New Here

[Krazytown]

Hi,   

I am a soon to be step mom to three amazing boys.  My fiances ex wife was diagnosed with BPD 10 years ago, and the diagnosis was re-confirmed this year.  I do not have any kids of my own and until 2 years did not know anything about BPD.  My fiance has full custody of the boys and made the mistake of allowing visitation after his ex proved she was sober from drugs and alcohol.  We found that even though she was sober, her behavior has become more and more hostile over the last few years.  When he tried to create boundaries, she freaked out and the accusations and threats became even worse.  We have been investigated by CPS 2 times over the last 2 years and are currently trying to get a Parenting Evaluation completed.  She filed for joint custody in April of this year and has drug it out every step of the way.  We have attempted to settle 3 times and at this point have decided that there is no settling.  Its difficult and painful to deal with all the craziness.  I look forward to learning from everyone's experiences. 

Thanks!

[Turkish]

What visitation is happening right now,  how old are the boys and how are they dealing with it? CPS is unnerving to say the least. What are the accusations?

[Krazytown]

The boys are 8, 10 and 13.  They currently see their mom 6 hours a week and every other Saturday for 8 hours. No over night visits.  They are doing much better in the last 10 months since we stopped over nights and started therapy.  Accusations were neglect and unsafe living conditions. Both cases were closed after cps interviewed the kids and inspected our home. 
It's still hard that she pumps the kids for information in the short time she sees them and then comes up with the most bizarre accusations. 

[Turkish]

I saw your reply to another thread on the legal board.  It sounds like you've both enacted clear boundaries,  including keeping communication short and emotionless (what we call
around here BIFF: Brief,  Informative,  Friendly,  Firm).  I sometimes drop the first Friday in my case 

As frustrating as it is, you seem to have the overall plan under control (parallel parenting,  a communication tool to document), notwithstanding her decision to go for joint custody


You say the boys have been doing better with less contact and being in therapy. I imagine something like "no interrogating the kids about what goes on in the other home" might be in the custody order, but that's hard to enforce. In what ways are you and your fiancé working with the kids to help them deal with this? Does reach react differently depending upon age and personality?

[Krazytown]

I couldn't think of the abbreviation when writing that reply. I too leave off the friendly most times, although I do say thank you after every message (but it means something else in my head that starts with another f).
We are trying to get a plan in place that has all of those things. Reality is my fiancé has full custody and she has temp  visitation orders for the time I discribed... We have tried settling with her, but she refuses anything that doesn't include a 50/50 split on time.  We are hoping that the custody evaluation supports our case of limited visitation. But it has been slow getting anything done since she has dragged her heels on everything and now the custody evaluator is extremely busy. 

We try not to ask anything about visits to their moms house other than small talk like did you have fun and what was for dinner?
If any of them bring up specific conversations they have had with their mom we try to change the subject or say conversations between you and your mom are private.
The little one likes to try to get his older brother in trouble by saying ss10 told mom he hates you.  I usually respond with that's not very nice, but the conversations you have with mom are between you and mom. You shouldn't be repeating them to me.  I just wish their mom would follow the same policy.
The hardest thing to deal with is the change in attitude when they come home.  They are always very quiet and when we tuck the little ones in bed right after a visit, they don't say "I love you" to me or their dad.  But they will when it's a night they haven't been to their moms.  The oldest struggles with attitude and following rules after being at his moms.  He doesn't tell me no, but he will ignore me when I ask him to do something. I know that some of this is just teenager attitude, but I also know some of it is he is getting mixed messages from mom and her family.
Being a step mom is hard.  I don't know how much of the stress I deal with is just normal step mom stress or how much of it is dealing with my fiancée  dBPDxw