Here’s a puppy!
So, we just moved into a great new home. Awesome yard for SS10 to play in and the previous owners left behind their trampoline (a very nice one). SS got a lot of enjoyment out of it when he was with us last week.
One of my sisters also got a new puppy last week, which SS heard about.
So guess whose mom got him a new dog this week? Keep in mind he already has two dogs and two cats at her house.
DH and I just rolled our eyes at the news. Her house, her rules - and her mess. I love animals but that sounds like a LOT to me. Two is plenty for us.
But it's yet another stanza in the saga of "SS gets whatever he wants." Apparently, yes, it was partly because he heard my nieces got a puppy. Partly because he now has a trampoline here and BM can't have one with her sloped yard.
I really am awaiting the inevitable: when SS starts complaining that he wants to live full-time with BM. At the rate she spoils him, I'm sure it's coming. He's expected to help out here. His electronics are locked up from dinner time until after school. He no longer likes the food we have (things he used to love, but BM does mostly takeout while DH and I are big on cooking). And even when he throws things at her when he gets in trouble at school, lies repeatedly about school work, breaks rules about food in his room, he gets a new dog just because he wants one.
DH is fed up. I know it's just venting but he's sick of the increasingly oppositional attitude and the entitlement. I'm keeping my mouth shut and staying out of it. But a part of me hopes SS does start staying more with BM. It's a shame. He's got a lot going for him. But with each passing week he seems to go further down the track to being a spoiled man child with unhealthy eating habits, an entitled attitude and emotional regulation problems spending all his days gaming at his mom's house. The less I deal with it the better.
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It doesnt get better
Read my blogs, especially recently.
SD14 Formerly known as Munchkin, shes in that phase right now. And now I am the target, scapegoat, bad guy, and SD14almost15 is an angel. And her parents are golden.
If your SS wants mommeee, let him have momeee later, just stick to CO and visitation schedule. Keep with the rules and boundaries. Because it doesnt get better, spoiled kids dont unspoil.
Absolutely. And I do read
Absolutely. And I do read your blog -- always helpful and interesting. We stick with what we always do. While we don't cater to SS's newly picky eating habits I also don't purposefully make things he doesn't like when he's here.
And DH is all about sticking to the rules. What happens happens. Of course if he starts moving into the "competing with BM" territory, we'll have a problem. If BM wants to lavish money on SS that's her business. I'm not ok with our money going down the same chute. I'm not too worried about that, though. DH has faults and does things I don't agree with but he's been consistent on not playing that game.
SS is smart. He knows now not to even bother asking DH for stuff. The answer will always be either "no" or "where's your piggy bank?"
I'm just not looking forward to the next however many years of dealing with it because we're starting to see signs of the consequences bleeding over into our time.
Dogs were kind of an ongoing
Dogs were kind of an ongoing theme as one of the issues SD now 18 has with DH and I. Which I do get to a degree because they had a traumatic experience. When we were newly dating, DH got SD a puppy for her 8th birthday, a shepherd mix from a shelter who grew to be quite large. From the beginning she had some issues with strangers, mostly men. I kept her once while they were in vacation, and she stayed in a crate if I wasn't home because I had 2 smaller, older dogs she had about 50 pounds on. All was fine, until one night I got home late and it was dark. I could hear her when I came in, like Cujo she was crouched snarling and growling until I turned the light on, when she lost it. It took a while for her to calm down, I sat on the floor and talked to her through the cage. There had been a couple instances like that when she was around DH and random strangers if he had her out, but she was loving with the kids. One night his buddy came to his house, and she lost it, and when he was trying to restrain her she bit him on the arm pretty good. It shook him up, and he felt like he couldn't risk having her around the kids. It broke his heart, but he ended up taking her back to the shelter (who made him feel worse). Definitely a terrible situation in my SD's formative years and I don't know if it would have have helped anything if he had ended up getting her another dog. By this time we were engaged and getting ready to get married and join our houses and a new dog wasn't high on the priority list.
SD had seemed to handle it all ok and understood what happened as she had seen how the dog acted in that way before. She was happy we got married and excited to move into our new home. By this time, my 2 dogs were a little older, and I wasn't excited about the idea of a new one, although it came up from time to time. I had a relative whose dog had puppies, and we let her bring one home on an overnight as kind of a trial run. She was ready to take it back the next day when it chewed on her and potties everywhere. After that, it was all about a cat, which we did end up getting. I was not a cat fan (love our guy now), but especially in light of what happened with her dog, I felt like she should have a pet and I was kind of relieved to settle on a cat instead of a third dog.
She never really bonded with the cat, didn't take care of him and wasn't all that nice to him. The dog idea started coming up again, but we weren't on board - based on how she treated the cat, and also that my dogs were now elderly. BM then decided to get a puppy...out of the blue.....on DH'a weekend. The day she decided to go to the shelter and get one, we had plans with the kids, and SD informed DH she wasn't going with us because BM was picking her up to go get a new puppy. That was my first big memory of BM stepping in on DH's time without even consulting him. I feel like that planted a pretty good seed with SD of, BM trumps DH in decision making (shame on him for letting her), and BM gives SD what she wants.
It happened again 6 months or so later, the elderly dog BM had passed away (after being tormented by a crazy puppy in his golden years) and BM decided to get pup #2, again on DH's time. I feel like that time SD just skipped coming over here. The dogs have been used as excuses since then for her to skip things. "Oh, BM needs me to watch the dogs", etc. Interestingly, both of these dogs act pretty crazy, we have randomly run into them hiking a couple times and they act like they want to eat people. Sadly, a couple weeks ago one of them slipped their collar when they were hiking and attacked another dog and bit a person. I haven't heard what happened with that, if anything, and I am pretty sure BM is keeping the dog. So there is another mark in her favor for SD to hold against DH - BM kept SD's aggressive dog but DH took one away.
My dogs both have passed away since, and about a year and a half ago we got the cutest, sweetest (with us) little guy from a rescue. We had invited SD to go with us to meet him, but she was busy watching her dogs at BM'a or something. Our cute little guy does have a bit of a little dog complex and does tend to bark a lot when people come into our house (the pandemic has not helped in his training), so the few times she has seen him he has acted a bit crazy at first with the barking. However, I can scoop him up and he does settle down. But...I can only imagine she is thinking, wow, dad, she gets to keep her dog, she always gets what she wants. So yeah, dogs are a sensitive subject around here