NikNox

Hi folks,

Just thought I'd post an update, plus mention something that happened which is far from my comprehension!!

For the most part, SD is doing okay. The Al-Anon meeting really helped her in accepting that she cannot control her mother's behaviour, nor help her and that it's okay for her to hate the disease. She's also been having daily chats with her tutor at school on a one to one basis, which are really helping her too. At home, she's bright and bubbly, as usual.

We went over yesterday to see her little brother, and his dad told us this:-

Mum isn't allowed overnight contact with the boy. This restriction has been placed on her by Social Services through their concerns for the boy's safety. As it's been a school holiday here in the uk last week, he allowed the boy to go round for tea to mum's. The boy was wearing brand new clothing, bought for him the day before by his paternal grandmother. (I should add that since dad has had the boy he's struggled to clothe him as mum refused to hand over any clothing, although he has just in the last week got a full time job, so things are looking up). Once the boy arrived, there were 2 of his friends at the house. Mum told him that if he stayed the night with her, she would allow the friends to stay too, and handed him her phone and instructed him to plead with his dad to allow him to stay. He's 7 years old! Anyway, clearly the boy was excited and so phoned his dad and begged him to stay with mum. Dad relented, and figured that perhaps if she was 'responsible' for 3 kids she would lay off the booze to an extend. He did however see that she had manipulated the boy and had engineered a situation to bribe the boy to stay with her. He requested that the boy was returned to him at midday the following day. Midday came and went, and she brought the boy back 2 hours late, she was very drunk, and the boy was dressed in a scruffy tracksuit. Dad asked her where the lad's brand new clothing was, and she said she'd given them away to another child!!!!!!

Now, why would she do that? I'm afraid we are struggling +++++ to understand what motivates a person to do such a cruel thing. It shows absolutely no respect whatsoever for her child or his possessions, just as she has shown no respect for SD's possessions as we still have not had anything of SD's that is of value returned (probably cos it's been sold).

Needless to say she has blown any chances now of future contact with the boy, as dad has said she's not having him any more and will have to take the matter to court, but can anyone just explain to me, please, why she would give away his brand new clothing? Or, has she sold it!!! We know she is now just on the minimum benefits for a single person in this country, so is receiving just £57 pw (not much), so how she's managing to buy her alcohol we just don't know.

She beggars belief, she really does, and has sunk just about as low as anyone can go.

naive

just a guess, of course, but maybe she resented the fact that the boy had new clothing that she hadn't got for him and put him back in clothes she had bought. it is possible it was a control thing...as in i'm the mom and he's wearing this, not the fancy gear you got him.

separately, i think it was unwise to leave the boy with the mother and go against the social services. it could be that they would feel that the boy had to be taken into care if the father permits him to be in a dangerous situation.

NikNox

Hi, oh I agree he shouldn't have let the boy stay round there, but he felt very pressurised by the child and figured she may be responsible (ish) if there were other kids to care for too. He won't be doing it again, and is going to be completely honest with Social Services when they meet on Tuesday. By the way, he's not my OH, he's the father of my stepdaughter's half sibling (confusing I know). Also, I didn't buy the new clothes, the boy's paternal grandmother did.

Thing is too, mum has never bought clothes for the children. All of their clothing was either hand me downs, or bought by either the boy's dad/grandmother or when my SD was living there, bought by us or my husband's mother. Mum has never bought clothing for the children because she's always been on benefits and alcohol has always come first.

NikNox

We just went out and bought the boy some new clothing to replace what he 'lost'. It's his birthday Monday, so the clothing is just an extra gift really. He's such an appreciative little chap, bless him. But, we have told dad that if/when mum has contact again (he's going to try and insist that only supervised contact takes place from now on, somewhere neutral but certainly not at her home) that he dresses the boy in the tracksuit she put him in to return him after she gave away his brand new clothes.

What gets me though is that it shouldn't be like this should it? I mean, c'mon, he's just a kid who no doubt enjoyed having trendy new clothes, and she took that away from him. Don't worry, I know it's the alcohol talking, but does it really strip away a person's morals and basic human kindness too?!!!

suki44883

Wring the alcohol out of an asshat and you're still left with an asshat. She sounds very vindictive and while alcohol may exacerbate that, it won't make her vindictive if she isn't already that way. Poor kid. I'm glad he has you and his grandparents to look out for him. It's such a shame that people use little kids to get what they want, without any regard as to how it will affect them.

NikNox

I'm not familiar with the term 'asshat', but I like it! And it does describe her very adequately, and you're right of course. She is indeed vindictive, but to the point where she literally leaves people scratching their heads and wondering 'WTF?'. Her actions go beyond what I would consider to be vindictive, if that makes sense. Cruel - I guess that's more of an apt description of her. She has put her kids through so much when they were living with her, some stuff we knew about, some we have only learned since my SD has been living with us, and I cannot tell you the amount of times I've cried when I've heard things that are too appalling for words. She has an OCD for tidiness (is OCD common in alcoholics?), and the children shared a bedroom when they were with her. They never had a wardrobe, and their clothes were kept in a cupboard in the wall. They had piles of their clothes, folded, and if they dared to get a t-shirt from the bottom of the pile and cause the pile to lean slightly to the left or the right, she would throw everything from the cupboard into a big heap on the floor, together with all their bedding, everything out of their drawers, their toy boxes and make them tidy it all away again without letting them stop for a break, a snack, their dinner, nothing. My SD has told us this 'punishment' would take them a couple of hours to do, and said she often felt so depressed by it she would cry and wanted to run away. This happened at least twice a week, because even an adult would find it hard to remove an item of clothing from a pile and not disturb it in any way. Sheer madness.

When she has the little boy round for a visit, she makes him do chores! I'm not kidding. His dad has told us he often doesn't want to go and see his mum because she makes him do cleaning!!!! Why would she do that when she's only seeing him for a couple of hours, and he doesn't live there anymore to be making any mess to clean up, so she makes him clean up HER mess!!!!!!
Sadly, this obsession for tidiness seems to be rubbing off on the boy. His dad has noticed that the boy complains about mess at their home, and when we had him for a weekend not so long ago, he mentioned to me several times that he thought his sister's bedroom was 'messy' (it isn't actually, it's just normal for a teenager!), and that our lounge looked messy because we had a couple of newspapers on the coffee table!!

She is a car crash that woman, a danger to her children. Grrrrrrrr!!!!