Wife Has Taken Stepson Away After Confronting Her About Her Abuse Towards Him

[ddmz]

My question involves child abuse or neglect in the State of: MD


Hello,

Okay. So, I have been with my wife for two years and married for six months. She has a 12 year old son (my stepson, who refers to me as Dad - we have a very close relationship). He has ADHD and can be very difficult as such. Over the course of the past two years, my stepson has been the center of attention around his behavior, school performance and such. We have made many efforts to accommodate him in a school setting, hoping to resolve some issues. We have switched schools into special programs, placed him in a military camp, and now he is in a private school. He has tried many medicines for ADHD and has been on various medicines since 5 years old. Nothing has worked, and frequent reports from his teachers continue to pile up regarding his behavior.

My wife is hyper-critical of his every move and gets extremely angry when he does not cooperate. I always noticed this as being a problem, but never quite admitted the severity of it, I suppose I was living in denial and didn't want to rock the boat. However, things have been getting progressively worse and more apparent as I shift focus away from my stepson's problems and recognize how my wife treats him.

My wife yells at him almost all day. She belittles him, shuts him down when he tries to talk, controls his every move, swears at him, calls him names. She never takes him to the park, plays games with him, spends time with him. Her focus is always on his homework and on negative actions. Several times she has slapped him in the face, recently he was at his desk and she was "trying" to explain some math to him, I guess he wasn't quite paying attention, so she slapped his face and yelled at him.

My stepson has no friends really, very low self-esteem, never expresses his opinions or views, his teacher write that he "said he felt good that he was able to tell her his feelings".

I've been confronting my wife about her anger and yelling, etc. all along, but she will turn it around on me, get very defensive, and say things like "I can't do anything right you just do it all then". I've been completely unable to get through to her and reached out to her family for advice. Her family explained how they have always had problems with her, how she has always been angry, resentful, jealous, and yells. She also has not allowed my stepson's father and his side of the family to see him. They have been asking to see him, but she went off on them and won't allow it - even though he has always seen him in the past 12 years.

A little over a week ago, my wife had a major episode. I heard her screaming upstairs, so I went up to see what was going on. I asked simply "What's going on?", she was talking to my stepson and said she doesn't know wtf I have been telling him (nothing), but that she is done, she is sick of it, that he can't talk to her that way. I asked what happened, and he said "I just didn't want to talk right now". My wife went into our room and slammed the door, then was slamming doors in the room, I went in to try to get her to chill out, but then she just got more angry, she said she was going to kill herself, she said she is getting the F out of here, she will leave. I told her you can't just leave your son here, she said she will take him with her - while screaming like a maniac and throwing her clothes all over - I told her if she leaves I will have to call child protective services - she went INSANE, I really thought she was going to try and stab me or something.

I called the police. They came, they recognized she was acting irate and not even making sense - talking about money problems... which there are none.. she's clearly overwhelmed and it's pushed her off the edge.

Things have since gotten much worse. I have asked her family for support in getting her help, they all said 100% they support me and completely understand what's going on and that she has serious anger issues. Her brother said he will talk to her and try to get through to her and we all agreed to work together to get her help.

As of last night, my wife has left and is staying at her parents house. She has taken her stepson with her, and said she is undecided if she will let me see him. She is now saying she is tired of my "verbal abuse", the first time anyone has ever said anything about me being verbally abusive - It's just not the case. Her and her family are freaking out about me saying I would call CPS. They are worried they will just come and take him away. They don't understand how it works, and their entire focus now is on that fear.

So, my wife is gone, my stepson is gone and I'm unable to see him, her family who were committed to support me in getting her help are no longer communicating with me, there's no clairty into what is going on, and I am now being accused of verbal abuse.

This whole thing has gone to shit. What simply started out as trying to confront my wife about her problems and how they are effecting her son, in an effort to work with her to seek help, as turned into her exile and her once supportive family, no longer communicating, and now accusations against me as being "verbally abusive" and the full focus on the fear of CPS, and how horrible I am to mention them (this must be the verbal abuse).

I had called CPS prior to her leaving and they suggested the support of her family, so that's what I did and now it's just all backfired. I know she is extremely angry and fearful, which is not at all neccassary. She has NOTHING to fear or even be angry about, but her actions are only making things far worse - this never should have gotten to this.

Does anyone have any suggstions as to what I should do?

Thank you!

[Dogmatique]

The truth is, you have no rights to your stepson. You don't have standing to sue for visitation or custody since neither parent has been proven unfit.

Threatening to call CPS was a bad move. Either the situation was such that CPS was needed - in which case you should have called anyway - or it wasn't, and it was a threat which should never have been made.

Also, where is the child's father?

[ddmz]

I called the police instead. The situation was way out of control, it was without question. And around here, CPS is not a child collector. And, even if perhaps I shouldn't have said CPS - things never should have gotten to the point in which I felt it was appropriate.

[Dogmatique]

Fact remains, you don't have standing to sue for visitation or custody; other than that I'm not sure what you wish to accomplish?

[ddmz]

I don't know... Just want people to communicate and focus on the problem and move forward

[Dogmatique]

Leave it up to Mom, Dad, her family and social services if needed.

There's honestly not much you can do here.

[CourtClerk]

Why don't you get in touch with the boy's father

[ddmz]

Why don't you get in touch with the boy's father

I did, and supposedly he is going to see what he can do. He's not very pro-active in general so we'll see. I've a few communications with my wife, basically her brother has given her all of the emails I had sent him, prior to this, where we were discussing what to do and recognizing the her problems. These emails were very candid, insensitive, and out of context without including outside conversations, she never should have read them, so now she is absolutely upset, sad, etc.