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Any advice on how to handle an emotionally abusive BM who is technically adhering to the court order?

Solidshadow7's picture

I am getting really fed up with watching the BM emotionally damage a child that I am a SM to. At the moment, I have good relationship with the child as does his BD but with BM is doing, im pretty sure that sooner or later he won't be capable of having a good relationship with anyone. I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas on what to do to try to counteract some of this nonsense?

DH and her have a 50/50 schedule, but its staggered so that she has most of the school time and he has most of the non school time. My SS who is 4 comes every weekend, and for the most part he never mentions BM or her existence when he is here. Except for the summer, DH had him for 4 weeks continuously, then BM had 1 week, then DH had another 4 continuous weeks.

When SS arrived for his first 4 week block, he immediately began screaming that he wants his mommy. He worked himself into a pretty good frenzy over it at bedtime, and then he started screaming "My mommy is gone" "My mommy is dead" "You killed my mommy." This went on for about 3 days, after which he never mentioned her again.
Then he went to BM for a week, and came back for another 4 week block. Same thing happened. He immediately (the first day) began screaming "my mommy is gone, my mommy is dead, you killed my mommy" and then stopped after 2 days. Considering he has never done this before even though he comes for 3 days EVERY SINGLE WEEK, clearly BM tried to explain to him that he had to go to dads for a month by telling him that daddy was going to kill her and he would never see her again.

We did pretty good by trying to explain to SS what a lie is, why its bad to lie, and then every time his mom lied (practically every time she called) pointing out the lie to him. We also kept explaining where people or pets were when they left the room and how they were still there, and occasionally telling him where BM is, where grandpa is, where dad goes when he goes to work, and so on and so forth.

BM has now demonstrated her next brilliant stroke of pure nonsense. So the CO says each parent can call 3 times per week. They calls are all done via speakerphone because SS will not use a phone by himself yet. The BM calls every single day when SS is here even though SS mostly refuses to talk to her and she just says "mommy loves you mommy misses you" over and over again while ss screams "I don't want to talk to mommy." Or sometimes he says "I love you I miss you too okay bye now bye now mom!" The kid just doesn't like phones, especially since the calls from the BM would be awkward torture for anyone, especially considering they happen every single day, and every call sounds exactly the same. She really could just use a recording.
He actually talks when DH calls, because DH will talk about what hes doing or ask SS how his day was. So now shes come up with her next trick. I guess she hates it that SS won't talk to her when he's here but talks to DH when he's with her.

So now whenever DH calls, she takes SS's toys away, and tells him he must sit in his timeout chair as long as his father is on the phone. Now when DH calls SS screams while the BM is heard in the background going "you sit in that chair, you have to stay in the talk to daddy chair until daddy hangs up. No, no toys while talking to daddy. No, stay in the chair. You have to stay there until your father is done." To make matters worse, the way the schedule is built DH has a few 3 weeks periods where he doesn't see SS at all, he can't just not call for three weeks.

What does one do about this? She's not in contempt and I doubt this qualifies as something CPS would be concerned with. I mean, its disgusting despicable behavior on her part that im sure is going to mess poor SS up to no end, but we have no idea what to do about it. Neither me nor my DH. We're just kinda horrified and have our hands tied. Any ideas?

sunshinex's picture

My only advice is for you specifically.... Don't get your hopes up for any lovely SM/SS relationship here. I don't think it's going to happen with a BM playing crazy games like that. Sorry to say!

I'm not sure if there's anything, legally, you can do so i'll leave that to other posters.

GhostWhoCooksDinner's picture

Agreed! Intensive therapy for the kid and a lawyer for DH to get the kid away from his emotionally abusive "mother."

Dontfeedthetrolls's picture

Transitioning can be hard for a kid so young, which is why many states have different rules for children under certain ages.

In my state if the child is 1 or 2 the NCP gets the child the first weekend of each month from Saturday night to Sunday evening. They get Saturday DAY every week but only 1 overnight a month.

At 3 ncp gets Wednesday afternoon till 9PM then every other weekend Friday to Sunday.

Summers again are different. If a child is under 3 there is no change at all.
3 to 5 gets a two week visit with the middle weekend going back to primary. At 6 they get the full 6 weeks with NCP with one weekend to primary in the center.

This is done because of what they believe is best for the child and their development. It may change one day but most psychologist and doctors agree. Young children need to have a stable attachments and this is what they think works best.

Now I went through this to point out that the child’s comments about mommy being dead are not a sign of BM's wrong doing. You think that he says it because his mom told him it. That doesn’t have to be true. The child is handling the stress of not seeing their mother. In their young mind they don’t totally understand and fear the worse. He thinks mommy is gone so that must mean mommy is dead. In our case the 4 year old couldn’t clearly express that he was upset and why. He just stated pooping his pants. He also acted out. Basically my point is this it can be normal for kids in this situation. Most children will struggle. They will act up. As he gets use to it more and more hopefully he will handle it better and the time it takes him to recover will decrease.

On the other end though I do agree how she is handling phone calls is wrong BUT in our home the kids go into our bedroom with their dad to complete phone calls so that they can be on speaker phone and its privet. BM tried saying that I was telling the kids to get off the phone so we decided this was the best way to handle it. They are not allowed to leave the room with the phone. They would go into the room and start playing and you could here BM yelling to try and get attention. It’s not much different when they are with mom. The kids have to stop what they are doing to go talk to dad. So basically both parents call to talk to the kids and check on them but it doesn’t need to be long to get the point across.

I know it’s hard but maybe your partner should keep the calls shorter. Hey how are you, are you having fun, I miss you, I love you, I’ll see you ______. If the child gets upset end the call quickly this way she doesn’t get the impact she's going for. If she is truly doing this she is trying to connect negative experiences with dad which is alienation. Don’t play into it. You can’t control what she does in her house but if he demands to talk to the son for a really long time it will make it worse. A simple I love you may be enough until the kid is older.

Solidshadow7's picture

I do understand that the schedule is absolutely HORRIBLE for a three year old. I understand that the "best interests of the child" clause was clearly not in play when the judge made up this order. It is expected that the child will already have severe abandonment issues because BM didn't let his father see or speak to him for 8 months while he fought her in court. The child had what looked a lot like panic attacks in a 3 year old for months whenever DH left the room to so much as use the bathroom. He has also latched onto me and will cry for HOURS if i'm not there to tuck him into bed when he's over. But he never mentions BM. Its also debatable who the primary caregiver is, since the child spent the first three years of his life mainly being watched by BM's parents, because DH was working and BM was in school during the day and out doing drugs at night. They all lived in the same house, but neither parent really qualified as a primary caregiver for attachment theory. BM also didn't breastfeed and doesn't do hugs or physical contact. The child always slept in his own bed. Currently there is no NCP. Both parents are listed as equal on the parenting plan.

We have the child from Friday night until Monday morning three weekends every month and its been this way since December. On those weekends, he literally goes 3 days without even mentioning the existence of BM. We had him for 10 days for spring break during which he did not mention the existence of BM. (He does occasionally ask for his grandparents though) But as soon as we got him for an extended period, (which BM fought tooth and nail against and sent DH a long slew of text messages about how the child would die without her) SS immediately began carrying on about BM being gone and dead within an hour of arrival, and continued for 2-3 days. He did this both times we had him for 4 weeks, but not at any of the other times, not even when BM was gone for 10 days. So no, he's not simply reacting to one parent not being present. Someone put this in his head.

Dontfeedthetrolls's picture

Except it’s hard to say for sure who or what put it in his head. I understand that yes it could be BM but maybe it was some friend said something? He watches some movie with death? Maybe his goldfish died? Something made it so he now has the fear that when he’s gone from mom she’s dead or will die. It’s a very complex fear that many people with OCD develop. This idea that if I’m away something bad will happen. Of course he says daddy did it because dad took him away from mom in his view. Where did he get this idea of murder though?

I just don’t see what mom could say that would lead him to think that. “If you go stay with your dad this long then he’s going to kill me.” Kids hear things. Maybe she said “Your killing me” while on the phone to someone. Maybe she said “You being so long is going to kill me.” Neither should be said to a young child who can’t comprehend the full idea of death BUT that doesn’t mean she told him "Your dad is going to kill me".

Basically get the kid to a therapist. There are a few possible outcomes. She did it. He misunderstood something. He’s scared. There’s no saying for sure unless the kid gets to speak to a therapist.

SO had a fun time explaining why his 4 year old went to BM and said “Daddy hates you.” No what was said is “No mommy’s not my best friend. X is.” The kid was learning about hate and so if someone’s not your friend then in his mind clearly you hate them. We’re also trying to figure out why a 4 year old yelled at his sister that he wishes she would die. We won’t know unless we get him therapy and neither will you. Good luck.

Solidshadow7's picture

Makes me think of my brother at 4. He started threatening to kill himself. We don't know where he picked that up but it sure got a rise out of us. The grownups (my parents) and apparently his therapist thought he was serious, because they started treating a 4 year old for depression. I (at twelve) of course knew that he had no idea what suicide meant, and was just doing it because he enjoyed the attention.