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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To want to give BM the pasting she deserves

295 replies

volcano28 · 01/06/2019 07:58

Long story short -Steps sons mother has always been a total nightmare . All the usual stuff a lot of ppl experience. Her family are all enablers -she does what she likes when she likes with no thought for anyone else or the consequences and no one ever (inc my husband) call her out on it. Which I think makes people worse as they come to believe their behaviour is acceptable. What's really ticked me off is SS has done nothing al half term even though she doesn't work , has plenty of money and a car, he was supposed to be going to a theme park yesterday with some friends and their family near where we live -before coming here for the weekend -but she didn't wake him up in time so he missed it -so to try and spite my husband ss has missed out 😯 this is because we live 3 hours away so he has to drive to pick him up and drop him back for contact where as he could have been 20mins away! . I don't care about Dh having to drive I care about the fact she's put wanting to make Dh life harder (which it doesn't he's more than happy to drive any distance) before ss having a great day out . And I want to contact her and tell her how I feel -I've always had to 'rise above it ' for 14yrs ! But on the other hand she'd love it as getting a reaction 😣 maybe I just needed a bit of a rant get it off my chest

OP posts:
FriarTuck · 01/06/2019 08:19
Grin
Ellisandra · 01/06/2019 08:20

I do have experience that teens can be unreliable at setting alarms / getting up. I still think he’s bullshitting you though. For a theme park 3 hours drive away, the lift arrangements will have been them picking up or stepson going to them. So at some point they’d have knocked on the door or ring to say “where are you?”. If he’d wanted to go, he could have been ready quickly. He chose not to go.

maddiemookins16mum · 01/06/2019 08:22

Oh Op, you do know that as the Step Mum you will always be in the wrong on MN.
I see your frustration, don’t rise to it 💐💐

Ellisandra · 01/06/2019 08:23

When you use an abbreviation like BM and are told by multiple people not to use it, it’s fine to say “I though it was a standard abbreviation, sorry”.

When you add “jeez” all you do is completely undermine that supposed “sorry”. I don’t think his mother is the only difficult character in this tale Hmm

Isth · 01/06/2019 08:24

Ellisandra has it.

Anyway OP, it’s not really your place to ‘call her out’ on it, regardless of the rights and wrongs.

FrancisCrawford · 01/06/2019 08:24

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
volcano28 · 01/06/2019 08:25

@Ellisandra I think people online telling someone to 'fuck off ' for using the wrong abbreviations is over the top and unnecessary so...

OP posts:
Teddybear45 · 01/06/2019 08:25

At 14 I totally believe that the DSS was in bed. My brothers couldn’t be woken up when they were teenagers to the point where one of them even missed an exam.

At no point did anyone blame my mum for this though. At 14 it’s his responsibility to set his alarm and wake up. He clearly didn’t want to go enough and maybe ‘friends’ weren’t really his friends but people he hangs out with when he’s at yours and so that wasn’t an incentive.

diddl · 01/06/2019 08:26

" 14 year olds arnt the best time keepers or great at getting up early independently. "

Christ he's not 2!

Seems to me he could have got himself up if he wanted to.

I think that he needs to take some responsibility.

Isth · 01/06/2019 08:27

@volcano28 that was me. It’s unpleasant and a nasty turn of phrase imo. If you genuinely used it innocently and not because you already hate your DPs ex, I’d apologise, but I don’t think you did so...

Notabedofroses · 01/06/2019 08:28

Really I can't see why this has anything at all to do with you.

You sound bitter and resentful of her, with nothing concrete beyond everyone dances to her tune. So what if they do? And why do you care so much about it all.

Maybe she is trying to encourage her son to be more responsible and independent, and given he can't even wake himself up on time for a day out at 14 years old this is no bad thing.

Original poster
volcano28 · 01/06/2019 08:28

It was an honest mistake , I would be SM in this scenario from what I've read on here.

OP posts:
DontBiteTheBoobThatFeedsYou · 01/06/2019 08:29

I thought SS was social services.

I was wondering what they were supposed to be doing during half term.

Quartz2208 · 01/06/2019 08:30

If she is that bad can he live with you does he want to

Mummyoflittledragon · 01/06/2019 08:30

You and he knows what she’s like. Time to buy him a £14 cheap clock radio thingy perhaps? How does he manage to get up to go to school?

Isth · 01/06/2019 08:31

If you say so, OP. Like I’ve said previously, I think you probably have very long standing issues with your stepsons mother, and that’s really coming across in your posts. Bottom line is that he’s fourteen, plenty old enough to organise himself and set an alarm. And in fairness, as a PP says, couldn’t your husband have phoned him to wake him?

NameChangeNugget · 01/06/2019 08:31

The BM sounds like an arsehole OP. Rise above her bitterness.

I’m sure you’re doing a grand job Flowers

I am not a Step mother myself but, I think it must be like having to be Ban Ki Moon at the UN having to deal with grown adults determined to be pricks

Notabedofroses · 01/06/2019 08:32

PS Generally teenagers tend to organise their own time and holidays. One week half term holiday does not require a parent to provide a full entertainment programme of days out for someone of his age! It is ridiculous to suggest he would even welcome this, my teens certainly wouldn't. It is embarrassing. Our teens tend to decide what they want to do, who they would like to see, and sometimes they just need to sleep and recharge.

Stressedout10 · 01/06/2019 08:32

This reply has been deleted

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TestingTestingWonTooFree · 01/06/2019 08:33

I think the lack of alarm/wake up prevented SS from going on a theme park trip that was 20m away from dad, rather than 3h. Yanbu to be frustrated OP.

CanILeavenowplease · 01/06/2019 08:35

I think people online telling someone to 'fuck off ' for using the wrong abbreviations

When did someone last refer to you as ‘the birth mother’ in relation to your children?

Yes, you are SM. Step mother. Describes your role. Mum describes the ex’s role. Not rocket science, is it?

Original poster
volcano28 · 01/06/2019 08:35

@Stressedout10 wow what a nasty piece of work you are ! Calling someone a cunt on the internet before 9am

He was about to turn 1 when we got together -they had broken up when she was pregnant as she'd admitted to cheating and the possibility of baby not being his . So no not other woman , I didn't know him before

OP posts:
Eustasiavye · 01/06/2019 08:37

He isn't allowed a phone!
Wow that is off.
I do agree that at 14 he is old enough to sort himself out.Does he not have a tablet or computer, you can set alarms on those.
His mum doesn't sound great but after being the mother of a 14 year old, I can tell you it's no bed of roses.

Original poster
volcano28 · 01/06/2019 08:38

No phone and no internet access, he says he's spent the week watching the youngest 2 and was gutted he hadn't got up in time to go yesterday

OP posts:
mathanxiety · 01/06/2019 08:39

You are being played by the DS.

She has other children and presumably enough to do without having to go and knock on the door of a teenage boy all morning to get him up.

If a 14 year old boy wanted to go with friends to a theme park he would have got up and gone.

Are you sure this woman is selling the phones? Maybe she is confiscating them as a means of making him toe the line or because he is on his phone all night and then she has to peel him off the bed in the morning for school? Or maybe he is using the phones to break house rules - sexting, getting into trouble in school for phone use... there is all kinds of mischief a teenage boy could get up to on a phone.

And this -
Elisandra
Also, I’m PMSL at your snide remarks about an AT LEAST 14yo doing nothing all half term. Have you got any mid to late teens?!

You know that they reach an age where they don’t dance in excitement when you suggest a farm park to look at the lambs and ride the mini tractors?

Start a post asking how many mums of 14yo boys have had days out this half term, and how many have been despairing of their children now only want to sit in their room on an Xbox chatting to their mates.

Grin at 'sit'. Some are capable of staying horizontal for a week.