I'm sure my story is about the same as everyone else's, but maybe a little different. I'm married to a one-of-a-kind guy, "Tyler" and we are raising the two children that we have between the two of us. (His three year old son from a previous relationship whom we have full custody of and the daughter we have together) Our life is wonderful and runs very smoothly except for the little hiccup we have to call my step-son's mother.
I stepped into my husband and step-son's lives when my step-son, "Jake" was almost a year old. From the very beginning Jake's mother "Sarah" has always tried to use her "position" of being his mother as a sort of power title. Sarah obviously feels that the title entitles her to be the "boss" of it all, yet has never actually showed interest in being a mother as much as a being the "head honcho" and using Jake as a tool to get back at Tyler and I for her relentless jealousy.
Sarah has always hated me simply because I'm with Tyler and we have a life and daughter together and more importantly that I'm raising Jake as my own. Usually normal people of normal standards would be glad that their son is being raised well by someone else even if they are unable to provide that life for whatever character flaw that they have. However, Sarah is no regular person and probably if examined they would at the very least find her to be extremely bi-polar if not antisocial or schizophrenic. I’m not saying this out of dislike but with all sincerity.
Not only does she find all of this to be a power struggle, it apparently is a money issue to her as well. She has attempted to use Jake as her bargaining tool but since we have full custody, she is no longer able to use this. Now her main issue is apparently money. She is court-ordered to pay child support and although recently she has been paying child support (only because she had found out that she could be put in jail if she didn't) for a year and half she never paid. Tyler and I do not care whatsoever for the child support and if it wasn't for our lawyer urging us to continue to ask for it, we wouldn't even bother with it. However, she feels for whatever reason that the money IS important to us (maybe because it is important to her)and tries to use the issue to her advantage.
Sarah has this attitude and way about her that she likes to think that she is extremely intelligent and that everyone else is completely beneath her. She attempts to manipulate people and situations to her advantage by exaggerating details or making complete falsehoods. She's usually so wrapped into building her schemes and passing them off that she doesn't even realize that no one is even buying them. Worse than anything apparently she can't even keep up with her past lies and only tells more lies to the point she can't even remember what the original truth was.
Sarah also craves drama and has always done anything she can to instigate problems with the intention of pushing someone to their limit. When that person reaches that limit and reacts to the stress then she likes to place the blame on that person. I have made this mistake only once and since then she has tried everything she can to make me react. She has had no luck since then and has gotten to the point of complete desperation.
Despite her obvious narcissism, however, Sarah likes to mimic and imitate me and the life that I have with Tyler. She very quickly picks up certain phrases and gestures that I use and general ways about myself. Sarah’s own plans, dreams, and ways have since changed in accordance to mine after watching me through social networks. As far as imitating our life she has even went as far as to name her daughter the almost identical name of mine and Tyler's daughter. Not to mention the "coincidence" of getting married on mine and Tyler's anniversary that she knew very well.
Although in the beginning of mine and Tyler's relationship she didn't like me because she thought I had somehow "taken her man" (she likes to claim that to people), somehow all of it has spun out from obsession of Tyler into apparently just an obsession and hatred of me. When Tyler and I were together for a while, she became aware that I wasn't going to be a short-lived fling, in an act of complete hopelessness she attempted to win Tyler back one last time, and when he refused she made a comment that "she didn't want to put him through the horrible experience he's about to experience but he left her no choice." and that "one day when I left him he would understand."
Shortly after that is when she decided to finally make an attempt to do anything legally about Jake, not knowing by then it was too late. Sarah already has a bad past with Jake considering when he was nine months old she kicked Tyler and Jake out to make room for another guy and after that never made an effort to be a mother. Also three weeks after Tyler and I were served those court papers, Sarah decided to move 2000 miles away without word to be with her new-found beau. She was gone for almost nine months and during this period never made much of an attempt to contact Tyler about Jake. She did manage to find the time in her new busy life to come visit Jake and her family a week during this absence.
Since she has moved back (with her new boyfriend, whom she married days before court, in tow and her own pregnant self) we have since been to court and mediation once but with no luck. Although everyone in the legal side knows they can't really take her seriously, they really have no choice because of "legal protocol." Sarah has done anything she can think of to try to get anything to use against us, starting with making legal documents claiming we were denying her any visitation and being neglectful towards Jake. Then she claimed that Jake has speech problems because we haven't properly taught him and that he has "behavioral problems" because of us. (The only problems we have out of Jake is the first day or two after he comes back from HER house.) She has even went as far as to claim she has made police reports about our supposed abuse towards him.
It's very easy to say to ignore Sarah but no one is living in this situation but Tyler and I and more importantly Jake. The main issue I have with her is NOT all the stress and torment that she puts us through as much as what she is doing to Jake. Sarah is so wrapped into her own game-plan of drama, money and power that she is using Jake and is failing to see what it's doing to HIM, not us. She would literally allow him to become a hellion if it meant putting us through grief. Of course, if he did turn into a complete problem child she would only point fingers at us.
Jake is only three and half years old and she is already teaching him to be despondent and defiant towards us and that Tyler and I are the ones to be blamed and hated. I can only imagine how much farther this will go when he is five or six. Not only is there the behavioral issues, there is the emotional turmoil that is so very apparent in Jake. He is already confused and it’s obvious that he is already smart and wise enough to see there is something wrong in the situation, even if he doesn’t understand precisely what it is yet. I fear that if everything continues like this he will become either a very distraught and confused child or somehow despite everything that he would only become just like his mother. Of course the latter would only make Sarah proud.
I wish I knew a way to improve this situation. Not necessarily about stopping Sarah or dealing with the stress of her as much being able to stop what I can already see what it's doing to Jake and the stress of seeing a child that I love as my own turning into either an emotional wreck or a spitting image of her.
I’m sorry it’s so long, but I never get a chance to really talk about or explain the situation.