If you read part one you would know that I am dealing with a mother-in-law that hates me. I’ll give you a little recap. My husband’s mother and father are divorced and both of them are remarried. I have a great relationship with my husband’s dad and his stepmom Jackie. In October I had a mental breakdown and tried to end my own life because of stress. A couple weeks ago his mother Sue finally gave my husband Jordan and ultimatum, either he leaves me and lets her pay for his divorce or she cuts him out of her life until he is no longer with me. Two weeks went by, it was peaceful, but I have learned in my life that peace never lasts. Here is part two.
Today is 04/13/2024. On April 10th, my mother had a major surgery that lasted 7 hours to remove her cancer. This included removing four of her ribs, part of the vein and nerve that go to her arm, and a football shaped cancerous mass that was twelve inches by ten inches. This also included a second half of the surgery that the plastic surgeon did that involved cutting loose her abdominal muscle and flipping it up to cover the area on her chest they did the surgery on, taking a skin graft from her abdomen to cover the deficit they made by cutting out the cancer and closing. My mom was in the ICU for two days and remains in the hospital now with a chest tube in and several other medical things, she has even required four blood transfusions so far and is likely to need more.
I will write all about this later in a different post, but I was facing losing my mother. My husband decided to go with me to the surgery and we found a babysitter after we both made a post on our Facebook pages asking for help with childcare. A good friend of both Jordan and I agreed to watch the kids for us. We knew her from the countless hours I spent sitting and chatting with her at work. She was one of the people I called my work mama. She had even come to our wedding! She was familiar with the kids and especially my severely autistic, nonverbal son SJ. She is a family friend to us, more like family. We trust her with our lives, and our children.
While our friend was here watching our son, the girls were at school. We had one of Jordan’s best friends take them to school, again someone we know and trust. While it was just our friend and SJ at the house, our dog Gunner got loose. Our friend could not leave SJ alone to go catch the dog and we had called another family friend to come help her catch the dog. While they were waiting for the friend to get to the house, someone else had called the police to make sure he was caught. The dog had run out in front of a couple of cars, and the school next to our house was about to let out and since Gunner looked like a German Shepherd, they assumed he would be aggressive. A police officer showed up and was able to get the dog back in the house, without any incident.
Sue has a scanner at her house. She heard our address go out on the scanner and took note that our dog had gotten loose. She used this as ammo. She called CPS on us and reported that the dog had gotten out, but she also told many lies. She made false allegations against us that included only one that stuck enough they had to come investigate. We know it was Sue based on the allegations and the fact the CPS worker asked us if we had a falling out with someone recently right after I asked her if we could find out you made the allegations. It was a good indication. Sue alleged that:
1. On April 10th we had a person we found off Facebook with no ties to the family watch the kids, and that the dog got out.
2. That our house was dirty and there were dog feces all over our house.
3. That we lock our autistic son in his room and leave him home alone.
Again, none of these allegations are true and the CPS worker even told us she didn’t even know what to write in a safety plan her supervisor required her to write because there was nothing wrong here. She told me I was doing a good job, and she agrees this is not fair to us. She celebrated our wins with us because we had dealt with her a couple months prior when my breakdown happened back in October, she celebrated that we got a new caseworker at CMH for our son because his previous one wasn’t doing her job and getting him services. She celebrated that our son was accepted into a residential program. She celebrated that our son is getting a safe sleep bed. She was happy with our progress in the last couple months. Before she left, she told us she was closing out the case as unfounded.
Being a child that was removed from my parents there is always that PTSD when CPS comes knocking on my door. To me that is what CPS does, they take kids. It sends me into an instant panic attack. Sue knows this. Sue used this. Sue used my own children as a weapon against me.
You will later read what I went through with my ex-husband and his abuse, but this whole thing with Sue is very triggering of that PTSD. I now have to keep all the curtains closed in my house, that makes our world feel very small. I can’t go out of the house without looking over my shoulder and feeling stalked. This has led me to pursue a restraining order against Susan. I haven’t felt like this since I had to deal with leaving my abusive ex-husband nearly six years ago.
I cannot understand why she is doing this. All because I have a relationship with my husband’s father’s side of the family. Her divorce was years ago! She left the marriage. She cheated on my husband’s father, multiple times. She WANTED the divorce, but she wants to paint my husband’s father as the bad guy. She wants to be the victim in all of this. She is not the victim, my husband, myself, and our children are the victims… and dad and Jackie too. They get roped into being put in the middle of this “feud” too.
Jordan is a grown man who can make his own decisions, but she uses these tactics to get him to bow down and do what she wants, and what she wants is for him to divorce me. That is not going to happen. What she doesn’t realize is that she is only hurting her relationship with her son. She is only ruining any chances she ever had to be a part of the kids’ lives. She is only pushing us closer to Jordan’s dad’s side of the family. Her plans are only backfiring on her.
Furthermore, what kind of a miserable life does she lead that causes this. She must be pretty miserable in her life to feel the need to destroy others around her. She will be the first to tell everyone she leads a perfect life and has a wonderful job and a wonderful husband, but we all know the truth that her husband cheats on her. She can’t fool me. I have dealt with her kind before, and I know all the tactics. I am not one to be controlled. Even as a child I was known to “Kung-fu-fight ’em. I am a fighter, and I will fight to defend the ones I love, I just never thought the threat would come from “family”.
They say that blood is thicker than water, I don’t believe that. I believe that family is those you choose. I have “friends” that are more family than actual family is. The only thing I can do now is wait. Wait for her next attack, wait for her to run out of steam, wait for her to set her sights on someone else. I’ll just wait her out and know that I have people who love me without any conditions or rules. I have people that will be there to support me through whatever she throws my way.
My husband said that the only reason she called CPS is because it was her nuclear option. Either I would do what she wanted, and she could tell everyone she was right about me, or it would backfire and cause her to be out of our lives forever. Well, I didn’t do what she wanted. It makes me sad though, that she has lost us forever. It makes me sad for my husband because I know it hurts, and it makes me sad for my children because I know they hurt. How do I forgive that? How do I forgive using my children as a weapon to try to get what she wants? How do I forgive breaking the hearts of the five people I love most in the world and four of which are completely innocent in all of this? I cannot wrap my head around it. I cannot wrap my head around the level of evil Susan has reached, but I will not allow that in my life. I won’t allow her to take what I love. I won’t allow Susan to steal my joy. I won’t allow her to break me. I am stronger than that! I am stronger than her, mostly because I know I could never do something like this. I am strong enough to know this has everything to do with her as a person and nothing to do with me.
I am a good mom. My kids are loved beyond measure, they have all their needs met (you know the whole roof over their heads and food in their bellies, clothes on their back), and they have parents who have gone to war for them on things like getting my son services and meeting his needs. Susan cannot take that from me. I know who I am, my kids know who their mom is, and those that love me know who I am too. She cannot destroy me, no matter how much she tries. I am not going anywhere!
Welcome To My Life 
Leave a comment