DH is with BM right now at Starbucks....and he's asking her for custody of SS5! I am dying to know how this conversation is going.

Here's the story:

BM and DH broke up because she was unwilling to work or help around the house, and he got sick of supporting her while she lazed on the internet all day. She went to live with her parents (about a mile away from us), and spent the next year surfing the internet all night and sleeping all day while her mom watched SS. Her parents got sick of this, and demanded she go to school, which she did part time for 2 years.

This semester she forgot to register in time, so she isn't in school right now. SS5 is in Kindergarten now, so she doesn't have him to watch. We have SS every weekday from 4-8:30p, and every 1st, 3rd and 5th weekends, so she only really has him while he is sleeping and the 2nd/4th weekends. All she does is surf the internet and go out with friends.

Now she also has health problems to add to the mix. She has a condition, and the medication for it has hurt her heart. She was in the hospital last week and they basically have told her she needs to start taking care of herself. She only eats pizza and cheeseburgers (literally) and generally does not take care of herself.

Tonight was her weekend, and she called us at 5:00 crying, saying that she wasn't feeling well enough to watch SS and that we needed to come get him. She didn't explicitly say, but it looks like she stayed up all night, and wasn't able to sleep during the day because her parents were out of town this weekend so she had to actually look after SS herself. This was the last straw for my DH. Since her parents were out of town what would have happened if he and I had been out of town or unavailable? Would SS be looked after? He decided to talk with her tonight about us taking primary custody.

Basically, she can't protest any custody agreement he decides until she bothers to take the state mandated parenting course for divorced parents. She was supposed to take it during the divorce but decided she didn't want to. This would also mean that she wouldn't get child support anymore (which right now is her only form of income). DH is saying that we want custody until she has an income and is physically healthy enough to take care of SS.

It would be nice to not have to pay child support, but that isn't the reason DH is doing this. He is just worried that she is never going to get her life in order unless she gets a kick in the pants, and that environment can't be the best for SS.

Scary changes!!!