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?

Your DH should be handling ALL of this. He sounds useless tbh. He is the one with two children with two different women and he needs to be the one to sort out logistics and emergencies. I’d take a total step back and ask him to handle this FULLY.

This.

I would step back and get your DH to take responsibility for his other child.

Stop making it all about you - yes it's been a tough and frightening time but that's not the real issue.

He doesn't need to 'stand up' for her. He needs to parent both his children, then they all wouldn't be in this situation.

At what point in the weekend that your son was ill did your DH let her know that he wasn’t cancelling work so she would have to cancel her work and other plans for the Monday and Tuesday? Was it 8pm Sunday when he dropped DSS to his mum?

This.

Your DH left for work at 7am on the Monday - leaving behind a poorly 2yo, his 8yo being shipped back to his mums (who then has to miss HER work) and a knackered wife.

THIS is your problem. He's a selfish shit.

This.

There is absolutely no excuse for the nastiness directed at your baby son.She is completely out of order and she sounds like a bad person to behave in such a malicious fashion.
Keep a record of these texts. There is no minimising or explaining away spiteful comments about the way a baby looks.
Warn her that if she continues to text your phone, you will involve the police.

Your DH should have not gone to work, not breaking an arrangement to force her to work. However that ship has sailed and your DH needs to speak to her. DH has massively dropped you all in it here.

Don't engage with her about anything. Take screenshots of the messages for your own protection. Her behaviour via the messages isn't OK, but what has pushed her to this point?

What would have happened if DSS was your DS? Would DH have gone to work, or would you have coped with both? That's the question you need to be asking.

Absolutely this ^

I really do not understand how posters can ignore/minimise the nastiness directed at your little son.
You are doing a great job. Your step son will be grateful for your kindness and care. Do not feel in any way responsible. You have done nothing wrong.

I don't think the ex sounds vile at all.
Granted she should've taken out her frustrations on the so called 'father' of her child, and not the OP, but it's understandable she was pissed off.

The ex is doing the majority caring for their son, and I imagine she only has one income going into her household, so for her to have to miss shifts is going to impact her greatly financially, not to mention that her boss probably makes her feel awkward for having to take time off at such short notice.
The OP says her partner pays a good amount of child maintenance, but maybe the ex would disagree with that, we don't know.

OP, did your partner at least offer to pay extra that week, considering he basically dumped HIS child back to his mum and forcing her to lose pay?

Because the DH is far too big and important for that! Why would he when his women do all the dirty work

Why are you ignoring all the posts asking why your DH sees his eldest son so little, and lets the women in son’s life to do all the childcare/parenting?

That was my thought too.

If you have your DSS for the weekend then he should be the same as if he was both of yours. If one child is ill then second child goes to grandma/dad takes time off work while mum is in hospital with first etc (or asks mum of DSS if she wouldn’t mind having him due to emergency but doesn’t expect it, same as you may ask an aunt or uncle etc)

Step mum seems to be being very nasty and the texts are out of order. Let husband deal with it.

DH clearly has a type - women that don’t think men have to have any responsibility for their children. Can’t believe he’s got you two sniping at each other while both missing the fact that he’s the shit dad and crap husband.

Why should he have organised his mother to do it? Why not do it himself, not least to support OP with the poorly 2 year old?

The problem is your dh getting away with actually parenting his child. Many have told you he's the issue. This woman has lost out of income.

Her behaviour to your son & photos etc is obviously awful.

You and her are making the same mistake here - blaming each other instead of the real culprit which is the DH!!

Have a think about how he's manipulating you both into this situation. There are likely other issues

Take mum out of it

If she didn't exist - if you had 2 children full time -what would have happened?

That's probably what you should have done

I think it’s time to stop helping her out when she needs it. Stick to the agreed days with your SS but nothing extra. Oh and make sure your husband is doing his share of the child care. Not leaving it up to you. I do think silence speaks louder than words sometimes. Don’t enter into any dialogue with her. Leave it to your husband.

@Milkyway1213
You are minimising the really nasty comments directed at the OP's two year old son. The ex has no right whatsoever to send such venomous texts to the OP. They are completely out of order.
Take no notice of posters who try and justify the sending of such spiteful texts. The ex sounds obsessed with you. There is no excuse for her behaviour.
I do hope your little one continues to improve. It has been a hard time for you.

the contact arrangement is what she wanted originally, in her words she couldn’t part with her son every single weekend as she will have no down time with him. She also moved a half hour drive away and his school is in the new area she moved to. Dh pays £400 a month in CSA and for all DSS hobbies, clothes and uniform etc. He is included in every single holiday/ trip out we plan with zero exceptions. He’s a full part of our family he just lives with his MUM because that’s what his MUM wanted

she also gets her part time wages topped up by UC so the extra days I have him she works cash in hand 🥴

She sounds toxic and entitled. Amazed you’ve got this far without something like this happening. We have a similar arrangement with SS but I don’t go out of my way to do childcare. I will if DH has to work but if something major came up like you describe I wouldn’t put myself out but I would go through dh. I don’t have any contact with bio mum.
Not sure why people are exclaiming over the EOW contact. Stepson’s mum may have wanted that arrangement. After all if it was 50/50 there would be no CMS for her.

You have bigger problems than this OP. The fact that your H has one son that lives with him full time and the other son he sees once a fortnight is going to cause huge resentment from your SS in the future if not already.
Why is your partner not having his own child more often than 2 days every fortnight.