New here and going slightly crazy myself!
Hi there
I've been doing this step mother gig for 6 years now and have had my own three children in that time too.
My partner and I are really happy. He has two kids from his previous marriage. That ended 7-8 years ago and they are divorced.
The birth mother had been in and out of psychiatric care during the 2008-2010 period during which time I looked after the boys as I was off work having my own kids and I wanted to. Partner was working full time.
Fast forward to now – BM is functioning and working – earning a lot of money and having the boys 50% because they was the contact with her.
However, all is not well with me. I love my partner and my life but I am concerned that in another 10 years BM will still be harassing us, contacting my partner for non-essential reasons, playing mind games and bad mouthing me to the boys. I’ve really given her no reason to.
We have just signed off the 20th incarnation of a parenting agreement (her MO is to write a new one when she doesn’t get her way over something).
I really understand if something important has happened with the boys when they are with her and she needs to talk. There is no financial exchange because it’s 50/50 care.
Why then won’t she leave my partner alone and get on with mothering the boys?
I’m a pretty together person – but my feeling is she is still trying to break us up.
Anyone else out there tearing their hair out?
Crownthorpe
Just to add - two weeks ago
Just to add - two weeks ago BM insisted we have no contact with her ever again. Yesterday she sent around 5 texts and 5 emails about almost nothing. Language has gone from total hostility to sweet and helpful. How can a person be that split.
C
Thanks Just Wow. Yep we have
Thanks Just Wow. Yep we have a lovely 'spreadsheet' which in reality gets updated each day with one weird thing or another. She's medicated and working etc but the personality isn't medicated.
She's certainly wanting to keep the hooks into my partner, even after 6-7 years of hardly any contact with him. We raised the kids while she was locked away.
Now she's back out and trying to angle me out of the equation. That doesn't feel right to me - she can't do that in my own house.
It is sooo frustrating the
It is sooo frustrating the cycle she goes through. She is fully medicated for her mental illness but it hasn't helped her move on or her parenting.
I think she forgets that while she was barking mad, thinking the FBI were after her, I was raising her sons - she missed essential birthdays and school milestones. Now she is trying to block me out - I am not trying to be their mother it's just that while she was away I was the primary female caregiver in their lives. They seemed to function almost better back then although they did miss her terribly.
I cannot believe a person can go through these cycles of madness. Basically the CO has been filed and not changing for 4 1/2 years - great. But of course in a CO you cannot dictate every single eventuality and every way a person should behave. Ironically in the document she drew up - most of it was a diktat on how WE should act - and she tried to put my own kids' names in the order as to how their birthdays should be spent with her boys etc????
I think one of the big problems is that she is still single and has not had a serious loving relationship since the divorce. People say she is quite envious of our situation and that's driving the behaviour - well sorry we are allowed to have a life.
Rant over!