Dear Susie,
I have never reached out for advice through the Internet before, but I have been a faithful reader of your blog for about six months now. I appreciate your humor, wisdom, work ethic, and kind heart. The words you write and put out there for the world to read speak to me as being open and honest, two qualities that I value in others. I also understand that you are insanely busy and that my question is not one of an urgent nature, so if I don’t hear back I wouldn’t blame you! However, it would ease my mind to get your opinion (and maybe also the opinions of fellow blog readers, they seem pretty awesome too) on this issue that greatly concerns me.
I should start by saying that I am not a wife or mother (yet). I am a 25 year-old woman who is career focused but also likes to have fun. I am in a great relationship (3 years) with a wonderful man that I love very much. This man is a father to two beautiful little girls (6 and 4). We really enjoy spending time with them when we see them, and I have learned a lot about love and life by stepping into this step-parent role that I never expected to be in, but have wholeheartedly tried to embraced.
I am asking you for advice about this step-parent role that I am in because I have noticed through your blog that your first two children are also step-children. I really struggle with my role in these little girls lives sometimes (it doesn’t help that I’m not married to their father and therefore not “officially” a step-parent). The problem is their mother, my boyfriend’s ex-wife (I’m sure you saw that coming). Their divorce documents state that my boyfriend is to see them every other weekend. Period. There is no wording in the contract about holiday time, phone calls, birthdays, school information/ involvement. NOTHING.
The girls’ mother has interpreted this to mean that my boyfriend and his family are to have no contact with their children except for the designated times every other weekend. Whenever we try to talk to the girls on the phone, we are told through a text message that we can talk to them next time we see them. My boyfriend receives no report cards or school information and no one from our side of the family is invited to any of their extracurricular activities, field trips, etc. My boyfriend’s ex-wife remarried last year and the girls refer to her new husband as “Daddy.” While we are thrilled that the girls stepfather is a great man who takes good care of them, it is like a knife in the heart to hear the girls call another man “Dad.”
I could go on and on, but I’m hoping you get the picture as this e-mail is getting quite lengthy and I am aware of your time constraints. I guess I should add that my boyfriend is a great father who pays his child support on time, every month, and also covers the girls’ health insurance through his employment. On paper they have “joint custody” with her having sole physical custody and him having visitation rights. We realize that we could take the girls’ mother to court and easily be awarded holiday time, more visitation, and clear guidelines for education decisions, but it would cost a lot of money that we don’t have at the moment. It just seems silly to me to involve lawyers, judges, and money in something that seems like common sense. I truly believe it would be best for the girls to spend more time with their father, me, and their paternal grandparents. And of course, there are selfish interests in this… I sometimes struggle to bond with the girls and I can’t help but wonder if more time and communication with them would help. I have a great relationship with my step-mother and we always enjoyed spending time together.
Please, any thoughts/ suggestions/ opinions would be welcome. I am looking forward to starting my life with this man, but with a huge part of his life being so complicated it makes things difficult.
Thank you!
Vikki (not my real name )
Yikes, Vikki!
I am sorry to hear about your situation!
I’ll do my best to address your concerns, and I’ll start here:
Being parent is not easy. At all.
But being a stepparent is, in my opinion, even more difficult. Especially if the divorce was not amicable.
Because your spouse had likely been traumatized, may be carrying around a lot of anger, and may have trust issues based on what he/she went through during the divorce.
So as the step parent, aside from having to gain the trust of the kids, you are also trying to find where you fit and what your role is in the whole parenting puzzle.
And when your partner/boyfriend/spouse’s ex is making life hell for you, there is inevitable tension in your relationship.
It’s not fun. I totally get it.
I am most familiar with three major divorce categories.
The first are those that are resolved amicably. Where the husband and wife are able to come to an agreement and understanding, to put their differences aside, to co-parent, and make decisions together that are in the best interest of their children.
Then there are the divorces that are ugly.
The first involves a pretty well-known stereotype called the dead beat dad.
He could give a crap about his kids.
He is completely uninvolved.
He has no desire to be a part of his kids’ lives.
He does not support his children financially at all.
We have all heard of this dad.
I have no idea what percentage of divorced dads out there are DBDs.
But I feel like we hear about DBDs so often that we draw the conclusion that the majority of divorced dads fall into this category.
These dads definitely exist.
But in reality, I think these DBDs could possible be the minority.
Unfortunately they have made things for all the dads who want to do the right thing next to impossible.
Especially dads who are involved in that third kind of divorce.
The divorce involving the vindictive mother.
Because there are many, many, MANY of those moms.
We don’t hear about them as often.
Or ever.
But they are out there.
I think it is human nature to take a mother’s side.
Because a mother is, well, a mother.
A mother would never do anything to knowingly put her children in harm’s way.
A mother would never sabotage her children’s relationship with their father just because her relationship with him ended on not-so-good terms.
Or so you would think.
But it happens.
Often.
Unfortunately, that dead beat dad stereotype is so strongly ingrained in the legal system, that the good dads out there have to devote every ounce of strength, every minute of time, and every penny in their bank account to prove themselves worthy of taking care of their own children.
It’s exhausting and traumatic and devastating.
And it’s not fair.
But that happens, too.
Often.
Believe me. I know.
And I understand and can completely relate to everything in your email.
I could tell you stories that you would never, ever in a million years believe…
Well maybe you would. Because you appear to be living the same story.
What I know is that the system is biased and completely unfair.
Fathers have to work much harder to prove themselves than mothers do.
It’s bullshit and it’s infuriating, but that’s the way it is.
So what should you do?
That’s a tough one.
To be honest, in my “expert” opinion, either option is going to suck for you and your boyfriend.
Because it has been made obvious by his ex that she is not going cooperate.
She has begun the poisoning and sabotage of the relationship between your boyfriend and his daughters.
And they are at an age where that shit is going to start to stick. Permanently.
She has made it clear that she will do everything in her power to limit the amount of time the girls can spend with him. And you.
You are right. You could go to court.
It would be in violation of any parenting agreement for your boyfriend’s ex to keep the girls from contacting him.
Let me read you paragraph 2.4 from my husband’s parenting agreement:
The parties shall exert every reasonable effort to maintain free access and unhampered contact between the children and each of the parties, and to foster feelings of affection between the children and the other party. Neither party shall do anything which may estrange the child from the other party or injure the opinion of the child as to their mother or father or act in any way as to hamper the free and natural development of any of the children’s love and respect for the other party.
Most reasonable people would do this whether it was written in a parenting agreement or not.
People who, as my husband says, follow the spirit of the agreement.
But your husband’s ex is going to follow the letter of the agreement. And if it’s not written down and she won’t be held in contempt of court for doing it, then it’s not gonna happen.
I know. Because my husband’s parenting agreement is 16 pages long. With lots of little detailed paragraphs like that.
For some people, for people who do not follow the spirit of the agreement, if it’s not written down, no matter how logical or reasonable, it doesn’t happen.
That common sense you mentioned is, unfortunately, not ever going to have any part in this.
The only way you are going to be able to change things is to go back to court and get the parenting agreement changed.
And your boyfriend’s ex will fight you tooth and nail. Down and dirty. Really dirty. And she will hit below the belt.
As many times as she has to.
She will lie and make shit up.
She will accuse your boyfriend of awful, unthinkable things.
She will prepare the girls to be witnesses in court. Especially the older one, since she would be the more credible of the two.
So you (and by you, I mean you and your boyfriend, but ultimately your boyfriend) need to make some decisions.
You either accept the situation the way it is now or you fight for the girls to have the relationship they deserve to have with their father.
Like I said before, both situations are going to suck.
Because if you wave the white flag, you run the risk of living the rest of your life with the what ifs. And regret. Lots of regret.
But if you fight, it will most likely ruin you financially. It will cause a great deal of stress and tension in your relationship. And there is no guarantee that you will come out victorious.
If you do succeed in getting the existing parenting agreement amended, you will have a long road ahead of you repairing the damage that has already been done by your boyfriend’s ex. And that may not be possible.
But you will know that you did everything that you possibly could.
So, unfortunately, you are in a relationship that, at least until the girls are eighteen years old, is going to be very complicated.
And at times, very difficult.
As I see it, there is no easy solution.
There is just the solution that you and your boyfriend can live with best.
PLEASE KEEP VOTE!!!!
Unfortunately I think you are absolutely correct about the vindictive mom phenomenon and the appalling options for dealing with it. I have witnessed a very close friend go through everything you say above over the past 13 years. Everything. You. Say. It is not a situation someone can expect will change. It may never change or get better. Fortunately, my friend’s step kids are now 18+ and can make their own decisions. Fortunately and unfortunately, at this age they understand that their mother has been incredibly selfish and their father wrongfully treated. My friend is incredibly strong and it has been almost unbearable at times. It takes a really strong relationship to withstand the stress of something like this. And it is incredibly angering to me, even as an outsider, that the legal system is so biased toward the mother.
I’m a divorce attorney. For a lot of post judgment issues like this, you can handle going to family court pro se (representing yourself). You don’t need to waste tens of thousands of dollars. Usually the motion papers are available on the state court website. You can even hand write them and as long as the ex is served, the court will hear you on why the parenting time agreement requires alteration. Your boyfriend should absolutely be getting every other holiday plus weekday parenting time and vacations. If your ex had an attorney for the divorce (unless there is information missing as to why his parenting time is so reduced), you should consider a malpractice suit against that attorney since the terms you’ve stated are completely unacceptable and do not meet the accepted standards in the field.
I never had a stepparent, but I have a friend whose Mom destroyed every last good memory my friend had of her Dad. After the dad died, my friend’s mom started talking about the town about how awful her dad was, and my friend remembered none of it.
One day my friend called me in tears. She had found her parents’ Valentine’s Day cards while cleaning out the basement. Years’ worth of them.
So my suggestion is maybe have him write to his kids. Even if the letters don’t make it to the girls, the letters will be nice to have when they’re older.
I stopped reading half way through because you forgot about a forth kind of divorce. The one with the narcissistic abusive ex husband that does the bare minimum to look like a good dad so that he can still try to have control in your life. He’s there to attack and abuse you, not take care of the kid. Seems that you’ve been lucky enough not to have come in contact with This Kind of Divorce and good for you. But, don’t classify us mom’s who deal with those kind of men every day and try to protect our children in the same category as vindictive mothers. Because, based on your three divorce type categories, that is exactly what you are doing and it is wrong.
I agree! There are definitely more than 3 types. I have a type 1 divorce (amicable, we do everything for our children and put our own issues aside) however I have another type of custody battle. You see my ex husband took in my child of an affair as his own. From day one. Now the narcissistic biological father who knew full well about this child, asked me to abort him and then vanished has decided he wants to have joint custody. After 4 years he just decided that he hasn’t ruined my life enough and wants to continue to control me.
We are now over 4 years into this battle with no end in sight. My child goes to visitation with this jerk, continues to have visitation with my ex who is his real father in every sense of the word (because i give it to him, not the court) and the bio dad has no responsibilities, pays no child support, medical bills etc. But I can guarantee you that I am made out to be the bad person in this situation to the court and the world.
Condolences – this is tough. I admire the woman who wrote in, because i would never have had the maturity at 26 to try and be a step mom. You’re a star.
Two low cost options to pursue in the first instance:
– A lot of law schools have legal clinics that provide advice about family law issues — I would think that a law student (well supervised) would be able to give you some initial, helpful advice.
– Many systems require mediation before you go to court. In some cases, the mediator will meet with each party separately in advance, which is useful. Often, just a letter from the mediator “inviting” the other party to a meeting will remind them that their behaviour is not consequence free (for them), and just the risk of litigation (which will be as tough and expensive on her as on you) may nudge her back to the bargaining table.
Citizens Advice Bureau should be able to tell you if mediation services are available in your area.
Good luck!