ping pongs back and forth whether or not she wants me "involved". Sometimes she would call me because "DH is being completely unreasonable". But when I say something she doesn't like, "this is between DH and I...Colorado Girl needs to mind her own business".
SO, I took myself out of the middle whether she wants me there or not. I never take the kids to dentist/doctor/ortho/specialists appts. That task really should be up to them, I don't have the authority to make a decision anyways, so at that point all I am is a ride. And until you start paying me fare and a tip....I ain't doing it.

BMs wish for me to mind my own business....granted. She never calls me anymore nor do I call her. It ALL goes thru DH. BM and I both LOVE this fact. She wants to deal with me as much as I want to deal with her...which is not at all.

My advice to you. Leave all the bs between the two of them, otherwise you are going to continue to get worked up over all the crap she does (or doesn't do). If she calls 13 times, DH needs to either turn the phone OFF or explain to her that this behavior is unacceptable. She can leave a detailed message and if need be, he will either call back....or not.

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain."

The best thing you can do is to work out with your DH how involved you are going to be with his child, because what you do for your SS when he's with DH during DH's parenting time is strictly between you and DH. BM doesn't control what goes on in your home. If he goes to the doctor on DH's time and DH wants you to take him, then fine. If he has a school project due on DH's time and DH wants you to help him, then fine. If he has a parent-teacher conference and DH wants you to attend, then fine. But under no circumstances should you put yourself in a position of having to share information with BM. You don't ever need to call her, email her, write her letters or communicate with her in any way. Your DH should be handling all of the communication with her.

If she is the type to abuse the phone and email to harrass you, like my BM used to be, then do what I did. I had our landline phone number changed and got an unlisted number in MY name, not DH's. She never had my cell number, so no problems there. I set up our email account to forward her emails to a dummy Hotmail or Yahoo account I'd set up specifically to receive only HER emails, which we would check once or twice a week and deal with at times that were acceptable to us. We never, ever give her DH's work number, because two jobs ago she was calling his boss on a regular basis to badmouth him. The only method she has of getting in touch with DH is through his cell phone, which we can turn off when we don't want to be interrupted. It's actually programmed to not ring, but only vibrate when she calls.

There's just no good reason for a stepparent to be responsible for communicating with their spouse's ex when that communication is hostile. I can exchange pleasant emails with BM now and I do help my DH out by sending her routine stuff, like insurance info and that kind of thing. She sends me photos of the kids. But it's taken us years to get to this point and I still won't talk to her on the phone. I like things in email so that I can have time to either respond diplomatically or pass it over to my husband to take care of.

I have done a lot of things for my skids over the years. I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. I think we should do as much as we feel comfortable doing. For some of us, that turns out to be a lot. But the one thing I won't do, after learning the hard way that it just doesn't work, is to be responsible for communicating with BM. Other than DH's cell and email, she has no access to us or our home and she has ZERO access to me unless I choose to read her emails. So it works out. We really can choose the level of involvement we want to have with our skids and their BM.

♥ Georgia ♥

"Good men don't just happen. They have to be created by us women." (from ROSEANNE)