Another day, another boring blog post.

Lately I've been feeling frustrated in general. My husband's ex-wife is crazy (literally, as in been in the mental ward multiple times in the past few years, on and off her meds) for those of you not in the know, and there is supposed to be a trial next month about their kids. We had a social worker/guardian ad litem do a home study and say that she (biomom) shouldn't have visitation overnight for a number of reasons. Current visitation is 8 hours twice a month, which should not be enough for this woman to screw up her kids but unfortunately it is. There are several very serious reasons why this can't happen, but in the interest of my kids' privacy I'm not going to blog them. Suffice to say, it was bad, real bad.

This has been going on for 5 years, and if we added up the legal bills I am sure the number would be astronomical. Our attorney advised we needed to pay $2000 for his entire day to have him go with us to trial. We obviously, between not receiving ANY child support from the idiot biomom and raising up two kids, don't have a spare $2K just sitting around. So I don't know what's going to happen.

There has to be some other way to deal with this situation, and not just let biomom WIN (her mother, her chief enabler, pays for her legal bills and is the main problem in this situation). Not being able to control/fix this situation (because I do realize that my insatiable need to fix things and take care of things/people is in fact my need for control) is the most frustrating thing I can think of.

The ball is in my husband's court, so to speak, and I struggle with wanting to grab the ball and pitch it myself, when I know it's important that I let him advocate for his children without my interference. Even if I think I could fight the fight better.

The amount of stress this woman puts on our household is astronomical - 99% of every argument hubby and I have ever had has something to do with her. 99% of all money woes ever are directly related to her. She doesn't deserve this amount of control over our lives, and I am not sure how to disconnect from the situation any more to save my sanity without literally sacrificing my stepkids in the process. And I don't see them as my stepkids, I see them as my KIDS, and the feeling is very mutual - they picked me before Dave picked me.

Mostly I just feel powerless. And really worried for them. Our son is really struggling with middle school (first year) like I knew he would, and the kid is clinically depressed. Doctor visits, and counseling visits, and punishments, and meds, and hugs, and long talks, nothing seems to reach the kid right now. And it breaks my heart because it's like looking into a mirror when I was 11 and seeing my face, my face as I just wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. I'm not going to give up on him EVER but I just don't know how to fix this. And I am the girl that knows how to fix everything.