried wanting to sleep on the couch and we eventually let him. Then he stayed up until 2:30 in the morning crying because he was scared and by the time we found out about the spider tale I was pretty ticked off at mommie dearest. So we had a heated conversation about it and I informed her that it was our home and that if anything he had been petted a little to much by being allowed to sleep on the mattress and that it really wasn't any of her business because he was happy up until her little spider tale. I felt that it was very manipulative of her to do that and it has really infuriated me that she would do her child this way. Then there was the whole clothing fiasco. She would pack him cheap crap to come to our house like lil walmart nylon shorts in October and November. He didn't have pants that fit yet she said. However she is paid very good child support and her and her husband have good jobs. So I just let her know that she didn't have to pack him clothes for our house that I would buy him some and that we could afford to cloth him while he was with us. This angered my husband but I refuse to go out to eat dressed nice and him look like an orphan when everyone in the picture is capable of buying him something other than play clothes. And poof, she couldn't stand the thought of someone buying him anything nice, so now we are having a clothing war. If I buy him an under armour shirt, she buys him 2. LOl, its got kind of funny because if he leaves anything of hers at our house she is sending nasty text messages so we just don't open the bag and she still finds something to complain about. It's like she is obsessed with being in control and it kills her that she can't control what goes on here. A friend of mine said that I overstepped my boundaries with the clothing and that I shouldn't of bought clothing for him. But I did and now she seems to be worse than ever....

Comments

somerg's picture

Submitted by somerg on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 10:06pm

your house your rules, HOWEVER being on both sides of the stick myself (bm dealing with sm and sm dealing with bm) i have found it SOOOOO much easier to let dh talk to bm, and i will only talk to bd, this keeps ME out of the drama that starts between sm's and bm's and vise verse

if you want to buy him clothes to keep at your house, then so be it go buy him clothes to keep at your house she doesnt' have ANY control over what you guys do with her kids on DAD'S time. i also found it easier (to keep things from getting mixed up) to make the skids put their bags in my room,and they hand me their dirty clothes at the end of the day, i have a plastic bag i put them in, and i hand them the clothes they will wear for the day.

imagr8tma's picture

Submitted by imagr8tma on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 12:28am

I don't think you overstepped your boundaries. I have done the same and will continue. I purchase SD outfits to wear here simply because I refuse to allow SD to come her and wear too small out of season clothing. I refuse to make her wear too small undergarments and no socks. I love my SD like my own and will continue to ensure she is treated well when she is in my home. Regardless of how much BM may hate DH - she should never take it out on the innocent child.

The only difference is that I do not waste my time in speaking with BM. DH laid with her and made SD - he should be the way to have to deal with her foolish conversation. That frees me to concentrate on SD and BD and ensuring I am a good example and take good care of them.

BM is just not that worth my time to deal with her drama. I feel that any good mom would over look their hatred for their dad and allow their love for their children to help them make the best decisions for their children .... PERIOD.

hismineandours's picture

Submitted by hismineandours on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 7:10am

Agreed. It is ok to buy clothes for your skids to keep at your home. Often necessary in fact. On the flip side of things, dh was custodial for many years meaning we had to pack a bag for ss eowe-actually that translates into ME packing a bag eowe. If I packed nice clothes then I never got them back-so what I would do is I had accumulated a couple of outfits that she had sent him back in (again usually nasty)and I packed them all in a bag and started sending those. I had accumulated enough over the years that he had a pair of pants, a pair of shorts, a long sleeve shirt, a short sleeve shirt, some underwear, and socks. So I sent this bag all year. I never even looked in it-in fact I hung it up in the garage when he got home as she and boyfriend were big smokers and it smelt-I assume the things in there were clean as she was supposed to return clothes in the condition they came, but again I never really checked.

One day, she finally got pissy with me and said to stop sending those nasty clothes for him, they didnt fit him, and she had better stuff for him at her house. I LMAO considering that everything in the bag HAD come from her house.

Anywho, I never would have had a problem sending nice stuff had she returned it but she didnt. Everyone forgets once in awhile but this was happening eowe. WE'd send him down in nice name brand things and he'd come back in his sister's handme downs. Even though we were getting child support it was wasteful to go out and buy him a new wardrobe every month or so because she wouldnt return things. I tried putting a list of what was in the bag-in the bag-which was actually her idea-but that never worked.

SS is 12 now. So he pretty much packs his own stuff. He lives with bm now. He packs the nastiest stuff he can find-I dont know if she has directed him to do so OR if he does it in the hopes that we buy him all new stuff because we feel sorry for him. We are ncp's and pay cs, but we still buy him the majority of his clothes-and then never see them again-not even on visits-Bought him 4 pairs of jeans at the beginning of the school have never seen them once on him, but he will wear a pair that dont fit correctly and are several years old all weeeknd. He is very careful to pack ALL of the things he brought down back in his bag-we had been keeping a few things for him here (that we bought) and I saw him loading all those in his bag one day as well-so now we have nothing here of his-not even a pair of socks. I figure if he wants to look like a bum so be it-If he looks like that I'm not going anywhere with him.

Alison12345's picture

Submitted by Alison12345 on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 7:43am

Honestly, I don't think there's anything you could do to appease her.

I remember when my husband and I first started living together, I wasn't 'allowed' to buy any clothing. Once I washed my step-daughter's dress because she spilled ketchup on it and I never heard the end of it. Didn't I know, I wasn't 'allowed' to wash their clothes either??

So, I didn't buy clothes and I didn't wash anything and soon the complaint was, "She buys nice things for her son but not our kids" and "Why am I getting these clothes back so filthy?! Can't you wash them??" My husband...wash them?? Now, that's funny! LOL

Point is; it's really just something to complain about. So don't worry too much about what not to do.