Hello Tribe:
I need advice because I’m ready to walk away from a realationship that I am loving being in. My beau and I have been dating since Oct 09’. Great guy, loves to have fun, treats me wonderfuly, makes me smile and gives me a look like I’m the only woman in the world! GO ME! We talk about us and our future and he has announced to his family that “I’ve found the woman I’m going to marry, I’m just waiting on her to be ready”.
All this is wonderful and I smile at the thought of this, but there is one problem. His nine year old daugher and her mama! He had a baby with a woman he was dating and they do not do well together. The mom wanted a child, but not a father for the child and here in is the root of the problem(s). She has asked my beau to sign away parental rights and in “exchange” she would not seek child support. Coming from a two parent home, he laughed at the idea and has had to take her to court to fight for parental rights, visitation and other things. From my understanding, the mother and her sister are the products of an adulterous relationship and she does not feel a father is needed to raise a child. She wanted children, but not the family to go with and the daughter is the result of her desire and his poor choices. Currently, the mother has my guy in court asking for all sorts of crazy things that will limit access to his daughter. O.K. cool, his fight with a woman he chose to be with and I’m in his corner for support. HOWEVER, this dang nut don’ dragged me into the issues she is bringing to the courts and it’s quite frustrating. I have no children and I’m not about to let anyone elses drive me crazy or add drama to my life.
The daugher is very manipulative and uses her mom’s anger at her dad to get what she wants. If things are going her way, or we are having fun…all is well. When she is not allowed to distrespect, pout or cut the dang fool, yell at adults or out right ignore them when spoken to; she texts her mom “I feel so unloved”, “I miss you so much”, “Dad is with HER”, “I’m not happy here” etc. She has lied on me, on him and about situations when she is with us. It’s quite frustrating because I’ve been nothing but good to this child and she distorts the truth and outright lies to her mom about activities when she’s with us when she can not have her way. If I listed all of the stuff this kid has done, we’d be here all day! The sad part about it is that he lives 500 miles away from me and we only see each other twice a month and I’ve only been around her with him two or three times when we meet at his mom and dad’s house in another state.
Her mom, wanting any ammunition she can have encourages this “tattle on dad” mentality and although the kid gets what she wants immediately, I do not think she understands the long term ramificatons of her actions. Presently, they are in court for revisions/adjustments in their custody, visitation and support arrangements. The mother put things in the court papers that hurt me in ways that have made me want to just walk away. The kid told her mom that she was sleeping in the bed with me and her mom flipped!!! Truth, she asked me to come and watch a movie with her in her room and we fell asleep laying across the bed. She told her mom that four adults (me, boyfriend and his parents) left her alone in the house and she woke up afraid. The truth, she was mad because I would not tell her where I was going when I was leaving the house and her dad was walking the dog. Her grandparetns were in the hosue, and she was WIDE AWAKE, but because I would not respond to a child yelling at me “You have to tell me where you are going”, she called her mom with some BS.
For the most part when we are all together all is well. We laugh, giggle, cook, go shopping, play games, hang out and enjoy time as a loving group. But as I said, when she does not get her way, or she wants to get mama points, she’s on the phone, texting and playing victim. It got so bad that he began to take her cell phone when he picked her up for his weekends and that became a court issue as well. “he’s alienating our daugher from me and limiting contact”. She even went so far as to sideways insinute that one of us (me or the dad) was a pedofile because he told his daugher “you don’t tell your mom what goes on here when you are with me”. Her statement “telling kids not to tell is what pedofiles do”. Her mother has put into the court documents that his time with his lady friendS is taking away from his quality time with his daughter and she is suffering emotionally because of it. She has mentioned me by name in her petition and objections and it enfuriated me.
Both he and his parents do very well for this child and have a desire to have a solid family relationship with her. Knowing this, the baby mama threatens court, relocation, and all sorts of thigns that make he and his family walk a very chalk line to keep the mess down. The kid does not help and it makes matters worse. I love him yes, but I will not allow a child and her mama make me seem like a pedofile, some common chick off the street or an abusive adult. I’ve delt with men with kids before and this is my first situation where I’d rather not be around the kid because she is fake (sad to say of a 9 year old), she causes problems and I’d rather just leave her alone. I know both he and his parents love me, but I ain’t blood and my indifference toward her will be hard to hide should this sillyness continue. I’ve not met the mom, but at this point our first meeting would be tension filled and hard.
I’ve not said anything to him about how all of this has made me feel as he is dealing hard with it himself. Please, please, PLEASE give me something to work with on this subject because I’m ready to walk way and tell him that I don’t care to deal with her attempt to make him look bad by making me look like some floozy.
Sorry for the long post.
