My Life According To Me

First, let me say that I have no perfect view of what a relationship with a teenager should be. I have an idea of what I'd like, but reality is usually a bit off kilter to that "ideal" of my dreams.
Secondly, let me explain the situation with the osd. In February of 2003 a lot of chaos was created because a certain 16 yo decided that she was going to physically threaten to punch me in the face. In the process of dealing with that threat, and the ensuing threat that she was thinking about harming herself, we were served with court papers again demanding that custody of the stepkids be returned to the hex. The Family Courts were once again involved, they involved an atty for the children, and our darling osd got the "voice" for court that she wanted. In April, the now 17 yo made accusations that her father and I starved the children, physically abused them, and forced them to attend church. (The issue has always been that it's *MY* church, not hex's.) The children's atty filed an emergency hearing and the result was that we were ordered to undergo a full custody evaluation. There were also some very drastic orders made for custody and visitation. The first change was that Kaitlin began to spend every weekend at her maternal aunts house. The second was that the younger three would be spending every sunday with the hex (who was living with the aunt at the time) and that the aunt would be the "visitation supervisor" for these visits. While all this is playing out in court dates and CPS visits and more court dates and appointments with a custody evaluator, osd finishes her Junior year of HS and makes the choice to move into her aunts home "for the summer" to get a break. DH at one point said that he just had an epiphany of sorts, that he had to let her go before she tore apart or caused any more havoc for our family. It's not August and the sisters have a falling out, hex is "forced" to move out of the sisters home, and the every week visits stop. OSD also does not return for school, she instead stays at the aunts for a week while the aunt goes on vacation to Cabo, then enrolls in school a week late. (Funny thing about all this is that the aunt has no guardianship at all over osd, but she signs her up for school stating she is her guardian. We find out about this about a month later.) DH and the hex are going to the evaluator every few weeks and working through whatever background he needs. In late September and early October he meets finally with DH, skids, and myself. He had us do the family exercise of drawing a pictures together and had us spend about 30 mins doing that. He then met with the kids. At the end he met with me for a total of 15 mins. (That's a very relevant number... I'll get to why in a moment.) He meets with hex and the kids the next week, same exercise and interviews. We have supervised visits again, with another "friend" of hex's doing the supervision. DH is afraid of declining the friend because he's already being accused of being too protective. We make it through the holidays and then the visits get sporadic again as the "friend" is not available. February DH and the hex get together and they hammer out some temporary agreements about working into more visitation time with hex. After all, she's been testing clean on her drug tests now for all of 2 months (4 tests). We all meet with the kids, DH, hex, evaluator and myself, to tell them what the plan is and how it's not a change of custody (that's what hex likes to promise the kids will happen, that they'll come live with her) but just a visitation change, and that we're going to try unsupervised visits for 4 hours every other sunday. Evaluator submits this to the court with the agreements and then an obcene number of pages of his recommendations. Now these recommendations are basically stating that all of the kids problems are that they have a step-mother and that *I* must get counceling. The thing that really torked me off about this observation is that this character assasination was arrived at with only 15 mins of IN office time and a 3 min phone call when the evaluator asked me what the custody and visitation arrangements were for my 3 bio kids. I'm still having problems with that one... but I digress... So now in February osd has turned the big 18!! She wants her drivers license, she wants her birth certificate, she wants her soc. sec. card, she wants a job, and she wants it all NOW. She's not happy about waiting for any of it, because of course we should all jump when she says to, right? So now it's the week before the big day of her graduation. We've found that hex is in jail and going to be there for awhile, (3rd felony or some such wrinkle). So osd has told DH that she's "taken possession" of all of hex's things, and her car and phone, and that the aunt is going to pay the bills and that osd will use them as her own since hex can't. Fine whatever, DH presses about the whole graduation thing, because you must have a ticket to get in! She was given 10 tickets by the school, what did the wench tell dh?? She "only has" 4 tickets left. Seems that she's managed to invite her boyfriend, both his parents, and she's using the other tickets to invite her uncle and his new wife and sharing with her cousin. DH presses that he needs 5 tix for the family. She proceeds to tell him that she has issues that she must discuss with him and that she wanted to talk to him about before this, but there is no time now, and she only has 4 tix. (All while consulting with the aunt who has done her darndest to be sure that DH has no school info, and made sure he couldn't possibly be involved in anything osd is doing.) So this all boils down to the fact that osd/aunt do not want ME there and that they will do anything to keep me from coming. Heaven forbid that osd must actually acknowledge that she has a step-mother! LOL Now, while I could be hurt and ranting about this turn of events, I'm not hurt, in fact I pretty much expected this. What ticks me off is that osd is torturing her father with this crap. It's sad. We figure he has 5 options:
1 - He doesn't attend at all.
2 - DH attends by himself.
3 - DH attends with me and leave kids with sitter.
4 - DH attends with kids.
5 - DH attends with me and 2 of the kids (he asked osd to pick who to get a sitter for! LOL)
I told DH that whatever he decides it's up to him. I'm tired of the drama and I decided long ago that osd isn't worth the energy drain. So here we are, DH is being raked over the coals by osd and aunt because they don't want to acknowledge his wife. Ah well. I wish I could make it easy and make it go away, but I can't. He's got a rough decision ahead of him. Part of the problem is that the easy solution, #4 means that the skids are all exposed to the family that knows all about hex being in jail, but THEY DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT! We've kept this all hush hush so far because we don't know what the outcome will be. It's easier to tell them "this happened so this is how it will be" than to drag out the emotional rollercoaster with bits and pieces. So osd is supposed to call back tonight to tell DH if she managed to get another ticket for him... I'm not holding my breath on that call. LOL I just think that the "mother's curse" is so appropriate for osd... I hope and pray that she has a child just like her!

Till later...