Besides everything else I talked about in the last blog, there were a few more things that happened in the month of September that I wanted to share.
To start, not eating breakfast. This was the start of withholding food claims. He would be texting his mom up until he had to leave at 8AM. We only know this because of Verizon Message Logs. And we didn’t have every month printed out, because after each billing cycle, the next month would appear. But from the months we do have…we know they were texting 24/7. From the minute my stepson woke up, to the minute he got out of school, to the minute he was about to head to bed. We would offer him food for the car ride to school since it was a 15–20-minute drive and he still refused saying he didn’t have time. He did have time if he ate something in the car. We also understand from reading books on adolescents that some children aren’t that hungry in the morning. Just like as children become teenagers, they might not always want to eat dinner with you, or opt out of say, a family game night. But regardless, we still offered snacks to him for the car ride just in case.
Another issue was with my stepson’s first therapist. She was a very good therapist up until after COVID. Not saying COVID was the reason for the change, but she definitely did. She didn’t seem to listen to our side of the family. Michael would email her or even speak to her over the phone, but we eventually found out through text that she truly did believe everything my stepson was telling her. Especially the child abuse and telling my husband’s ex to keep a voicemail from my stepson’s grandma about her claiming his dad didn’t do it. There were 10 witnesses total the WHOLE time. And with how much colluding would happen, we would hardly let them be by themselves or would have the motion cameras running. With my husband’s ex being a great manipulator, we knew that she trained my stepson very well to be the same. And if you couldn’t fall under their spell, as I’ll put it, and believe their narrative, you were cut off from existence.
Around the time of the confessing to the colluding, his therapist decided to step down and wished my husband the best with trying to co-parent with his ex. To us, it seemed suspicious with the time frame of her leaving and what was happening. We knew she was already on their side, but we didn’t know what else anyone could have been hiding. Since March, my stepson has been through two therapists as they are just placing him in CHR. And unfortunately, CHR has a fast turnaround with people.
But back in the month of September, there was more issues with the phone. His therapist said that phones are really important to keep in touch with friends, but then said that she was concerned about the lack of friends he had outside of school. So, we questioned, why would he need more access to his phone unless it was to text his mom all the time? The therapist even suggested that my stepson get involved in some school activity. We kept making the point to not just the therapist that my stepson’s mom, lets him hang out with her 40-year-old male friends, like Manny and Danny, and whenever we suggest he hang out with kids his age, he either: says he doesn’t want to, says he hates kids his age, or gets mad at us when we say he shouldn’t have 40-year-old friends at 11-13 years old and that it’s not age appropriate. What would he do? He would then complain to his mom who didn’t seem to care that he wanted to be best friends with not just his mom, but her friend’s as well.
We told my stepson plenty of times that he could invite friends over, but he says he doesn’t want to invite friends over because we have a busier street and don’t have video games for them to play. Are kids really now a days just stuck to a screen all day? If you read articles from the American Heart Association, it’s not healthy for child of any age, and I’ll just say even adults to be locked to a screen all day. That being a phone, tv, computer, etc. What ever happened to playing outside even if it was a sport? So, even though we have a large yard with lots of woods that can be explored as well, my stepson has downright refused to play outside by himself or with anyone else, including ourselves. He never had an issue kicking a soccer ball or throwing a football with myself at my apartment complex, but the minute I married his dad, any FUN started to become a problem.
As I mentioned earlier, his original therapist even suggested joining some type of activity. We found out his school was doing a guitar club, and turned out I knew the teacher, but mostly I knew his wife since I was in high school. The guitar club teacher had a lot of great things to say about it and how each kid is at a different level, but you are always learning and growing. Unfortunately, my stepson said he didn’t want to do it and wouldn’t give any other reason. Everyone thought it was the perfect activity but of course my husband’s ex didn’t encourage him to join either, so just like past sports, everything fell through because his ex and son found no reason for him to participate. It was more like if it was something that Michael came up with…it was no, but if it was something similar that his ex-wife came up with…oh it wasn’t a problem at all and the best thing ever.
Another issue we ended up having in the month of September was still about the access of the phone, but finding out through his therapist that the court document was being shared with my stepson. When I talk more about our December trip later on, my stepson will start talking about how his mom says he’s allowed to know about these court documents. However, she was able to get away with violating the divorce decree and no one seemed to care. They only cared if my husband, the father, violated it. By sharing not just the past marriage, but also court issues, will already trigger the child to start to believe the other parent is bad. Fun fact of the day: Michael never served his ex-wife. She has always been the one to serve and I think after a while with all the escalating, the courts started to question what was really happening here. However, that ended quickly when the Guardian ad Litem came in.
Unfortunately, the month of September was just more of calling us, especially his dad liars, because his mom has told him he was. My stepson didn’t listen to much of anything we said. Even back last September we talked about how we would gladly elaborate on how disrespectful and downright adversarial he has been on most issues despite our sincerest efforts to de-escalate the conversations and that's the main reason his phone access is restricted. Do people really think it’s okay to let the child keep their phone even when they aren’t behaving? It didn’t help that my husband would discipline him, or tell him that his behavior was unacceptable, my stepson would get right on the phone and complain to his mom so that we were served with a court summons to further harass and cause my husband, and even myself and his parents’ mental anguish.
It’s sad when another parent undermines the other and doesn’t even try to co-parent. He literally was told he didn’t need to follow my husband’s rules. He found everything to complain about in our household because he’s not as free to do whatever as he is at his mom’s.
No one has been on our side from the start which is why we are just sharing our story in other way to get the TRUTH out.
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