DP's ex won't let me have contact with DSC.
She thinks I'm a crazy psycho bitch because I
I will say at this point that I have never ever before, had any involvement in disciplining the girls, I usually stay out of the way and keep quiet.
However, on that night I admit I lost my temper. But I feel that I had good reason to.
DS was 6 weeks old at the time, he had been suffering with colic since he was about 1-2 weeks old, he would scream CONSTANTLY from about 5-6pm until about midnight, sometimes until the early hours of the morning.
I was still recovering from a c-section wound which refused to heal and kept getting infected.
My SIL who suffers with bi-polar had that evening gone missing, each time we don't know whether she'll be found dead or alive.
I had a lot on my mind and I was physically and emotionally drained and utterly exhausted.
I'm not for one minute trying to excuse shouting at children, especially ones that aren't your own, but i'm just explaining why I was so on edge at the night.
So that evening DP put the kids to bed at 9pm, the usual time for a weekend. They were making up excuses, like kids do, DP kept bargaining with them, they could play on their tablets for 15 mins, and then another, and then they got took off them and they refused to get in bed, they got ignored, they got told to get back in bed, they were reminded about fun things they needed to have energy for the next day etc etc.
This went on until 10.30 and then they started fighting, actually hitting each other because one of them told the other one to shut up.
At that point I had JUST got DS to nod off to sleep in my arms and all the screaming and banging around from the girls woke him up. I admit I was furious, they were behaving terribly and I'd had enough of listening to DP pandering to them and not putting his foot down.
So I stormed upstairs and gave them a bollocking. I told them that I wouldn't accept that behaviour in my home and that they needed to learn some respect for their father and I and for our house (their bedroom door had been kicked)
They've gone home and told their Mum that I'm some crazy woman who shouted at them for no reason, totally blown it out of proportion.
Obviously their Mum isn't happy and now says she can't trust me around her children and so won't let them come to our house.
So for the past 4 months DP has been having the girls at his Mum's house, he was expecting his ex to give up after a few weeks but 4 months later and it's still going on and she is showing no signs of backing down.
The most frustrating part of the situation is that I am actually a really chilled out person, it takes a lot to make me lose my temper and I'm just not the sort of person who goes around shouting at kids.
DSC want to come to our house and sleep over, I have seen them briefly when they've had to stop at ours to pick something up etc, and they have given me hugs and said they miss me.
DD1 has been in tears saying she really wants to sleep at our house and she misses me and she feels sorry for me.
I have apologised and DP has defended me and explained what had happened to cause me to shout at the girls but she just won't accept it and will not budge an inch.
She's very difficult to talk to, DP doesn't have much contact with her any more because he finds her so difficult to deal with.
So where do we go from here? DP could just ignore his ex and bring them to our house but then she'll just stop contact.
We just don't have the money to go legal at the moment, unless maybe we can go directly to the courts? Is that feasible?
But in the past when DP has started legal action over issues with contact she has made it clear that she had no intention of obeying any court order so it could end up being a big waste of money, time, energy and emotion.
Mediation isn't even an option, DP previously tried mediation but she was considered to be unsuitable for mediation by the mediator.
What do we do?