What is the best way of protecting my adopted daughters from their biological mother?

[MotherofFiveKids]

I am a 49-year old woman who is remarried with 5 children (2 biological from previous marriage and 3 daughters adopted from current husband's previous marriage.)

I was married in my previous marriage for 8 years and was divorced for 2 years before getting remarried to my former best friend's ex-husband.

That woman and myself were best friends from college and we were roommates. She has had tons of issues with drug usage and also had gotten arrested for child endangerment after my husband and myself had tied the knot.

She eventually went to prion for drug possession and just got released last year.

After my divorce was in process, her issues destroyed her marriage. After she went to prison, my husband and me got married. We have been married for 7 years now. We hired a great Attorney and I was able to formally adopt my 3 daughters five years ago. The girls are happy with the adoption and it was a smooth process.

I ended my relationship with her once I got with her ex-husband.

My three adopted daughters are 16, 14, and 12.

Both my husband and myself have heard that his ex-wife (My former best friend) is trying to reach out to the girls.

As a mom, I am fearful about this. Who knows what kind of stunt that she is trying to pull.

What should I do about this? My husband and me do not want that woman contacting our daughters. She has serious issues.

My youngest 12 year old daughter, I pretty much raised her longer than what my husband's ex-wife did. The bond between the youngest and myself is as strong as it could be.

I agree. But OP should also seek the advice of (child) psychologists with relevant experience and training in that area.

The OP's adopted children remember their bio mother. They will have memories. These memories may be horrible. Some may be beautiful. I don't know... But this needs to be taken into account.

And now the source of these memories is apparently available and may be willing to have contact.

If the children want the same? Denying all contact seems like a really bad idea (from a psychological and social point of view. But I am not an expert). I fear that doing that may cause additional trauma, distress and resentment.

Surely there are two main issues?

Is she sober/clean of the drugs?

If so do the kids want to see her?

If she is clean and the kids want to see her, then legally even if you stop them seeing her for a few more years, it might damage your relationship in the longer term. They might start sneaking out to see their own biological mother or see her when they reach 18 and then blame you and their dad for keeping them separated.

Personally I think you and the dc and their dad need to discuss this in family therapy. Even if it is just to warn them that their mum is still on drugs but wants to see them and you don’t feel it is safe. You can’t follow around three teenagers all the time to stop her waiting outside their school or following them and surprising the kids.

If the mum is clean and the children want to see her, then therapy would be good to help that and if it’s what the children want, then some sort of supervised contact occasionally sounds like a good thing.

You need to think of the long term here and what is going to be best for the children

Some friend you are

Right here, if your language and behaviour before was distasteful this lost you any sympathy. You took her children and now dismiss here- if you wanted to be a good mother you would facilitate their relationship and help give them the tools to cope with her difficult behaviour rather than dismissing their mother. She is a part of them and demonising them will only cause them pain.

Time to give yourself a shake @MotherofFiveKids

I don't know about the process in the US, in the UK social workers would have come up with a plan about what to do when this happened. You can't remove all memories and knowledge of their birth mother so maybe you should write to her and organise a way for her to write to them at first, with all correspondence read and agreed by you before passing it to them, then go on to supervised visits. They deserve some answers. If she tries to overstep, then you could always get a restraining order but keeping the lines of communication open for now would benefit the children.

Yes. During Stepmother/Stepfather adoption, the biological parent's name is altered from the birth certificate and the step-parent's name is in place.

Her name on all three of the birth certificates were altered and my name has been on there for five years, now.

Once the step-parent adopts the kids, he/she has the same responsibilities as the biological parent.

It was a blessing for us that it was a comfortable and smooth process.

We are not a blended family. We're a family.

I am their Mom.

This has to be a legal matter. So you need to contact courts regarding her access to her biological children.
As an ex- convict, who lost her children's custody and child endargeament thrown in the mixture, I think there will be some previous rulings about visitations and the courts will want to monitor closely any future ones?

Wow, where to start. You stole her husband and her children. This woman is their mother, they are at an age where they should be having say if they want a relationship with her. Is this real?

Legally you are their mom.

Biologically she is their parent. Its almost inevitable that they will seek out a relationship with her at some point.

How you support your children is up to you.

Jesus. You married your best friends husband and adopted her kids? Remind me of that saying... um... something like "who needs enemies when youve got friends"?

She may have gotten help for her issues in prison. She may not have. But you don't seem to want to find out ? adopted children will often want to seek out their biological parents. Trying to prevent it when you don't even know how she is now or what the kids want is really shitty.

She’s been a long time in prison, maybe she’s changed.

she was your best friend at some point in life, she must have had some good qualities for you to call her that and her husband to fall in love and create a family with her.

I feel you’re scared of losing the 3 girls but regardless of what documents state, she is their biological mother and they might want to give her a second chance.

they can still love you both.

What do the children want @MotherofFiveKids ?

Do they speak of their Mother?
How will they feel in a few years when they find out you stopped them seeing her?

I'm Absolutely gobsmacked that, from what you've said, the birth certificate is changed and the biological mother's name is replaced with the step parent.

Did the step parent give birth to the child? No.

Should their name therefore appear on the birth certificate as the parent who gave birth? Absolutely not!

It's a BIRTH certificate.

It's basically a lie, made legal.

Reassess that in a few years once she's an adult and is finally allowed to see her own mother again

Wow, who needs enemies with friends like this?

All your posts revolve around you and what you want to happen, you’re not taking your daughters feelings into consideration. It’s just me, me and me.

I guarantee you all 3 of them will make contact with her at some point and if she’s out of prison, you continue this way - they will up and leave.

No matter what papers say or court say, they will be adults and can do what they like. They can’t be controlled forever. They will have to live their own life and make their own choices.

God this thread is absolutely disgusting.

People are actually slating a woman trying to look after her kids, in favour of a woman who was arrested for child endangerment, is a drug addict and had her parental rights taken from her (which is not something done on a whim)?

The biggest display of ‘bio mums over everyone’. Imagine OP sent the girls to their mother (which is against the court orders and can get her arrested) and something happens to them, imagine the responses then? “You knew what she was like” “Why send those poor girls there knowing what’s happened before”, from the same people crying out that she will ‘always’ be their mother and you ‘cannot break that bond!!’.

Can only imagine had this been a thread about a Dad being an addict, being arrested for child endangerment etc then the responses would be very different, wouldn’t all be crying out that bio Dad has a right to see them that’s for sure.

Catch yourselves on man, either stupid or just scummy.

The oldest is 16, in let’s say 5/6 years she will be 21/22.. Even 18! How can courts control a grown woman? They’re minors underneath 18, courts won’t follow them forever….

I think in short you can’t.

As kids you can enforce your vision of what’s in their best interests, but your complete lack of compassion for a woman to whom your children will naturally feel a sense of loyalty to is going to massively come back on you.

She’s not your enemy here, and your hard work/loving home/ and the rest will count for zero when they want to know her. You cannot permanently police this, so you should be supporting your children to deal with the reality.

I would also have a long think about what you would say to one of these children, as adults, saying what other people on this thread have said. As an example if they reject your self assigned role as halo wearing hero.

I think it is the absolutely contemptuous manner in which she speaks about her.

I understand that, but at the same time we don’t know what she’s done, obviously something awful to have her parental rights taken away and be arrested for child endangerment. Giving the benefit of the doubt, if any one of us were in the same position there’s a good chance we wouldn’t speak highly of her either.

I don't believe anyone on this thread is suggesting the biological mother should have unsupervised contact with these children? But simply reflecting that if the children want to see her (which the OP has declined to answer) they are likely to do so - unsupervised - when they reach adulthood. These children have clearly been through a great deal, and need support if they want to have some kind of relationship with her.

But OP didn't mention once what the girls actually want. She is just talking about what she wants for them. I would understand if they were much younger, but the oldest one is 16.

If they want to have a contact with their biological mother, why not support this in a safe and supervised environment?

I guess the OP is scared that if she were to allow contact between the girls and their mother, that it would show up their bond not to be as strong as she claims it to be.

If she were genuinely secure in her relationship with the children and had their best interests at heart, she would allow them to have some kind of relationship with their mother.

I see this backfiring enormously on her in a few years time.