It's been almost a year since I was last here on StepTalk. I stopped posting because I was pregnant & dealing with endless stress from our situation with BM. I desperately needed to pretend that I wasn't dealing with the crap I had been dealing with in order to enjoy some of my pregnancy. And it worked...for maybe a month! Now I'm extremely busy with a 7-month-old, but I need to vent to someone other than my mom or husband once in a while. I think what I really need is the input/opinions/support.

A quick synopsis of my situation (if you want to read more, read my old blog entries): My husband & his ex-wife had had 50/50 custody since they separated when SD10 was 2. Last year, BM moved & registered SD10 at a school 45 minutes from us, making it impossible to maintain 50/50 custody. (She did this knowing this would happen) By the time we got to court, school had already started & we had no choice but to go to an every other weekend schedule. Here is what happened after that...

Last November we had our court date & my husband was awarded full legal custody of SD10. BM made quite the spectacle of herself in court. I admit it was amusing to watch BM squirm as she tried to explain her reasons for doing the things she had done. She really had no good reasons for moving where she did & for registering SD10 at the school there. She tried to make it sound like the commute from our house to the school was no big deal, insisting that the drive was only 25 minutes, not 45. The judge was amused by this & asked her if she drove a Ferrari! But what really screwed her over was the whole paternity test issue. (She took SD10 to have blood drawn for a paternity test & then had the lab call my husband AT WORK to set up his appointment. This was, of course, a few days after she sent my husband an email to drop that bomb...saying that she "forgot" that she cheated on him & that SD10 isn't his.) Yeah, the judge loved that story! He was livid that she would sink so low. Not much of a shocker to anyone that knows this psycho!

So anyway, my husband got full legal custody because the judge thought he had SD10's best interests at heart, which is 100% true. BM absolutely does not. BUT, the other part of this that the judge did not want to take SD10 out of school mid-year, so she had to finish school where she was. (I know this is what judges prefer, but in our case, this was a terrible idea. They don't fully understand the situation.) So we then had SD10 on a screwy schedule where we had her 2 1/2 weekends a month....very confusing to all of us!!!

And of course, the day after court BM filed for child support since she would have SD10 most of the time for the rest of the school year. But here's the funny thing...in court BM told the judge she worked 40 hours a week & that her schedule was not flexible enough to help my husband with some of the driving (so we could have SD10 more). The very next day, BM files for child support & she only works 30 hours a week! (Later stating that her hours had been cut. Funny how they were cut the day after court?!) Then, shortly after we find out that BM had started her own business the previous summer & made no mention of this whatsoever. In fact, in a child support hearing, the case worker specifically asked her if she was self-employed & BM said no. At that point we did not know about this. Then BM quits her "full-time" job to work on her business. (She does not tell us any of this; we find this out through snooping!) So my husband filed to have a hearing about the child support, since there were some other issues, as well (like us having SD10 more than originally calculated, the court adding an extra month to the "back child support" we owed). In that hearing, BM claimed that her business was not doing well & that she had only made $1,000 in the last 6 months. She said she took a part-time job (at her boyfriend's business...but she didn't mention that part) to make ends meet. The judge wasn't impressed that she left a full-time job with benefits to focus on a failing business. When all was said & done, the child support was lowered (much to my relief!) & the "back child support" was dropped several hundred dollars due to errors. BM desperately tried to get more child support out of us because of her situation, but the judge was having none of that. The judge actually shook her finger at BM & lectured her about what she'd done, then became exasperated when she had to explain something to BM multiple times & finally said to her, "You understand what I'm saying, you just don't want to except it." & left the courtroom.

It's been a year of ups & downs. I definitely did not need this during my pregnancy & then during the early days of my baby's birth. What should have been a special time was completely marred by this nonsense. BM actually had the nerve to find pictures of my newborn baby on facebook & then show them to SD10 before we even got a chance to give SD10 the news! (My husband tried to call SD10 shortly after our baby was born, but since they are never home, he could not reach her. Meanwhile, my father, being the proud first-time grandpa, posted a few pictures on his facebook page. Somehow, BM saw them & being the asshole that she is, immediately showed them to SD10. So by the time my husband was finally able to reach SD10, she told him, "Yeah, I saw the pictures on facebook.". I was so angry!)

We are currently still doing the stupid schedule, however, SD10 is now going to school in our town. We're waiting to go to court yet again to change back to 50/50 physical custody because apparently everything needs another hearing. Well, it wouldn't if BM were a reasonable person. The court had ordered them to attend a minimum of 2 mediation sessions to work out a new physical custody schedule, but BM refused anything my husband came up with. She's pissed that SD10 is going to school here now. (Though we don't understand the big deal...we recently found out that BM has been secretly working in our town for the past 4 months. She doesn't know that we know. So it's not like she's not driving this way anyway.) Ugh, the whole thing is such a huge mess/nightmare! I hope to make time to post more about this & other issues in the near future!