The sister and MIL played a major role in helping this man raise his son. The aunt has pretty much be mother figure for the last 8 years. Now that the OP is the picture, she wants to push the sister out of the way and dad is going along with her.

If things do not wOrkney out between them, dad will once again look to his sister and mom to help with kid.

Why not just focus on your relationship with your SO and let the kid, his aunt and grandma be?

Your desire to play mommy should not alter an 8 year dynamic that has worked just fine for the 4 of them.

I said she was a drunk some time ago - but lots of people here disagreed with me. I still say the aunt is a drunk. I personally do not think young children should have to put up with drunk adults.

Oh my. I am sorry but this is just a messed up situation. How long have you been with SO?

Look at this from SIL and MIL point of view. (I am am sure you think MIL is just fine with this but I bet she is just as upset as SIL just not showing it as much). They were all just fine to be with SS when your SO needed help but now that he found a new mama for his kid, he is throwing them all to the curb. Those 3 have been the main care givers for 8 years and now you show up and your SO is changing everything. Can’t wait until he tells his sister that she is a drunk. Even though she was just fine to help raise his son for 8 years and then you show up and all of the sudden his is scared for her to be around his kid. See where I am going with this? You are going to take the fall for everything here!

I do not blame you for your feelings at all but your SO should be telling you to back up and let him and MIL and SIL figure it all out. I also I think your SO may be using you. Good luck to you. You are going to need it so much hun.

Just a quick question as I don't know your back story. I don't mean to any offense with this, but why is your SO so annoyed with the aunt now? She was in this kids life all this time. Has she only now started getting drunk? It doesn't make sense to me that the aunt is so annoying to your SO now and he is so miserable, but that she was completely fine before. I am just wondering why your SO's opinion of the situation has shifted. It just baffles me that he all of a sudden he finds the aunt to be such an annoyance. I have a hard time believing that she had none of these issues before you came along.

Every post you make is about harping on his sister as if everything will be sunshine and roses once she knows her new, limited place in SS's life. And it might be for a little bit but so many people on here, speaking from experience, have told you that you should take a giant step back until your SO is able to show you that he can do all the heavy lifting on his own without depending on his parents and sister and without needing you to immediately take their place. That should be your focus right now, otherwise believe me you are headed for a tough road.

I am so close to just telling the Aunt off

I don't understand this statement? Telling her off about what? That she got tipsy on Christmas Eve? I know a whole bunch of people who did that. That she was fooling around with SS8 who she apparently adores and "made" him spit his milk? That she is exhibiting fear that not only are her mother and father moving away from her, but so is her brother and SS, who's life she has played a large role in?

What exactly has this woman done to YOU, that would require YOU telling her off?

I want to clarify something. I am not anti-alcohol. I just spent two weeks in New Orleans for Christmas and probably drank more than most of you. (love public transportation).

I do not think it is a horrible crime to have a drink or get a little tipsy in front of a child. But getting sloppy drunk, maudlin and emotional is not acceptable behavior when a child is around.

I firmly believe that the aunt is a drunk who is using alcohol to deal with whatever problems she has. She may or may not be an alcoholic - at this point in time. There's a HUGE difference in "fun" drinking and drinking to drown one's sorrows.

To me it sounds like the aunt is digging her own grave. The more unstable she is the less I would be inclined to let her be around the child alone.

And I've been the aunt - my nephew lived with me when he was six. I helped out because I was needed and I could help. That did NOT give me custodial rights to the child. He moved thousands of miles away, and my interaction went from daily to a couple of times a year. And that was what was best for HIM.

I missed him of course - but I did not drink myself into oblivion and whine to the world how unfair it was.

If someone is too impaired to drive a car - they are too impaired to be taking a small child out for a walk down the street in the dark.

The Aunt sounds like a bit of a nut-case but, in your shoes I think I would back off where the SS is concerned, most especially in his Aunt's presence - unless she is doing something that would harm the child obviously you would need to intervene

Otherwise, focus on your own relationship with your SS. It's great you're close and he respects you - that's a major part of the battle right there.

But stay out of his relationship with his Aunt as much as you can.

I know that can be frustrating. My DH's sister has had next to nothing to do with SD's (her nieces) over the years, and yet she took huge offence to me having anything to do with them or any say on anything in their life

There are many incidents where she throws in my face they're HER nieces - she has more say as the Aunt, I have none as the SM. One small example of many; I remember one time when DH & I had been together for about a year, living together at the time, and SD's were with us for their weekend visit. We had all gone out for dinner including DH's parents and his sister. DH ordered a cocktail and had got up to go to the washroom and YSD (about 12 at the time) suddenly says "Disillusioned, can I have a sip of Dad's drink?"

I have no idea why she asked me, but before I even had a chance to register the question, DH's sister snapped at me and angrily said "that's for her PARENT to decide"

At the time, it really ticked me off how DH's sister had talked to me, especially as I had nothing to do with any of that - I never told DH's daughters what they could or could not do and they normally didn't ask me for permission on anything either. But at those initial stages they did come to me more than his sister for things they needed, that was for sure, and that was because they saw me much more often than their Aunt who only made an appearance at family get together's, but then she played the powerful blood Aunt role of course during those times

What I figured out about her was that she was competitive in her relationship with SD's, when it came to me (just like she competes now with me, with her relationship with her brother). I wasn't competing (then or now) at all, but she was clearly insecure about it.

Your SS's Aunt is insecure about your relationship with her nephew. She obviously has some problems. But, as much as you can, don't make it any worse by competing back - not saying that you are - but don't play in to it. Step back, be a good person and role model for your SS. I think that's the best thing any step-parent can do. Don't play the inlaws games!

You guys have been dating under a year and he recently just informed them that is serious. Added that her parents are moving away. Have some self reflection and think how she feels. Try to judge less, you will want her help once you realize the kid isn't going away and playing house loses the shine.

Ladies... you are just assuming here that Aunt is drinking because she thinks she is going to lose skid. Poster doesn't know why she drinks, WE don't know why she drinks. Maybe she drinks because it's the holiday, maybe she drinks because she has nothing better to do, maybe she drinks because she has untreated mental issues (given she also had an eating disorder) The poster has mentioned THREE times that the Aunt has been drunk.. THREE! How did this woman become an bluthering alcoholic in two days??

A lot are also implying there is some ploy here by the Aunt to overly insert herself into skids life... she's not doing anything different than she has for the past EIGHT years! The only thing I see "different" here is the poster who came along and has made huge leaps in referring to her boyfriend's mother and father as her "future IL's" and treating her boyfriend's kid like he belongs to her. NONE of you find any of this a bit overstepping?

What I think sounds so unrealistic to those of us who have been SMs for some time (18 years for me) is this notion you seem to have that the moment you move in with SO, boom!, you instantly become an equal parent/authoritarian figure with SO over his son and his aunt who's been a parent/authoritarian figure his whole life up until now should disappear from the picture.

You are already making all these orders and decisions like you're his mother: "...SO and I both said it is time to calm down and relax for the night...I get him his milk tell him to go sit in his favorite chair in the living room...I am so close to just telling the Aunt off and once we move in allowing very limited interaction..."

It does seem odd to me that you seem to have seized a parental role when you're still just dating his father with "plans" to move in together. You sound as though there's been a decision that you are adopting the boy and going to become his legal mother the moment you move in with his dad. While you are portraying the aunt as insecure (and I have no doubt, she is, and I can see why, given the way you talk about what will happen) you also sound very threatened and somewhat immature with the way you're handling this. Those of us who have been at it a while know it takes a LONG TIME to establish step-family bonds, and it does NOT happen overnight with the child. While you hopefully will develop your own relationship with him over time, you will never have the same HISTORY that his aunt has had with him for the first 8 years of his life, and you cannot change that. The fact that you think you can basically "snap your fingers" and erase all those years he had with his aunt and replace her with yourself as the female who takes care of him and is there for him is naïve at best. While I think it's fantastic that you WANT to have a mother role with the boy (I assume it's that and not just that you want to be able to tell him what to do) that is something that should happen gradually over many months and years. You would be well-advised to tread lightly or else this could backfire in ways you cannot imagine, with your SO, with the SS, with the ILs, etc., etc., as blood is thicker than water and it always will be.

While I don't condone getting drunk and crying in front of the kids constantly, it reads like you're looking for ways to criticize the aunt to justify your desire to shove her out of the picture. Perhaps if there were not so many statements to her about how things are going change dramatically when you and your SO move in together, the aunt wouldn't be acting the way she is. Looking at it from her viewpoint, I would be freaked out, too, not just with the thought of being "replaced," but out of concern with how things will work out with the boy, who just might not find it all hunky dorey when the dust settles and you're barking orders at him and he's stuck with you for weeks while his dad is out of town.

I agree with the poster who said you could play this right and have the aunt as a great back-up. (My 9 year-old is spending the next 2 nights with my DH's sister, and we're ecstatic to have the free babysitting!) Even if she really is a drunk and a danger to the boy as the conversation seems to be heading as people are trying to give you well-meaning comments, then that is for your SO to address and not you. There is obviously a LOT going on here. I think there's a great opportunity for you to have a great relationship with your SO, his son and his sister if you just take things very slowly and don't try to force things to happen overnight. Best of luck!

Can you really not see a day in your future when you realize you will never get a break from the child and the parents live far away and The aunt stays away from you? You need a better long term plan. The preteen years are coming fast.

OP, these kind of arrangements where female relatives step in and parent are common in many cultures all over the world. In many cases the children stay with the relatives rather than moving in with the father and his new wife. MIL and SIL should stay active and connected in ss's life, it would be disruptive and unhealthy to cut them off. They have been his *mothers* for several years, you're new on the scene, not even married and already marking your territory with this kid. SO has been ok with the arrangement for years and he'll probably be ok with it again if the two of you part ways.

Back down and let the situation be.