I just wanted to take a moment to say what an amazing woman my daughter-in-law is. Truly. My stepson is fortunate to have her, and I feel very fortunate to have been able to forge a relationship with her despite her other mother-in-law trying to prevent it.
My daughter-in-law has been through so much and yet she soldiers on. She is STRONG!! and only getting stronger. Life has thrown some real shit her way lately, but she is dealing with it, despite going through grieving the death of her mother. She has to deal with dividing her mother’s estate, which is added onto her other responsibilities of being a mother to 4 kids (3 of whom are special needs of varying degrees), a wife, and an EMT. This leaves her little time to herself, and very little time to grieve the death of her mom. I don’t even know what to say to my daughter-in-law because I know this is beyond difficult for her. Nothing I say can take away her difficulties or take away her pain. I just try to be supportive with what little energy I have. I wish I could do more.
In addition to all this, some rotten asshole keeps calling CPS on my daughter-in-law. We think it is my stepson’s mother. It is hard for me to fathom that she would stoop that low but there is no one else I can think of that would be that rotten to my stepson’s family. My daughter-in-law is not perfect, by no means, but she is an excellent mother. She makes mistakes, as we all do, but I know she loves her kids, she fights for them, she has gone through hell trying to do what is best for her kids. All on top of trying to deal with her own issues, and without taking it out on all those around her. I cannot state it enough how much of a great mom she is: she makes homemade meals, cleans, plays with the kids, tries to make sure they are doing alright in school, and gets them involved in healthy activities. 4 KIDS! It is a lot.
CPS has been called in the past, and they did have an open case a few months ago. CPS was a big help to the family, but overall found nothing that my daughter-in-law was doing wrong. It was mainly issues with getting the family mental health help that they needed, especially in regard to my autistic grandson. It was basically an issue of Community Mental Health dragging their feet and not wanting to take my grandson’s needs seriously. The case was closed.
But now someone, within the past month, has called CPS twice and made allegations. The first time, no case was opened. Not sure what these new allegations are, but I am assuming they are bullshit. It is just someone wanting to cause trouble for my daughter-in-law because they can’t control her, and/or because they are jealous. It may even be a stupid ploy to get to my stepson, to make him fall in line….or to push my daughter-in-law over the edge, so she has a mental breakdown, making trouble for the whole family. So this rotten someone can feel right, can feel vindicated in some way. What a nasty piece of shit.
It won’t work.
My daughter may be struggling right now, but she is strong. She is strong!
More background information on how my stepson’s mother behaves and how she treats him and others. She wants him to make his own decisions as long as they align with what she wants. The kid is 30 years old now, and she still treats him like this! Plus, she wants to rewrite history and pretend this incident from 2012 never happened, but here it is. A post I wrote IN 2012 detailing the events. I am so glad I felt like writing back then and tried to note events as they happened. I need to get back to that.
I talk to people about her behavior now and they ask the same question, “What is wrong with her!?” and “What is her problem?” I have my ideas, but it is still difficult to understand. After all this time, this 50 something year old woman still behaves like a toddler who can’t have their way.
On top of it all, she had the nerve to tell my stepson that I traumatized her. I’d like to know how I did that. Of course, she never has the balls to actually talk to me, or write to me, or anything. She answers for nothing. She spouts off a bunch of untruths or half-truths in order to make herself look good but answers to nobody for her shitty behavior. How did I traumatize you Sue? How? By writing a blog? You don’t have to read it. By sending you a few emails? You didn’t really have to read those either. You are just lucky that I have never directly confronted you. My own counselor laughs at your accusations of being traumatized by me. She said, “You could have went really ghetto on her. With all she has done, she’s lucky you didn’t punch her in the nose.” That’s damn right! I never threatened Sue, though she certainly threatened my husband; not with violence but in other ways, and she used their son as a pawn in her game. Those are the real trauma victims: my husband and his son. I guess by writing about those times, I traumatized her. Bitch, it’s your own behavior that traumatizes and continues to traumatize. It is hurting the grandkids! This is what I never wanted, as Sue should well remember.
Recently I found out my stepson’s mother told my stepson I called her work and told them she was checking my blog. Mind you, this happened in 2010/2011–13/14 years ago!! She also told him that I emailed her boss a blog post about her. I did not call her work, but indeed I did report her to her work for checking my blog while at work. I emailed someone, I do not remember who because it was so long ago. I did not email her boss, as I had no way of knowing who her boss was at the time. Now, I do remember that her work emailed me back and asked for my name and perhaps a link to my blog (my memory is fuzzy on this). I wasn’t really trying to share my writings about her (or my blog in general) with her work, just to report her for using her work device and internet to check my blog on a regular basis. I did provide them what they asked of me and that was it. I never heard back from them and never knew anything came of it until now. Below is my post from that time period, and it pertains to why I chose to report her. Truthfully, I don’t feel bad about my actions because she has never had any qualms about threatening my husband’s job (numerous times, below is just one incident, and this was the only time in which my husband brought it on himself). I did feel skeevy doing it at the time. I didn’t expect her to lose her job over it and she did not. I guess I just wanted to give her a taste of her own medicine, not that it ever does her any good. So be it. If it was traumatizing to her–SO BE IT! She never has any qualms about traumatizing the rest of us with her never-ending bullshit. Happy reading, JM.
Written January 11, 2011
My husband had to go to court over a child custody matter. It is a long story I will try to break down. I am glad it is over though, especially before the new semester started because it was just an annoying and inconvenient waste of time over something totally stupid and blown out of proportion by my husband’s dumb ex-wife.
My husband’s son, my stepson, is involved with a fire explorers group through the local volunteer fire department close to his mom’s house. They have meetings and learn about fire and EMS services. He has done ambulance ride-alongs with this group and he has also went on fire and medical first responder calls with his local volunteer fire department.
In October, on Devil’s night, my husband took his 17-year-old son to work with him. My husband is the director and a paramedic for an ambulance agency in Flint, Michigan. He mainly works in the office and only works the ambulance once in a while. He wanted to work on Devil’s night just to provide some extra help (and a public service) to Flint Fire. He knew that what kind of calls he would be running (basically fire standby) so he decided to let his son come with him if he wanted. Of course his son wanted to go and he did so after he got out of a school event. He drove himself, was out all night with his father, taking naps when they weren’t on a call. All the calls they went on were fire standbys just as my husband believed they would be; his son was never in any danger, and everywhere they were they were surrounded by public safety workers (EMS, police, fire, and ham radio operators).
My husband does not drive so he was driven home early in the morning by his son. His son then got a few hours of sleep, got up, and went to some fire training at the local volunteer fire department closest to his mom’s house. He was tired but he made it through the day all right.
My husband gets a phone call from his ex-wife the next morning, which is a Monday, basically berating him for taking his son on the ambulance with him in the ‘north-end of Flint!’ and what would he have said to her if their son had been shot?? Like my husband, the father of the child, wouldn’t be devastated by that!! Plus my husband let his son drive when he was tired, let him go to fire training when he was tired. OMG! She also told him she was filing complaints with the local medical control, child protective services (which is a laugh considering we could/should have called on her at least 3 times), and also would be filing a case in court. Overkill as always…
Right there, the day that she called could have been the end of it, should have been the end of it. All else after was a waste of time, energy and money. My husband has never taken his son on an ambulance with him before and did not intend on making a habit of it – he had no plans to do it again. Of course since he is dealing with an unreasonable, asshole of an ex, who believes everything she and her current husband does with the kid is all right, and everything my husband and I do with the kid is shit, and that my husband can’t keep his own kid safe. Because she is such an ass, she felt the need to blow the whole situation out of proportion, which is typical for her. I can understand some trepidation, perhaps some venting, but to blow the whole totally out of proportion for her own needs is unforgivable. I am willing to believe that there was some alarm on her part when she found out her son was in the city on Devil’s night, but he made it out alive, safe and sound. Once the initial shock wore off, she could have had a discussion with my husband about her displeasure and they could come to some kind of understanding. But no, as always she is unreasonable and loves to create drama. She never thinks about how that affects her son. Of course, she had to take the situation to the next level and raise all the fuss she could.
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Nothing came of the medical control complaint – in their eyes my husband didn’t do anything wrong and it is considered an internal (company) matter. My husband’s boss does not have a problem with him bringing his son on the job from time to time.
Never heard from CPS. I suppose they can’t do much about a 17 year old making his own decisions about what he does. Truly, my stepson was not in any more danger than anyone else in a city on any other night and being surrounded by public safety people actually put him at an advantage.
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Side note: there are three instances I wish I would have (and could/should have) called CPS on her but because I am a nice person and didn’t want to put the kids through it, I didn’t. I basically had to put my trust in this woman whom I have no respect for that everything would turn out all right. Stupid, soft-hearted me.
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The last thing was court and my husband did receive a ridiculous motion filed by her to change parenting time to give her ‘right of first refusal’ meaning that if my husband had to work or was not going to be home for his parenting time, he is to call her and she would have the option of keeping their son with her. This for a 17 year old who she has been leaving home by himself since he was 10, probably before. If anyone should have ‘right of first refusal’ it should be my husband, especially when his son was younger. It often seemed like his ex-wife would keep the kid from him just for spite.
She also wanted to prohibit my husband from taking his son to his workplace entirely and to any fire department. This is actually a revisit on an old argument from about 5-6 years ago, where (knowing her son loved EMS and fire and that was pretty much all he thought about) she didn’t want her son spending time with us at our work (an ambulance agency) but she and her husband could (and did) take the kid to the fire department anytime they wanted. It basically comes down to the old saying “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander” but not to her. She wants to be seen as the only one (well, her and her husband) who supports my stepson in his interests. She always wants to control my husband’s parenting time and is preventing us from sharing in my stepson’s primary interests.
The bottom line for us is: First of all, my husband is the director of an ambulance company and works primarily in an office. He does not have to work the ambulance, or rarely is there a need for him to do so. Second of all, my husband makes his own work schedule and can center it around his parenting time. Third, if my husband is not home with his son, I can be. I was home on Devil’s night and his son could have been home with me. The kid is 17! Soon to be 18. He is not a child anymore.
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So my husband gets the court order. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about it at first because it was so ridiculous. My opinion was ‘Why fight it?’ His son would be 18 in a year and will be able to do what he wants. Plus my husband has no plans to take his son on the ambulance again – like I stated above, it was a one time thing and my husband has control over his work schedule so his he can plan it around his parenting time. What really grinded my husband was the fact that she did not want his son to go to work with him or to any fire department. She was basically trying to control his parenting time, in my opinion because she seems to be a control freak and jealous.
My husband’s ex-wife and her husband takes their children to the fire hall all the time. My stepson has been around EMS and fire fighting all of his life. His mother used to take him to an ambulance base when she worked there – it was convenient for her. I would go so far as to say that their lives (her and her current husband’s, as well as the kids) revolves around emergency services because he is fire chief in their township and also an EMT. Many times when I drop my stepson off at her house there is an ambulance in the driveway. My stepson has also mentioned that the ambulance crew has dinner at their house frequently, and he, his mom, and his sister have gone to the ambulance base for dinner. Not to mention that according to my stepson the emergency scanner is always on.
Oh, that’s not all… in talking with my stepson about this whole issue, in which his mom talked over with him first, he told is that his mom mentioned the court case and made it out to be like it was CPS that was promoting the case, not her. Furthermore, (and very manipulative), she told my stepson that as a result of the court case, his Dad would probably argue in court, that if my stepson could not go to his work then he should not be able to go to the fire hall or anything like that at her house as well. According to my stepson, she told him if it was court ordered that he could no longer go to the from fire hall or ambulance base, she would find a loophole so he could go with them. A loophole!! What is that teaching your kid? And it was all done by her! What kind of crazy, Machiavellian game is she playing?
Jacquelyn's Space 