That pretty much sums me up right now. New to the site, and so angry it's actually difficult to communicate. Relieved at the same time though, because SS 15 just left again. He lived with me and DH for almost 6 years and his mother didn't even get overnight visitation because she is incapable of holding steady employment and maintaining a permanent address suitable for him to stay at. She didn't pay any CS - DH didn't ask for it. I don't have any bio kids, and I make good money, so SS had it really good with us. Everything revolved around him. He competed in sports (individual, not team), and we financed everything for him and spent at least half our weekends traveling to competitions, going as far as 18 hours away for a national invitation only event last summer.

Apparently SS took that entirely the wrong way. When push came to shove and DH had to impose consequences on him to keep him from failing out of the limited acceptance advanced high school he was lucky to get into and having to go back to our local "4 on a scale of 1 to 10," public money supported, low income majority high school which would prepare him for a future washing dishes, SS reacted as if DH had a lot of nerve telling him anything, dug his heels in, continued to fail, and finally stormed out of our house and went with his mother. Who took him. DH allowed it, in order for SS to see what he could look forward to in his future should he continue to neglect his education.

It became a moot point when BM called begging DH to take SS back, after some sort of physical confrontation that left her injured, and having had enough of SS's entitled, arrogant, lazy attitude. At that time BM agreed with DH that SS would not be allowed to run to her to avoid following DH's rules.

That was around 9 weeks ago - he was with her only 4 weeks.

A week and a half ago, SS engineered a confrontation with his father and stormed out of the house again, back to BM. Turns out they were planning it together, for who knows how long. SS is unhappy because, he says, it's "different" at our house now, and DH is too hard on him. BM has apparently changed her mind about solidarity in teaching SS to be responsible and respect authority. And of course even the small CS that BM can get from DH would be steadier than her regular income.

DH has allowed this again, although SS was told by the authorities that if DH didn't want SS with BM, all DH had to do was say so and DYFS would take SS should he refuse to come back with us.

But we no longer want him back with us. And DH didn't see the point in being spiteful so he allowed SS to go with BM. She doesn't seem to realize that if she pushes and anybody investigates, her "room" will be found an unsuitable environment, and SS will have a serious problem (read: foster care, since DH doesn't want him back and SS doesn't want to be here either).

It's all really sad, because seriously this kid pretty much had everything, and really doesn't appreciate that at all. I treated him like my own, and went without many, many times in order to make sure he had the best. And actually, that's the only thing we really did wrong: we spoiled him too much. All we asked of him was to do his best in school. Not get straight A's, or even necessarily B's - but his *best*, whatever that happened to be. And he simply refused. He'd rather give up everything and stab us both in the back.

What a payback.

DH is a good man, and I wish with all my heart that his sincere efforts to be a good dad had resulted in way better than this.

I was a volunteer. And in this situation I think it's easier that it's not my own bio kid treating me like this. So I feel worse for DH than I do for myself.

Anyway, to let off steam I had started a blog and written a few entries, in the format of letters to SS. Angry ones. Then this morning I found this site, and I transferred the blog over here. I feel like there are people here who might understand what I'm going through.

Everything I wrote about the whole situation is on my blog.

Thanks for listening.

L