i want custody of my grand son but dh doesnt, should i have to choose?

[candy candy candy]

my common law dh and i have been together now for seven years and we have been through some trials and tribulations with my kids having babies, the passing of his gramma, the passing of my 16 year old dog and one time we split up for four days!

 

so we've been through some things and now here is another one:

my daughter is 24 she is ADD and has some mild brain injury from a car accident sustained back in 2001. she was not that great of a house keeper before the accident but now she is the worst i've ever seen.

 

she take adderall xr for the ADD but it seems semi worthless. she has struggled for a very long time to find a job and her stupid boy friend and failed to help her in ways of helping to watch the kids and with vehicles. they have two vehicles both of which the tabs expired lonnnng ago and they both drove them anyways and my daughter now has over $3000.00 in fines she needs to pay off in one year and he seems not bothered by it. then over the weekend he was pulled over and went to jail and my dh put up the money but not the bond to get him out and he did so only cause he knew he would be paid back immediately.

 

my daughter has left him a few times cause he is an a**h***, he tells her to leave his shxt alone! they have a child together and he still always tells her he knows she is cheating on him and she isnt! so he has dragged her down emotionally too and she has changed so much since then where as before she had good common sense and now it is out the window!

 

now she finally got a $10.00 an hour job and has to pay day care though cause he wont pay anything cause he thinks she is fine at home. so she is burdened with so much but yet wont leave the bozo cause "she loves him". half the time there is no food in the house and she frequents the food banks along with hardly no food in the house and the house always being trashed i hate my grand kids even being over there.

 

she is home all day so she can cook and clean but she dont, she says the kids the kids keep trashing the house and so does he and she cant keep up with it because of them. so i take my grand son alot of the times so he dont have to be in that environment and he never wants to go home and my daughter thinks it is cause i spoil him when he is here that he wants to stay here but it is not that at all and i know it isnt.

 

my grand son is four years old and not the child of this guy. now he has been here for a week and i have jobs coming up this week and i intend to take him to the day care and pay for him for half a day while i work then pick him up again. his mom comes by almost every day for something cause she has no phone to call now so she seems him and he sees her and does not want to go with her at all.

 

i have asked her more then once to just let me have him and she says no, then sometimes she says her and her dh get along better with only one child there cause my grand son is also ADD as i am too and i am on meds and on celexa too so i feel i have a good grip on things to handle him and i have ways to snap him out of his whiny stages, lol, and i love this little guy like crazy and to see him have to go home to that messy house and the chaos around there is breaking my heart.

 

the baby is now one year old and she is going to grow up the same way, sad sad sad. now here is my problem: my dh has been ok with him being here this long of a time until last night. my dh is kind of aloof when people come over yet he claims to be a real family man cause he wants to go to every single event his family has, b-day's, reunions, company from out of town, etc, but in the evenings when he is home, he is outside doing yard work, or reading his paper or watchcing the t.v. he does little to interact with my grand son though he calls him grampa and he has bought him several things since he has been here like some clothes, a tooth brush, shoes and some other little things.

 

my grand son has some weird fear of monsters!!! he thinks they are everywhere! so at night i sit in his room while he goes to sleep. most night he wakes up and comes into my room and wakes me up cause he wants water, or is hungry or wants to sleep with me, or has had a bad dream, so each night my sleep in interrupted. i get up and take him back to his room and i sit there agian for him to go back to sleep then i go back to bed.

 

onlyone night has he slept the whole night through. so again last night he came in the room saying he was thirsty and this woke up my dh this time and i had let both our dogs sleep upstairs since it was much cooler and they both got on the bed and he came to bed and was mad about that and put them on their beds but they didnt stay there. so when my grand son woke him up by waking me up, he got up and went to the bathroom saying "dammed kids, dammed dogs" and something else but i didnt catch what.

 

i was deeply hurt by this yet i understand his feelings. i now feel that he is getting on his nerves and i should take my grand son home now to his mother though he does not want to go home!!!! i feel if i take him home cause of my dh that i will harbour resentment towards him. so now my h eart is so torn and i feel like just taking him and my dogs and running off some where to live! all this just to get to get to this point, sorry. it is so hard to make him go home and i can handle him just fine and i ador this little boy and i am going to hate my dh if i have to take him home cause he is getting tired of it all.

 

when my grand son woke me up the 2nd time last night i took him back to his room and waited till he fell back asleep and i could not even stand going back to my own bed with my dh so i went on the couch and soon my grand son was at my side. i put him on the couch with me and i he immediately fell asleep but i slept on the floor, the hard floor for about 4 hours and now am up and am very sore and tired. i did this cause of my dh. and now i feel angry towards him and unsure of how to approach him on this and what to do for my grand son. my car is in the shop and iget it out tomorrow which my dh paid $1800.00 to have it fixed for me, so he is nice with some things but not too nice with this and throwing money around to buy things does not make up for the emotional aspect of things.

and he wonders why my grand son does not go to him in the mornings and to the store and things like that? duh. any help would be so so greatly appreciated. oh just another thing, he knows i want to permanently keep my grand son and has some what agreed but when he is tired and irritable he doesnt want him here i think.

[agnf666]

First of all I'm happy that you would help your grandson out of that household. That is amazing. Maybe you should take your grandson home a few days. So, this gives you and your DH to talk about waht is going on. So, you can see what he thinks about the whole thing. Make sure you tell him that the living situation at your daughters house is horrible and can't let your grandson live in that mess. Make sure you get his serious answer about the situation. Maybe his problem is that you guys lack the alone time and maybe lack of sex or something.

 

 

What does you daughter think of you taking her child out of her household?

[candy candy candy]

my dh knows exactly the situation over there and agrees that grandson is better off over here but his tolerance is so low for everything and he wants his down when he comes home from work and cant seem to get it anymore but he does sit and read his paper and hang out in the yard and i take him upstairs to bed around 9:00 and i come down later. sex is something we didnt have much of before he came so that has not changed anyways. i dont have much interest in sex anymore and i dont know if at times it is my feelings towards him or just me or what?

 

we rarely talk about these things and though he agrees he is better off with us then over there cause here he has food, clean house and calm steady environment but over there the opposite but yet he says these things so it is very confusing to me what he wants and maybe he dont even know either. either way i will ask him when he gets up what he wants cause of what he said last night and see what he says, i willask him straight out if he wants him to go home now and if not then what? thanks for the reply.

[A Fly onThe Wall]

Let me see if I got this right .. YOUR daughter has ADD and a mild brain injury.. and a somewhat aloof life.

 

And you want to basically take HER child from her ..

 

If you fear for the child (your grandchild) then you need to call social services..

 

Other than that relieving your guilt originating from raising your daughter ( ADD is believed to have a large genetic component ) I can't see what other reasons that you would want to remove your grandchild from his Mom ?

 

Also the chances are slim to none of this happening legally .. You as a grandparent can fight for visitation

as those are your rights .. But custody.. it takes more than ADD and some ill responsibilty for that.

 

It is nice and sweet that you are looking out for the little guy.. but it is your daughters life now.

 

Maybe you could see if you could get your daughter into a family counseling that you can participate in also.

[candy candy candy]

i am NOT fighting my daugher for custody at all! i said that on the post cause it was hard to think of something else in short words.

i am trying to keep him with me as long as i can without directly taking him away from her, but i did ask her to let me keep him until she can get things straightened out. my daughter and i are extremely close and i have made several attempts to help her to organize her home and to go through things with her to help clear out clutter. she clamins it ismostly paper work yet i look around the house and it is anything but paper work. she has two kitchen tables full of clutter, the babies high chair has hard old stale food stuck on it from days ago but she will clean off when she needs it again, there is trash everywhere and dirty dishes around the kitchen and the house.

 

there is stuff all over the floor so that you have to step over things to get from room to room. i know people that have more kids then she does and the house never looks like this! i know some of it is from the accident she was in, she is now 24, and was not this bad before this but has gotten worse over the years and at times i think the stress of the kids makes her worse...

 

i only want what is best for the kids. i have been considering now for days to call social services as a wake up call for her yet i dont know if she is in control of what is going on or not so that is my deliema with her too.

[candy candy candy]

Other than that relieving your guilt originating from raising your daughter ( ADD is believed to have a large genetic component ) I can't see what other reasons that you would want to remove your grandchild from his Mom?

 

i have listed several reasons why i want to remove him. i dont want to legally do anything to take him away from her, i only want him to stay with me more so indefinitely. i would not hurt her in anyway intentionally but helping my grandson is my top priority right now cause he is at an age where he knows what is going on and does not being there at home anyways. he has been here for one week now and i ask him daily if he wants to go home today and he says "no want to spend another night gramma". so as long as his mom lets him stay here and as long as he wants to stay here i will never force him to go home.

 

there is no guilt in any of this so please dont even think that. she only recnetly found out about having ADD and a mild brain injury va a QEEG test as did i. and i also was found to have a mild brain inujry as well and i take the concerta/celexa combo and it helps with everyday life and she is to take adderall xr and celexa but has lost the full bottle of celexa and cannot find it to take it and i think it would greatly help her with all of this.

[sweetserendipity]

So she has ADD and a mild brain injury, the 4 yr old is the child of one father (not the guy she's living with) and the baby she has is the child of the guy she lives with. Yikes, what a mess.

 

Where is the father of the 4 yr old in this picture? Is HE aware of the nasty home condition that his child is growing up in?

 

Can you not spend a couple of days over there at her house.........and go through EVER THING with her - throw out all of the garbage and clutter and help her reorganize things in a very simple manner (the place sounds like a filthy pigstye). ...if it's such a mess, it's likely very overwhelming for her and she doesn't even know where to start. She owes it to her children to make their home organized and CLEAN. Poor little ones, do they even have clean clothes? Clean beds?

 

Her starting to work is great but now she'll have even less chance and desire to keep her home clean because she's there less.

 

You could tell her that you'll help her go through her house and get it cleaned up properly - and that you expect her and DH to maintain it ...............and if they don't, you're going to have to call CPS because children shouldn't have to live in this kind of filth and mess.

 

It's a shame she had another baby when her life is apparently so out of control.

 

As for your DH, it's understandable in a lot of ways that he's having a hard time with this........it's likely been years (if at all) that he's had little ones in the home and affecting his sleep and schedule. You need to do your best to be respectful of his needs - keep your dogs out of the bedroom, teach the little one to sleep in his own bedroom.

[candy candy candy]

sweetserendipity: thank you so much for the reply.

so far i have offered to bring some plastic containers to her home and help her to go through everything! she has said yes that would be great but when i asked her the next day or so when she wanted to do that she had a change of mind and said it is mostly paper work around here and i said noooooooo, and she said she could manage it herself.

 

she can clean when she wants to i know she can she has done it but she cant keep up on it and says her dh is the main reason cause he leaves dishes all around the house and does not pick up afte himself yet i see a mixture of everything of theirs all around the house and ham that has been in her fridge for about a month now!

 

as for laundry she does keep the clothes clean by coming here to do her laundry cause they do not have a washer and dryer there. i told her one day when i was there that she never grew up in such a mess so why is she raising her kids in such a mess and she said mom i just feel more comfortable with things like this. now that was scary.

 

as for my grandsons father he is in florida and we are in colorado. he knows he has a son here, he cannot deny this boy as he looks exactly l ike him from the day he was born! he is no better for being a father as he has rare contact with him and sends him some clothes on his birthday and christmas and sees him when he comes to town which has only been twice since he was born now.

 

he has a girlfriend and another kid with her and is involved with his life out there so he calls her dh (common law too) dad and i hate that he does that cause to me that guy is not worthy of being called dad.. one day he called my grandson a sissy cause his mom still gives him a bath! he is only 4! i give him a bath too when he is here, he is not quite capable of washing his own hair and body, for crying out loud!

 

so i did talk to my dh this a.m. when he got up and he said the reason he said that was cause he was so tired. i said that that was no reason to say that and he said i was taking it to literal. i will keep the dogs out of the room for now and i do try every night to keep my grandson in his own bed and not to get up. he goes potty gets a drink and goes to bed..

[sweetserendipity]

So where is the baby in all of this? That's super that you're helping out with the 4 yr old but what about the baby? If your daughter is going to be working, who will be looking after the baby? Is she even focused enough to properly care for the many needs of a helpless baby? Would she be "aware enough" to notice if the baby was sick? not eating well? had diaper rash?

 

Maybe you need to be more assertive in offering to help her get her house organized. Instead of offering, maybe you need to tell her that it's got to be done because if Child Protective Services EVER saw the condition of the home, she could lose her children - you need to drill that into her head.

 

So she's not taking her Celexa because she misplaced the bottle? Well it surely needs to be found or she needs to get another Rx for it, ASAP. How long ago did she have the baby? Could she have some Post Partum Depression? Is she under the care of a psychiatrist at all? Does she have a good family doctor? Could you attend a doc's appt with her, and explain to the doc how she's having such difficulty keeping the home clean and that she admits she likes it better to be a mess...and that you're concerned for her AND most importantly, your grandchildren.

 

Is her live-in boyfriend a bum or something? Does he work a decent job? Why is it they don't have a phone? That's scary - what if something was wrong with the children and she had to call 911 - there's no phone!

 

How does he treat your daughter? Is he a good guy or a loser? Maybe you need to sit down with him and tell him you're very concerned about your daughter and the children - and he needs to grow up and support your daughter and pick up after himself and help her out........................or else someone could report the conditions of the home to CPS and the children could be removed.........maybe he needs to be told this.

 

Does she even cook proper meals for the 4 yr old? If she's got month-old ham in the fridge, is she knowledgable enough about food to know that food expires or does she possibly feed the 4 yr old food that's out of date and spoiled?

 

What does she feed the baby - formula? What age is the baby?

 

As for your DH - just apologize for the disruption in his sleep............try to explain to him that your grandson will need to get used to being in a new house.......and once he does, he'll sleep through the night better. Just let him know you love him lots and you appreciate it dearly that he's in your life and supporting you through this, that you need his support - you didn't ask for all this but it's what you have to deal with.