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?

@Gooodmorningusa I hope you DS gets better and you get some rest.

DSS mum is out of line being nasty at you and your DS.

Time to block her on everything, stop being prepared to help her out in future and just let DH and her sort out all DSS arrangements going forward. She (and DH) is bloody lucky to have someone to help with holiday arrangements as not many parents have.

bottom line is DSS is not OP’s son “ffs”. The fact that the husband can just merrily go to work uninterrupted while two women scrabble around swiping at each other is the problem.

Yes it is a favour if it's OP doing the care because DH is at work, a favour to the mother she doesn't have to do.

You need to send her 1 message that factually says something like, do not contact me again all childcare arrangements will now go through dh, and then block her on everything
Tell your dh that you will have no more contact with her and keep to it

I said “currently you are doing your husband and his ex a favour” yes she is. The ex will 1000% know it’s OP looking after her kid and not his dad. I see your point but they all know very well this is not coming from the dad, it’s coming from OP so yes she is doing them both a favour

Just make sure that you ensure that no more favors are done. You will not be flexible anymore to suit her in the holidays and you will not facilitate any of her kid’s activities because after all, why would they be YOUR problem?

@SheilaFentiman it is a favour if they’re paying child maintenance based on the amount of days in the official contact arrangement. If you add in these extra days her CMS would decrease.

But she's NOT doing it for the mother. The favour is purely for the partner so that he can work. I'm surprised you can't see that.

Actually just remembered, OP made this arrangement directly with the mother so the mother could get some cash in hand work; so no 100% OP is doing the father and the mother a favour and both know it

No, his contact time is EOWE as dictated by the mother as OP has said.
They are paying CMS based on this.

So she is doing her a favour by taking contact time.
I assume they aren't reducing maintaince to reflect this?

OP absolutly can refuse to take on any of the mothers time.

The father could also say he will have him more. But then the money given will reflect that. I k ow women like her and would bet mu house on the answer to that suggestion.

You have been unreasonable.

You shouldn't have up to now been the one dealing with comms, going out of your way in the holidays to facilitate extra days to help her out. I mean it's lovely that you have, but your DH should be doing this. It's not unreasonable at all that you were solely focused on your DS, but he should have been thinking of his other child too and making arrangements as necessary. Honestly be direct with him that he is to speak to her going forward, and that you're happy to have his DS stay but he should be more involved and when you have other plans etc he needs to step up.

£400 a month , a pittance in child maintenance, and EOW contact for a couple of days is NOT doing the ex a favour!
We'll have to agree to disagree.

You’re right we will. A pittance 😂😂 fuck me that would cover my mortgage. A pittance 😂😂

I feel so sorry for @Gooodmorningusa
You have had your thread hijacked by 'whatabouteries'. You were unfairly on the receiving end of some viscous and nasty texts from your step son's mother.
Many of these posters are so bitter and angry and they are using your thread to shout about their lives as single parents. That is fine but not the purpose of this thread.
Hopefully, going forward, 50/50 custody will become normalised and you won't get lots and lots of threads on here from separated mothers hating the thought of not seeing their children for half the week.
OP, I think you may have been chased away by some of the aggressive posters.
@Gooodmorningusa You have done nothing wrong. You are a great Stepmother and mother. Keep on doing what you do.

You sound aggressive and defensive. It's not a great favour for a man to look after his own child. Your attitude is all wrong. Your child doesn't take priority.

But you don’t know if this isn’t what the op is choosing. She’s got a fairly low demand job in a school office term time only. Her DH’s job/ earning may allow her to have such a job rather than a higher earning more stressful one where she’s not around for her DC. In that case you can see why she’s picking up more childcare.

£400 a month plus a few activities paid for isn't a lot. Doesn't Make him dad of the year

@Dressinggowntime its not a race to the bottom

£150 a month is quite a small financial commitment from a parent to a child

CMS isn’t just about covering the basics, it’s about ensuring the child has a lifestyle commensurate with both his parents.

I have seen many women get outraged that others get more them and argue that they cope why shouldn’t other people.

but families have different income levels and lifestyles. This dad probably earns well above average. Both his children should a good quality of life. He has a financial commitment to both children. One shouldn’t have the basics while the other has luxuries.

Oh and I completely disagree with @Milkyway1213 too

I would not look after him any longer on my own. No more favours for this vile woman. Unsure why so many people are sticking up for her.
your son was rushed to hospital and she sends you this?
nope, unless your dh can look after dss then you will not. Sorry for dss but i would not put up with this shit.
she will get worse if she is let off with this.

I'm not understanding this but it's not really your problem. It's either ex's/your husband's, but I'm leaning towards your husband's.

Holiday camp. Parents whose kids have to work during the holiday and who don't have any alternative childcare, they go to holiday camp.

Someone (your husband/ex) should have booked a holiday camp for DSS as soon as it became apparent that you might not be up to looking after DSS.

I'm going to say it should probably have been your husband who did this, since it doesn't sound like he communicated well with his ex to let her know in good time that there might be a problem for Monday.

The real problem is that your husband doesn't really think his kids are any of his responsibility - he's outsourced them to the ex, you and MIL. Any normal parent would be thinking ahead - "What's going to happen on Monday? Will I need to take time off or organise something for DSS?"

Does she actually know that the illness your son had was a seizure and hospital stay, or has she just been told "poorly" and thinks he had a cold?

Haha how about £8 a month for 2 kids???

No idea about the CMS, but most parents have a different schedule in the holidays than in term time and I assume that CMS can take that into account.

The mother would have lost more from missing a shift on the monday than any one off for a night CMS payment anyway.

But money isn’t the point - the DSS has two parents and one parent agreed to have him certain days in the holiday and then did not fulfil that. If both the mum and dad were single and the dad had arranged for his mum to cover so he could work, then his mum was poorly, the dad should take time off and not say “oh, no childcare, i will dump my son back on his mum then”

Send your kids to Africa apparently they can be fed for £3 a month according the to advert 😂