Just keep in mind, hon, that you are not his mother. He has a mother and a father and it's not you. I read that she has her child call you mom? You might have her check her CO to see if there is anything in there that prohibits calling spouses mom or dad. Are you comfortable with it?

Yes. The SpermIdiot was always involved in my son's life and still is though on a very limited basis. My wife got a court judgment awarding her sole physical and legal custody before SS turned 1yo. She left the state shortly after that for university. We met a few months after that. When the small town grapevine in my bride’s home town reported that my bride was dating someone SpermGrandHag filed for change of custody in the SpermIdiot’s name and a nearly yearlong tit for tat battle began.

Ultimately we won. The judge issued that revised CO two weeks after we married. My bride retained full physical and legal custody and the SpermIdiot was awarded long distance visitation. Until my son reached school age visitation was 9wks per year (6wks summer, 1wk fall, 1wk winter, 1wk spring). When he began kindergarten it dropped to 7wks (5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring). That schedule held, for the most part, until SS aged out from under the CO when he turned 18. The SpermClan missed a number of visitations due to their idiot financial decisions over the years. When a number of visitations had been missed (usually 2-3) we would gladly pay for the entire airfare for him to visit his SpermClan. I made a commitment to my bride (and to the kid) when we married that I would never deny him a relationship with his bio-paternal clan. And… we never did.

My son made his adoption decision based on his own experience with his BioDad and the rest of the SpermClan and with his experience with me, his mom, and our extended family. My parents accepted him as their own on day one, my brother is his uncle and his closest cousins are my brother’s kids. Again… it is about the actions of love. This paternal-bio clan have had little to do with him since he turned 18 other than to badger him for money periodically to help raise the three younger also out of wedlock SpermIdiot spawned half sibs by two other baby mamas. He does see them occasionally though rarely though that is entirely at his own volition and on his dime. They don’t give a crap enough to fly him out for a visit.

I believe that this philosophy is a way to optimize relationships between Skids and Sparents regardless of the situation with the counter bio-parent in the blended family opposition and the situation with the opposition clan. If my Skid’s SpermClan had been reasonable, we would have treated them reasonably. Since they were toxic regardless of how we interfaced with them we did not tolerate any crap from them and brought the pain (legally, socially, etc….) when they gave us no choice.

Yes, the toxic crap dribbled on the Skid during SpermLand visitation did effect the relationship between my son, my wife, and I though not critically. His reaction to toxic SpermClan manipulations was more often than not confusion. He did not understand why I was not his REAL dad when SpermGrandHag would spout her toxic crap. He would get upset about his mom and I taking money from his younger half sibs and them not having nice things or enough food (more SpermGrandHag toxic manipulation). We addressed it with fact in an age appropriate manner. When he was little we just told him that he had two dads and that we did not take money from his Daddy (BioDad's) family. As he got older we gave him more of the facts including going through the CO with him showing him that the visitation and CS was court ordered and not his mom or I being mean, going over the CS balance sheet showing exactly what the facts were regarding how much CS was paid, and eventually during court battles when he was in his teens we opened the entire Custody/Visitation/Support archive (a file cabinet and half full) including SpermIdiot arrest records, divorce records, drug offenses, Private Investigator reports, court recordings, call logs, outstanding medical bills not paid by the SpermIdiot, etc, etc, etc.... When he was 22 and made the choice to ask me to adopt him he had lived his blended family life for 20 years and was fully aware and informed on the sitaution and all of the players.

So, take the actions of a caring and loving parent…. That is what you will be to the kid and the kid will be yours in all ways but biology.

IMHO of course.

Good luck.