I was so angry last night - at myself, the BM, and the situation in general. DH let the BM (we now refer to her as "the pox" between ourselves) know that other then emergencies he would only be communicating with her by email or text. He also notified her that they would be dealing with their jointly owned house when they go back to court in November. She is living in it and not paying the mortgage.

Like I knew she would - she called him anyway while we were at his brother's house with the kids. He answered because we had picked up the kids Friday night for visitation and let her know by email that she would need to come get them at our house on Sunday (we are forcing her into shared transportation until the court decides what will be done). She of course, doesn't tell us until Saturday that she doesn't have gas money and won't pick them up. Typical BM nonsense. She started out reasonable and told DH about a housing pogram she had found to address the jointly shared property issue. Then (as usual) she starts in on him about completely non-related nonsense, badgering him to get him to do her favors, and claiming he is supposed to do all this stuff because he is the kids dad. They start arguing (as usual)and for the first time in front of SS12, I saw red, stood up, grabbed the cell phone, and hung up on her. I sat down and said, well, if she doesn't want to pick them up, then I guess SS will get to take next week off school and stay with us. I immediately apologized to SS and told him that was totally out of line for me to say/do. SS goes into the bathroom crying. DH's sister in law goes in to talk to him, I go in and apologize again, tell him I love him, and it was totally wrong for me to have said that/done that. DH talked to him and apparently SS was upset that I had hung up on his mom. Good lord, the amount of nasty things that woman says about us on Facebook for the kids to read, all the things she has told them that they tell us, all the fighting and crap that she has pulled that he has witnessed, and THIS made him that mad. He never gets mad at her, ever.

I totally get that she is his mom so he is going to defend her, but I am always the one who reminds DH not to talk about her in front of them, have never said anything about her to them, and tried to be friendly with her in the beginning. It seems to have rolled off his back and we are fine again, but seriously? DH and I are expected to just sit back and take it from that harpy and after one minor incident in more than a year, I am the bad guy? It just made me realize that no matter how nice I am, what I do for the stepkids, or how much crap we put up with, it isn't going to matter so this shop is closed. I am detaching and not trying so hard anymore.