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Bio-mom trying to exclude me...

LadyAMH88's picture

My stepsons BM has been ignoring my texts & calls from my phone since she found out that my fiancé & I were engaged...Yes, he's legally not my SS, yet, but I consider him my SS already. Before then, she would contact me for EVERYTHING that had to do with my SS. She told my fiancé that she will not be answering any calls from anyone unless he is the one who's texting/calling her. She is refuses to allow my fiancé to speak with his son on the phone if she hears my voice or if I get on the phone to say hi to my SS. Everytime my fiancé gets on the phone to talk to his son, she will intervene & try to talk to him about stuff that has NOTHING to do with their son...she tries to casual talk, like they are friends & when he doesn't go along with it, she will throw things in his face & become malicious. He will ask her to refrain from talking to him about anything if it doesn't involve their son & she just ignores it...she will pry for info from him, also. She's just making it very complicating to have anything to do in my SS's life. My fiancé allowed her to move out of state with their son to avoid any conflicts & make it easier on his son. He told me that he will not stand for her completely excluding me from their sons life. We are engaged, live together, & have an 8 month old together. Do I not have any rights? & can she legally ex-communicate every phone call that she hears my voice?

I'm starting to understand why a lot of dads stay out of their children's lives until they are old enough to establish contact without the BM or BF intervening their every move.

Please do not respond with hate...I'm looking for real, honest & understanding advice. Sad .

No Name's picture

Sounds to me as though she is jealous. I have been on both sides of this. My oldest daughter's SM came into her life when she was in elementary school. I actually knew her when we were teenagers as we had mutual friends. Although my daughter struggled with having a step mother we as the adults came together to co-parent. Life is so much easier when all sides are excepting and can co-parent together for the child. My daughter was also stopped dead in her tracks when she tried to manipulate situations as we all communicated with each other. Actually it was probably more her SM and I communicating then me and her father. We are good friends to this day and my oldest is now 37.
I was also a SM to two SD's for 10 years. Same type of relationship and now that the girls are adults (I am no longer their SM) we have a good relationship and I am also friends with their Mother. Although at times in the beginning it was difficult we some how managed to co-parent the girls.
Now for my current situation. BM doesn't really know me and hates me. She wanted no parts of me. If I tried to communicate with her through email regarding the children she would ignore me. She even told DH that she knows that she is not a good mother like No Name. I couldn't understand her. Surely the more people that love and care for your children the better. I thought that I would just continue to be me and as the children got older they would accept me on their own without the poisoned view of their BM. Well, that didn't work. They all hate me and although I don't hate them I certainly don't like them.
My suggestion would be to give BM her space. Don't call her, email her or text her. Your fiancée should be the only one making contact with her.
Since you live together and have a baby together make your time when SS comes to visit your special time with him. At this point it is all about control. She has the power, you have none. This too shall pass. Just be kind to SS and hope that as he gets older he will make his own judgements about you. Also BM in your case may mellow out but sounds like the news of your recent engagement set her off. Maybe things are just becoming a little too permanent and she is struggling with the fact that her ex really is moving on. Stay strong.

LadyAMH88's picture

Thank you so much for your advice. It really feels good to have someone understand where I'm coming from. I just feel so bad for my fiancé. He has mentioned just ex-communicating with his son until he's old enough to speak to him without his BM intervening their every call. He sees how it hurts me & he refuses to let her affect our relationship. He hasn't cut ties with his son, but has only made statements when she decides to go "crazy pants" over stupid things. I care for her child when he's here, she's even thanked me for it previously. But the minute she hears of engagement its complete ex-communication from me. Anyways, again, thank you for giving your opinion. I really do appreciate it.

No Name's picture

Tell Dad to hang in there. His son needs him more than he may think. Just take a back seat and let Dad do all of the communicating. My DH's Ex told my DH to thank me for taking care of their son (age 21) but that all went by the way side once things started going bad. Now I am the bad person.
Anyway, if you feel bad for your fiancée just encourage him to maintain a relationship with his son and tell him that you will take the high road on this one and not to worry about you.

twoviewpoints's picture

Nope, no rights for you.

Your time to be SM is in your home during Dad's parenting time. You can also, of course attend SS's activities such as sports and school concerts or whatnot. But on Mom's time, well, you don't get to intrude. Sure, she liked you...right up until the dy she figured out you weren't going away LOL.

See, the thing is. SS has two parents. A mother and a father. You aren't either of those people. No court is going to order you get to call and talk to SS on Mom's time. That's not to say a court won't order Mom to allow Dad to call and talk. Some court order parenting plans have x number of calls , set days, set times, set length of call blah blah blah. But the calls are meant for the parent. And again, that's not you.

A court order/parenting plan is between the biological mother and biological father of the child. Even when you actually marry. You can do as much parenting of the child as Dad and you wish in your home on Dad's time, but don't ever expect Mom is going to see you as or treat you as someone she must co-parent with.

I get it, you love the child and you want to be involved. Great. But you are going to have to step back and let Mom and Dad do the communicating and co-parenting. That doesn't mean Dad and you can't make decisions in your home together about the child. Mom has no control over what and how Dad and you do and discuss things. But when it comes to mutual parenting necessity decisions, it's between Mom and Dad. You can give Dad your input but when it comes right down to it all medical and legal type (education, for example) your only voice is through the father. Never for the father. Mom can refuse to speak to you. She can pretend you don't exist.

if you push her and anger her too hard and far she may do something awful like PAS the kid against Dad and you. Surely you don't want that.

Hopefully, she will settle down some. It's silly to hang-up a phone call with Dad just because she hears you saying 'hello, how are you, SS'. You really need to spend some time reading around this site. You will be enlightened rapidly on some of the games some mothers play and the extent they go to stop a stepmom. I read one member telling how she could not take the child to the grocery store or shopping because the biological mother feared her child would think of SM as 'mother'.

LadyAMH88's picture

Which is true, I'm not going anywhere lol I love the kid like I love my own kids. I guess that's why I've let it affect me so much. But you're right. I have to just back off. She's definitely a nut case. Thank you for your honest but understanding opinion. Sometimes I just feel alone in my feelings b/c I don't know anyone in my position.

SMforever's picture

When I ask myself...what could this BM be afraid of? Pretty clear - she fears that her son might enjoy being at your place and ask to live with his Dad full time. I agree with those who say step back while he is with his Mom. No need for you to jump into phone conversations just to "say hi". Let his father keep a normal / distance relationship with him, it's what every boy needs.

I can actually see how it would annoy her if you jump on the line. She wants the parenting to be done by the boy's two parents, and she is quite right in wanting that.

You will have plenty of face time with him when he is at your house, but you cannot hope to replace his mother no matter how good quality a parent you are. Just keep doing good things when he with you and don't make moves that look like you are trying to replace her.

I an empathetic with you, but it's not fair to make every BM the boogie man just because they fear the Happy Family winning the popularity contest.

Imthewife20's picture

My SD is now 24.

This is common. We were FINE with BM until the engagement. Mind you she got remarried one month after we started dating. We dated for 3 1/2 years before we got engaged. I remember dropping off SD and she looked down at my finger and saw the ring and asked if we were engaged......BOOM.....THAT DID IT.

Two months later she started the custody battle royale trying to get full custody of SD. 9 months of hell during our wedding planning. There was a full psychological evaluation (thanks to her nuttiness). It was awful.

She had also contacted me about everything SD as well. However, suddenly she was reminding me that SD was HER KID. She went through a period of time trying to get SD to call her step-dad "dad"......

Hopefully, she will get over it. It's such a volatile time when they are kids. I thought I'd never see the end of that tunnel but we did.

I feel for you, especially with him being out of state. It's tough, but she will one day need you again. Boys need their daddy's, she's going to learn the hard way.

motherof_2plus1's picture

Yep this is currently EXACTLY what im going through.

BM found out he was going to propose, he mentioned it to her as to ease her into the situation, he suspected she might take it bad. Not only did she ruin the engagement by flat out telling me... oh he is going to be proposing to you i hope you know. She also threatened FDH that is he were to proceed with the engagement she would be taking his daughter and relocating.

Well fast forward to now, we are in a custody battle which is costing a fortune, in the midst of planning our wedding and it is absolutely hellish. Our atty is also recommending a phys eval due to BM bat shit crazy behavior.

motherof_2plus1's picture

Yep this is currently EXACTLY what im going through.

BM found out he was going to propose, he mentioned it to her as to ease her into the situation, he suspected she might take it bad. Not only did she ruin the engagement by flat out telling me... oh he is going to be proposing to you i hope you know. She also threatened FDH that is he were to proceed with the engagement she would be taking his daughter and relocating.

Well fast forward to now, we are in a custody battle which is costing a fortune, in the midst of planning our wedding and it is absolutely hellish. Our atty is also recommending a phys eval due to BM bat shit crazy behavior.

Cecilia's picture

I understand where your coming from. I had those kind of issues when I was engaged to my husband. Whatever you do don't fight with the biological mom, it only reflects badly on you. It may lead to resentment from your SS. Let your fiancee deal with the bm. Kids see more than you think, don't give him a reason to think he has to chose between you and his bm.

strugglingSM's picture

Unfortunately, I think even as a SM you don't have any rights to the child on BM's time. The one caveat is does your SO's parenting plan include provisions for time he has to interact with the child who is out of state? If his plan explicitly states that he can talk to the child on the phone, I don't think BM could get away with withholding those calls because she doesn't want you to talk to the child. Those calls would essentially be allowing your SO to maintain the relationship with his child who is now out of state, so I would expect that they would have the same protections as visitation. If your SO doesn't have anything written into his plan about how he's able to maintain a relationship with the child, now that he's out of state, then he should do that. He should request either phone or video calls alone with his child. BM shouldn't try to regulate calls between her son and his father. Therapists would say that, that type of behavior is putting the child in the middle, which many consider to be abuse. I would think that if your SO found the right mediator, then he would have a good chance of getting such contact written into his plan, especially since he allowed the mother to move out of state.

I wouldn't worry too much about not being part of decision-making for the child, focus on the relationship with the child and let your SO and BM figure out parenting issues. If there are events, SO can certainly bring you and BM could have a fit, but she can't make you leave, depends on how much tolerance you have for drama.

BM is jealous - either of the fact that your SO has recovered from their split enough to move on or from the fact that now she has no chance to be with your SO again. Women seem to have a much harder time from moving on from relationships than men do and also seem to be more concerned about "winning" after the divorce. That's a broad generalization and not true 100% of the time, but true more often than not.

Rags's picture

You have no rights except those that your future DH chooses to give you during his time with this prior relationship child. You have absolutely no rights on BM's time. The good news is that she cant prevent you from having a relationship with your SS when he is visiting his dad.

Get used to it.

Infuriating I know. I met my bride when my SS-25 was 15mos old. We married the week before he turned 2yo. Dealing with the toxic SpermClan was a 16+ year adventure. Your SS will know who his REAL mom is and it sadly will not be his BM because of her toxic crap. My SS ultimately chose me as his dad though that is what I always have been. I have always been his dad. He asked me to adopt him a few months before his 23rd birthday and we finally got papers documenting what had always been fact. I'd dad. He's my son. The SPermIdiot and SpermClan's toxic crap got them written off by my son.

It sounds that it is likely that your journey will return the same results considering how toxic your SKid's BM is.

Congrats on the baby and good luck dealing with the shallow and polluted end of your SKid's gene pool. He will need your help and his dad's help with that.

Coco1910's picture

BM also hates me. It was all fine until it was obvious that DH and I were getting serious. I tried to reach out but everything was ignored so gave up. She looked right through me in person like I don't exist. She'd talk to kids, DH, my in-laws normally but just exclude me. DH will copy me on important emails re. scheduling and she'll always reply to him only.

It got even worse to the point where if we are at a kids event and one of the kids is with us, she won't even approach us to talk to her own kid.

My ss had an emergency at school this week and I wrote her that I could help (DH was out of town). Not even a thanks. Then she wrote to DH how will we handle this, your parents offered to help. NO mention of my offer.

She's just decided to mentally delete me. It's bizarre.

Yesterday DH ran into her at work and they got into a fight about something else. But during that fight he called her on her treatment of me and she said she doesn't interact with me because I was toxic. I am so hurt.

I decided yesterday I'm done. I wanted to he civil towards the greater goal of parenting the kids but done.