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?

@MrsSunshine2b
Sorry you've had the usual "evil stepmother" comments.

Who has called the OP an evil stepmother, or anything like that? Could you quote them?

There may have been specific circumstances in your case or a particularly compelling argument but the legal presumption under the Act exists and 50/50 is certainly becoming the norm. You can always seek a variation.

60/40 is clearly still a much fairer share than EOW though and so both parents will be pulling their weight unlike in this situation.

To my mind, dealing with this woman is yet more ‘wifework’. She’s not your business. I would entirely disengage from any contact with her and make it your husband’s role to engage with her.

No, it’s very important and would help to explain why the ex is directing her anger towards the OP rather than her ex.H.

I also feel very sorry for the OP’s DSS who is continually being treated as an afterthought by his own father.

I also guarantee that if the OP digs her heels in as many of you are recommending, things will get much more difficult when DSS becomes a teenager and he’s stuck in the middle.

I know exactly what I said, thank you.
But I was replying to your comment that the OP hadn’t said anything about the midweek options; I suggested that the reason she hadn’t done so was because THAT WASN’T THE POINT OF HER POST. That point still stands.

Not sure what thread you’ve been reading. Nobody has called her an evil step mother. That kind of comment is lazy and unhelpful. In fact the majority are saying she has been a great step mum and doing above what is expected. Been fully supportive of the fact that she shouldn’t have to be abused by the ex. Bizarre that that is your take on it.

People have called out her DH for swanning off to work when he was responsible for looking after his son because he deemed his job more important.

Suggesting her DH should block contact also, hardly productive when he was the person in the wrong in the first place.

As I say, EOW is the norm up here so all this shrieking about 50/50 is weird to me

Good Lord, it’s like playing chess with a pigeon.

Again, that reply was to you as you said OP told us the mother chose these arrangements. OP didn’t give detail about midweeks - which is fine - but it makes your comment wrong.

I will leave it there. You can be confident in your rightness and I will remain confident in the opposite.

To be honest OP, I think you need to give your head a wobble and think straight.

long term, the cause of the problem is your husband. The solution to this problem is your husband. You’re angry with the wrong person

the ex sounds angry, rude, pushy etc but I also think she’s in the right to think your husband hasn’t stepped up and is fucking her over. Your husband isn’t even caring for his child himself, he’s using you to do that. Surely you must see how little he is actually doing considering it’s his own child?

you’re always going to have these battles unless something changes.

Your ex shouldn't have cancelled days at work imo - it was your DH's days so he should have arranged childcare or cancelled his work shifts to look after his kid. Nothing to do with you really - both you and XW have behaved fine, your DH hasn't in my opinion. He expected one of you to parent his kid and just went off to work!!!

I can understand why she's annoyed.

Sorry you've had such a hard time with your son though, that sounds awful. Pleased he's doing better

100%. The United Nations has it spelled out in the UNCRC that a child has the right to both parents. If the mother is being difficult regarding shared care, the father should be taking legal action (and vice versa) to ensure the CHILD has their rights upheld. It’s nothing to do with the wants of either parent.

My DSDs Mum wasn’t overly keen on 50:50 - DH went to a solicitor, they went to mediation together, and ultimately she agreed it was what was best for DSD. We are now obviously years down the road, both of them are remarried, and they are good friends with a happy child!

But it depends on the job too: I couldn’t cancel as I wouldn’t get paid.if he’s the main breadwinner it makes sense for him to go to work or the whole thing falls down

EOW used to be the norm when women didn't work or only worked part time.

Now typically both parents work so the family court recognises this and takes it into account in Child Arrangement Orders (amongst other things of course).

I wonder how the DH would manage in this scenario if the ex only had contact EOW and he had to do the lion's share.

Where do you live? I don’t know one single person with EOW.

Scotland.

No. He isn’t the main breadwinner. He pays child maintenance and one or two missed shifts will hardly alter the calculation by much. So, why should he go to work while the ex loses income? For his scheduled days. Why should the ex lose income here?

Your experience is based on her agreeing though. If the mother doesn’t agree for whatever reason, the court won’t grant 50:50.

It really doesn’t. The ex is the main breadwinner in her home. And she doesn’t get paid if she doesn’t work. On his time he needs to sort childcare just as ex would have to on her time.

Id the mother had posted that she had been let down by childcare arrangements so she couldn’t work, everyone would tell her to pay for childcare!

As she’s claiming UC and receives maintenance and works cash in hand - she should sort this out herself.

Me too. I have loads of blended families among my family/friendships/colleagues and not one has EOW. 50/50 with the odd 60/40. I also work in a sector where I have seen 6 families go through family court in the last eighteen months or so - all but one (abuse, severe DV case) were awarded either a 3-4-4-3 or every other week pattern depending on what worked best for the child. Older children tend to be awarded week about in my experience. We’ve always done a variant of 7 days in the fortnight.

My ex and I have EOW, but he takes half the holidays too. He also takes the odd after school days and extra weekends but we do that ad hoc just on whatever works for us. But the basic agreement we have is EOW and half the holidays.

I offered him 50/50. He said no. It is what it is. But I’m the only one I know with an EOW arrangement so I wouldn’t say it’s the norma in Scotland. Not from my small sample.

Of course she should sort things herself… on her days. But it is inexcusable that the OP and her husband called the ex, on HIS DAYS, and told her she had to take days off work to cover his days because he had to go to work. Why? On his days? OP and her husband screwed up here.

My wider experience through my work is that the court will award 3-4-4-3 or week on week off unless there is a compelling reason not to e.g. abuse. Both my DH and his exW were advised to settle in mediation precisely because a court would award 50:50 but cost them a shitload of money in the process.

Lots of people with EOW seem to be saying they have it because one parent didn’t want 50:50.

OP you did not ‘ditch’ your DSS to take your own DS on holiday and excluded him. This was an emergency situation where you did the best you could - DSS got an extra trip to his grandparents alongside other cousins, which sounds absolutely fine under the circumstances.
Any mother should understand your distress at this time, but that hasn’t happened here.
You have clearly created a loving home for your DSS, and the only reason he is upset is because he’s had an adult in his ear.
You have done your best, but now it’s time to leave the parenting… to the parents! Let them work out a contingency plan for emergencies. In fact, let them sort the whole lot out and stay out of it.
And block her on everything. She is taking her own frustrations out on you, and you are not the problem here.
Hope your DS recovers well and your DSS comes around. Once he is back into a routine I’m sure he will be fine with you.
Always amazes me in these situations that children are quite adaptable and some adults behave like brats.

Of course she should sort things herself… on her days. But it is inexcusable that the OP and her husband called the ex, on HIS DAYS, and told her she had to take days off work to cover his days because he had to go to work. Why? On his days? OP and her husband screwed up here

They aren’t HIS days they are extra favour days in the summer holidays - he has EOW which his maintenance is calculated on - OP chooses to have his as a favour whilst she’s off work in the school holidays.