AIBU to be LIVID at my DSS mother

[Gooodmorningusa]

A long post. im livid and upset and I can’t sleep. I think I know how this is going to go but oh my god I need to vent.

my DSS mum, I feel is taking the absolute piss and I think she’s an audacious cow.

the back story is, we have DSS (8) EOW, I have been in his life since he was 2.5 and me and DH share a 2 year old boy. I work in a school office so I am fortunate enough to have most of the school holidays off (literally 12 weeks out of the 13!) so in the school holidays I step up and have DSS extra. So on the weekend he comes EOW, he comes on Friday morning, and we keep him till Tuesday evening and he goes home before bed time. I have always done this since he started in reception class and I do this for two reasons, so he has more time with us and also to help out his mum who is single and has to cut her hours during the school hols. In term time it returns to the normal EOW.

last week my 2yo DS was poorly with chicken pox and it floored him, early hours of Saturday morning he had a fever, had a funny turn, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and we couldn’t bring him round. It was horrible and he was rushed in an ambulance with me and DH stayed at home till MIL arrived to sit in the house with DSS as he was sleeping upstairs. DH came to hospital soon as he could. I was hysterical and have never seen my son so poorly and it frightened me, i thought he was gone when his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Anyways he was kept in hospital till Sunday night, we got home at 8pm. DH stayed with us most of the time while we waited for tests and DSS stayed with MIL (his grandma) then went back to his mums on Sunday evening. Just to add his cousins were there at grandmas too so not like he was the only child there.

anyways DH ex has booted off basically. Ringing up calling DH a selfish dad for staying at hospital all weekend and shipping DSS off to grandmas 🤯 so anyways DSS has come back this weekend as he was upset his missed his weekend last week. So I get a text earlier today off his mother ‘it makes sense for you to keep him till Tuesday as you needed to give it a miss this week’ ….. 😵‍💫so I reply saying no actually that wasnt the agreement, i have plans including an appointment of my own, wedding dress shopping with my SIL on Monday and I am going into work on Tuesday to do my admin. My mum will be looking after DS for these.
she then proceeds to call me selfish and tells me how I’m ‘palming my own son off’ and that ‘she knows I secretly hate her DS’ plus loads of other shit which I don’t think I deserve. In her opinion I should be making up for
the time I missed earlier this week. I reminded her my DS was very poorly and I also reminded her DH was in work on those two days so it’s always me who facilitates the extra contact.
my DH is fuming and has confronted her and she has repeated the same shit to him.
shes basically annoyed that she had To cancel her plans / work on Monday and Tuesday. But my DS was poorly and I didn’t sleep a wink all weekend with checking on him and being on a hospital ward. I admit that on Monday and Tuesday this week I didn’t think about DSS at all, I was shattered and I just let me DS sleep in my arms all day.

Would I be wrong if I told her to suck my big toe from now on?

Also I want to make clear, I have NEVER let DSS down before. Since he started school I’ve always stuck to this agreement in the school holidays. Even when my son was newborn and had a million feeding problems I stuck to my promise. I just feel like last weekend was awful for us and my DS was still poorly on Monday and Tuesday. He was exhausted and just wanted to sleep on my lap. I don’t think I would have coped with DS

Feelings are very heightened. Just dial it down and focus on your own DS. You must have been really scared.

Let your DH talk to his ex. None of the arrangements need to come via you.

And remember none of this is DSS' fault.

No of course you're not unreasonable. You did the right thing and she's being a cow. Your ill son had to come first. Glad he's better.

She’s being ridiculously unkind. I think you’ve had a really horrid fright and she and everyone else should be looking after you.

And yes, I think leave your dh to deal with her.

You don’t need to provide childcare for her ever again if you don’t want to do it.

you should however be furious with your husband. He has allowed a situation to go on where his XW is having to skip work during the school holidays. He should do the right thing and pay for half of childcare (year round just to be clear) on top of cms. Expecting the mother of his child to lose income because he only has his child EOW is really not a good look.

Thank you everyone. I guess I just needed to feel validated for some reason. I’m so annoyed and upset I still can’t fall asleep.
deep down I don’t think I could change our agreement because DSS loves coming to us and he would lose out. This week has just been a right off for me. However I don’t think I will be doing her any favours again when she has a last minute night out etc, I won’t be having him unless DH is home or not working nights

This is true but DH does pay half to holiday clubs when DSS needs them. He also pays a lot of CM and all of DSS hobbies and uniform.

@Gooodmorningusa I'm glad your wee boy is well now.
Nothing scarier than our kiddos getting unwell quickly. It sounds terrifying. 💐

Honestly she sounds plain vile.
I'd block her, get dh to arrange all childcare from now on.

You sound a wonderful and attentive mum and DSM, you don't have to do any caring for DSS at all, she's very lucky you've chosen to do childcare.

From what you've said about this woman it's quite easy to get a read on that behaviour, its common really in my experience not just as someone who was a SM like you and dealt with similar but people in general, when they throw around accusations such as "you're palming him off", when she's trying to do exactly that it's almost a confession of her shitty behaviour.
My own son has a DSM who I genuinely really like and I'm incredibly grateful for her, the idea of sending my DC to spend time with anyone I felt secretly hated him is stomach churning. Why would anyone do that? If we look at the news of poor wee Arthur Labjino-Hughes or even high profile case of Gannon Stauch in America, we see that leaving our precious DC with step mothers can be deadly for our children, so unless she is so fucking inept as a mother to genuinely send her ds somewhere he's "hated", she's talking utter bullshit. She just wants a row, a rise and ultimately to hurt you. Don't give her that power.
I remember my own DSS mother who is a Jeremy kylesque car crash of a human telling anyone who'd listen how much he hated me.
He's in his 20s now, hasn't had contact with her for over 10 years and texts me regularly despite having not been his SM for 15 years.

You are a good mummy, DSM and lovely person, do not rise to this nasty piece of work. Shes not your ex, not your problem.

She is an outside factor in your exes life using her own child to cause him upset by upsetting you when she can. If you allow this, it'll take away your focus from your own DS. I look back now and think of the external pressures that I allowed to affect me when my own DS was a baby. I was very young and easily upset by shitty people, I just wish I'd zoned out and just enjoyed motherhood without getting suckered into drama that wasn't mine. But I was hot headed. Felt defending myself was protecting my DS. Turns out once I got out that situation they found other people to interfere and unsettle and get reactions from and had I grey rocked their drama it would have ended much quicker for me and I would have been free to enjoy my ds's early years hassle free. You live and learn though. He's now nearly 17 and just come home from glass collecting at the local pub and brought me a giant slice of cake home from the kitchens, because he knows I'll be up later with my teething baby! So despite the fact I did allow wee things to upset me during his infant years, he turned out a beautiful soul ❤️

You carry on being fabulous hen and once again I'm glad your wee boy is well now 💙

I'm sorry to hear your DS was so unwell.

It doesn't sound like she has handled this very well, but to be honest I think the problem here is your DH. Monday and Tuesday last week were his scheduled days, albeit normally covered by you. When you couldn't do the childcare (understandably), his response was that his son should go home and his ex miss work? That seems totally unfair on the ex.

Your partner should have missed work to care for his own son when you couldn't.

While it would be lovely if the ex was flexible enough to take her son back early to give your partner a break after such a horrible weekend, it sounds like she was given no choice. Those days were for your partner to cover, not just assume his ex would miss work so that he wouldn't have to

Don’t bother justifying yourself to her. At least you didn’t expose her kid to the chickenpox. I hope your little one is much better.

I totally see what you’re saying. Those were ‘our days’ and I admit we didn’t handle it or think it through and she had to cancel her shift and her day out… hindsight is a wonderful thing. We didn’t get home till 8pm on Sunday and we were both goosed, DS was still very unsettled during the night, ended up in our bed etc. DH had to leave for work at 7am on Monday. It was just a horrible weekend and we didn’t think about anything other than our 2yo and I can see why it’s pissed her off

I know she shouldn’t have had to miss her shift, it was a horrible weekend and i wish it never happened. She has had a couple of
family Emergancies in the past and me and DH have both had to cancel plans / work on a couple of occasions to have DSS. I lost a days pay once when DH was working away and her mum was in an accident. I would never dream of giving her a hard time or asking her to take her days back or owe me a day 🤯😵‍💫

Most of the year your DH only has his son EOW. And on the odd occasion ‘he’ has him more, YOU actually have him… then when you couldn’t, he made his ex miss work rather than him miss work? On his few extra days??

I am genuinely sorry your son was so poorly, that sounds horrible. She has no right to be angry with you but I think she’s got a fair amount to be angry with your partner about tbh!

Yeah it was my agreement with her originally when he started reception. On the ‘extra days’ DH is with us in the evenings for tea, swimming lessons, bath etc. I look after him during the days but that’s my choice and to be honest I’ve always got on with her and never once had a fall out with her until this! I don’t think I deserve all this backlash off her. Not once has she asked if my son is ok? Not once has she acknowledged that he was poorly. I know she technically doesn’t need to as my son is nothing to do with her but honestly where is the common decency? Her attitude towards me this week has pissed me off

But neither of you even considered that you were making her skip her work?

Absolutely this. She has behaved poorly but your husband is barely parenting his own child and it’s unbelievable that he made his wife take time off work to cover his (minimal) extra days with his son instead of cancelling work himself.

Your husband owes his ex a major apology and to offer to take days off in future to make up for the time she had to take off work. And frankly he should be doing your “holiday schedule” every fortnight.

I’m so sorry about your DS and hope he’s dong much better now. I understand why you feel really shaken by the experience and you don’t deserve to be called names by your DH’s ex.

However, all three of you seem to have fallen into sexist roles here and the only one who benefits is your DH. He has two women who have to drop work and compromise their financial power to look after his children while he doesn’t. He sees you both as the default carers and you seem to see each other that way. Hence the blame she puts, at least in part, on you.

You only do EOW during term time. Is she having to ensure her work during term time fits around your DSS’s school hours/after care/clubs/friends while your DH gets to go on work trips away without so much as a second thought about your DSS too?

She shouldn’t be blaming you. I can see how your DH’s life might wind her up and make her feel like he shouldn’t be looking to her on the few occasions when he might have to compromise because he hasn’t stuck around to do half the work. Especially if there is also some jealousy over you and/or your DS. But it’s wrong of her to be nasty to you about it, she’s focusing on the wrong thing and behaving in a way that won’t benefit her son. There’s not much you can do about that except make all contact go through DH - but I’m guessing that would not be good for your DSS and you would not want that.

I know she technically doesn’t need to as my son is nothing to do with her but honestly where is the common decency?

This is kind of rich coming from someone who admits to dumping her with a cancellation with no thought whatsoever to how it affects her.

Perhaps she could also say “Maybe I should have asked after her son but I guess hindsight is 20:20” shrug

I think she’s wrong to go off at you - she is shooting the messenger but your DH or MIL should have cared for DSS so the ex didn’t need to cancel a shift at work. Your DH has two kids and he needs to take on more of the thinking about what were the plans for DSS not just send him back to mums.

Hospitals are horrible and I get you were exhausted but your DH does have another child he had to come up with options there sounds like he palms the kids organising to either Ex wife or you

Hope your DC is better

She should be ranting at your DH not you

Just stop doing it, it’s not for you to sort out.

OP- glad your DS is ok

YOu have your DS normally EOW - 2-3/ 14 days.
During school holidays you have him 4.5/14 days

Whilst that is lovely of you to have him a little extra in the holidays - the majority of the child care is still done by Mum. So your DP does pay a lot of maintenance and rightly so
She is wrong to shout at you but seriously your DH should ahve organsied for his mother to look after her grandchild for an extra day - his time his job to sort out child care.

Mum has the occasional emergency - still will not come close to 50/50 parenting.

I think it's totally fine. The only reason the ex is able to work those days is because OP offered/agreed with her to do her the favour of having DSS extra. It wasn't DSSs official contact time with his dad, it was an arrangement between OP and the ex. So when OP couldn't do it, sending DSS back to his mum was the right thing to do.

OP she's taking you for granted. In future don't act as third parent to DSS. There's no need for you to be losing wages because neither of DSS parents are available to look after him. In that case if there's an emergency the ex will have to find alternative childcare from somewhere, just like she'd have to if your DH was single and there wasn't a new wife around. You've been very generous with her for a long time and her behaviour this time has been disgusting towards you, showing no concern for your DS, kicking off at you, forgetting that YOU (not DH) are doing her a favour having DSS on those extra days at all. She needs to wind her neck in and she owes you an apology. You need to wise up and stop being so nice to someone who doesn't deserve it. You should have hung up on her as soon as she started being rude, as a minimum.

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