Nope not allowed... Aergia could have photo's of her and BM or simply BM, but not of BM and SO with her....

not even in her room, sorry your parents are divorced, they do not even belong on the same paper lol....

Yeah, I wouldn't be comfortable with it. SD10 has photos of her mom and stepdad. She has pictures of her half-siblings. The photos are on display in her room that she shares with DD. My bios have pics of their dad, but not of him and I together. I would draw the line at a pic of BM and DH together.

I have one picture of my parents together in my house. It is a photo from their wedding and it is one of very few photos that has my grandmother in it. I asked my SM before I put it up if it would offend her, and she said no. She gave me a pic of her and my dad's wedding where they are lighting a candle for my grandmother and her photo is in the background. I have that photo and the older one right next to each other.

I didn't get a SM until I was an adult, but I would never expect her to allow pics of our family (my mom, dad, sister and me) in her house. That is over the line, in my opinion.

What is the "wrong" message that it's sending? They were once a family. They know things are different now, so what's the big deal? That's why people take pictures, to capture a moment in time and refer to it later.

Give her a special box for mementoes or a scrapbook to keep it and other things in. She shouldn't have to forget an entire chapter of her life but she should respect the present and whose home she is living in. I think that's what I would recommend. A very nice she can keep it where it is more or less private to her but also very honored and special for her.

Eh as long as it was in her room, I suppose I could deal with it. To be fair, they were a family at one point and it is her mother. Crazy as she may be, this is from a child's point of view. SS14 has pics of BM2 in his sock drawer and even that creeps me out so I totally get it.

At the end of the day though, it's just paper and ink. You have the guy and all BM can do is send paper and ink.

Your story reminds me of a story a friend of mine told ME, happened to her. My friend is a wonderful mom---and I mean that sincerely. Her x husband wife I will name hood rat on this post.

Hood rat mailed her step child photos of an event sd went to. Hood rat was court ordered to stay away from step child. This envelope was mailed to my friends house where the child resided full time. Hood rat has no scruples and she spins her words to make it ONE way, when she really means another way.

Attached was a letter to sd "I THOUGHT YOU WOULD WANT THESE"....

the photos are of child...and of hood rat separated by one or two people. Photo after photo mailed to BM.
Hood Rat, clearly was in violation of a court order and cried 'mistake, she forgot, and didn't know'

Not on YOUR walls. Put it in a photo album and SD can dig it out and look at it when she feels like it... which the odds are overwhelmingly that she will not look at it ever after about a week or two if she even looks at it at all.

I wouldn't make an issue out of it. I have all of my old photo albums on a shelf in my den and my kids look at them once in a while. Lots of family pics of exH, kids and I together. DH has a stacks of dusty photos in corners of the house of BM, he and the kids. It's history and in corners of the house. SD's history is in her little corner in her room. Shut the door if you don't like it.

In a blended family you need to choose your battles and this is one I'd let go - especially since reacting to it is exactly what BM wants.

adult sd presented her father with a family photo as a gift with just her and the other skids with their father. the frame said family on the border. how is that for a slap in the face of a sm?

Had this situation with SD too back in the early days. I'm sure BM put her up to it. It was my DH who reacted badly to it though. He told SD to take it down and that she could have it in a photo album of her own but he didn't want to see it in her room all the time. She was told she could have a pic of BM if that's what she wanted but DH didn't want photos of them together posted around the room. Funny, the pic of BM never happened. I think it was just all a wind up meant to push my buttons even though I wasn't even involved in that drama, despite this Bm still interpreted this asI had reacted badly to it and insisted it be removed.

Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

I think you are clouding a couple of issues and projecting your anger with the BM onto SK’s photo. EASY to do. I don’t think any of us SM’s haven’t projected a little bitterness. I think you need to separate the issues.

1. BM does not control what happens in your house. End of story. Your husband needs to understand this and set the boundary with her and stepkidlets. Notice I said your husband NOT you. This is his battle. This is his time with his kids. Her intrusion is unnecessary and unwelcome.
2. Your husband may be enjoying being in the middle of two ladies. It is a great ego stroke. If he is unable or unwilling to stop BM’s inappropriate behaviour and intrusion, you need to confront this issue.

I really think if he limits contact with BM and BM’s nonsense, you will feel WAY better and the picture won’t matter so much. He really needs to stop engaging with her. His attention fuels her behaviour.

3. The picture – SD should keep it in her room. They are her parents and it is important to her. Within every child of divorce, lies a broken heart. Of course your stepkids rather their parents be together. That isn’t about YOU. It is about them.
Let her have the picture. Plus, it will annoy BM that you don’t mind.

Remember happiness regardless of what she does is your best revenge!

I dont think it gives the kid false hope as much as it gives you a dose of reality. They were once a family. Thats what the picture depicts. You cant expect a child to pretend that never happened just because you dont like to think abt it. Thats a picture of her with her parents. At my wedding there were pictures I included my step-mom in but there were also pictures of me and my siblings with just our parents.

I doubt you're wrong. It just sucks to be right, and you're only right because she actually is that way. And it's great that you post here, because we totally get it! If the BM in my situ weren't in lifetime olympic training to win the laziness gold medal, she'd be doing much more than now, probably along the lines of the b.s. yours brings. Fortunately, SS17 is almost beyond the age she'll have to pay child support for (he's not motivated to sign up for college & graduates HS in June) so the lazy, cheating, lying BM doesn't hsve any tricks up her sleeve left to play.

i would not allow it. it allows a young skid still not in her teens to perpetuate the fantasy that the "real" family is the one that no longer exists.

dh has a picture in his office that was a gift from one of the skids. the picture shows dh with his skids and the frame says "all in the family." of course i am not in the photo and i was the one who took the picture. so ironic. its like a slap in the face to me.

she can have this photo in her mothers house of her own private misguided fantasy , but not in your home. its her room but the home of you and your husband - her father.

i had this h%ll to deal with when the skids were each in turn kicked out of the house of bm when they turned 18. they came to our home to live and go to university on their fathers money as bm did not give the skids anything.

they all got a hold of their childhood photo albums and started making fantasies about the life with their mother and father. (keep in mind bm left the father to marry her lover.) even though dh gutted the albums of the photos of bm the skids started weaving fantasies about their "perfect" family and resented i was now married to their father. in a matter of weeks the venom started as the skids banded together to try to urge dad to divorce me. they almost succeeded.

yes its the girls room but your house.

so no picture of the former family. the house is your house.

i would let her have a photo of her father and her.

SD obviously does not care too much about this photo as she has not asked about it since your DH took it from her. So much for treasuring and needing this photo up in her room. Chances are it is BM pushing this agenda on a young child. Shame on her. Too many use the children in this way, and that's how these kids do get caught up in a fantasy of mom and dad together.

I could maybe see if the child wanted to have a picture of their mother in their room (or their father in their room when they are home with BM), but having a "family" photo from before the split seems inappropriate and maybe a little mean if the child is young. Maybe I'm a bit heartless, but I think it's ok for the child to understand that their original "family" doesn't exist any more. It may not be ideal, but I don't think that having a new "family" or new "families" is necessarily the end of the world, especially if the original family was dysfunctional and full of conflict.

At one pick-up (long after the divorce, but conveniently after DH and I were engaged), BM gave DH a bunch of photos of them as a family and also gave him their wedding video. The family photos had been in frames with spaces for multiple pictures, BM removed the pictures of just the children and gave DH the pictures of the four of them together. DH thought about keeping the video and the pictures "in case my kids want them when they're older" and I told him I thought it would be mean to give them pictures of when their parents were pretending to be happy together. I told him that every child of divorce wishes their parents would get back together and giving them photos and videos would likely make them hold out hope that you were in fact, happy at one time. From what DH told me, he and BM didn't even really get along before they got married, so why perpetuate the myth by saving smiling photos or a video from their wedding.

BM has been living with another guy since before her divorce to DH was final, but she still finds little ways to remind DH of their relationship. She even sent him flirty texts at one point that totally made him feel uncomfortable. She also makes a million excuses for why she needs to talk to DH, most of which do not have to do with the children. I know she's holding on to something for DH, maybe it's just a feeling that she needs to control him, but it sure seems like feelings of love to me.