It's my day off! SD14 goes to BM's tonight so no school pickup right in the middle of the afternoon and maybe DH and I might actually have a couple of hours to ourselves this evening. Now that the honeymoon period has worn off when the change in SD's behaviour was a huge relief I have been having some adjustment issues getting used to the idea of having her here all the time. I miss my week off. However SD is back at school, is still behaving well, and has started counselling, which is a big relief. Now I don't feel like I am carrying so much of the weight of her issues on my shoulders. My hysteria over her diet has abated, partly because I have realised it is fruitless to try to police it, and partly because the only way it can really be addressed is by working on the underlying cause, which thankfully is now up to counsellor and SD.

Mercifully have seen nothing of BM although we narrowly escaped her participation in SD's first counselling session, which we attended for the first half hour. Yes, although BM, with her DOCTORATE IN PSYCHOLOGY did NOT want SD to have therapy, as soon as she found out we had booked it she was rabid to be included. DH had to fib and tell her we would not be there at ALL. In the session a major elephant was identified in the room when we all admitted that BM dislikes me intensely. Somehow all this time I had naively hoped that BM would have at least tried to keep her hostily towards me under wraps in front of the children, but it appears not. It came up when we were discussing future family sessions (SD is having solo sessions for a while but we think we should have some group sessions so we can work on trust and communication between us) at which point DH said it probably wouldn't be a good idea to do one with me and BM in the room at the same time! And SD agreed! And so did I! There is no way on God's earth I am going into a counselling session with BM. I have spent 7 years turning the other cheek, if you put me in a room with a therapist it is ALL going to come out.

The BEST moment of last week came when DH returned from a discussion with BM about finances. After a concerted campaign of 4 weeks DH finally agreed to NOT pay BM CS for the child who is no longer living with her. Yes you read that right, DH was planning on continuing to pay BM CS for 2 children (even though one of them is now living with us!) for a couple of months until things had 'settled down' in order not to stir things up with BM. I did an analysis of our increased living costs with another mouth to feed, body to clothe and head of hair to have cut. I analysed his irrational reasons for not wanting to make a perfectly fair and reasonable adjustment to child support immediately. I calculated how much CS he should be paying. And finally I told him I was amending the direct debit and it was up to him whether he appraised her of this fact in advance!

So finally he tells her that her CS payment will change to x. BM says 'I can't manage on that'. Hilariously her objection was slightly undercut by the fact she had spent the previous 15 minutes telling him about her imminent trip to An Exotic Foreign Capital, which will be her THIRD minibreak and FOURTH holiday of the year. At this point even DH got indignant, he said to her "This year 2 of my daughters who I am helping fund through university, and you, have had a foreign holiday. I haven't had a holiday this year, or last year, or the year before that, because you are still sitting in the house that you were supposed to have sold to pay the children their share of the equity for university". (At this point in the recounting of the story I put my hands in the air and went 'yaaaaaaaaaayyyy'). Apparantly she rallied from this body blow on the way home and claimed that it was 'costing her a fortune to keep that roof over their heads'. Given that she's keeping that 6 bedroom roof over their heads when only ONE of DH's children is actually still living in it full time, and the other occupants are her BF, and son with BF, it is unclear why she thinks that's an appropriate excuse.