My question involves a child custody case from the State of: Alabama.
My husband and I have been married almost Three years. I have three daughters and he has two steps-sons. My children's father is an over the road truck driver, so hes basically not in their life, but currently paying child support. My husband is an excellent father who loves his children dearly and we've always had an open door policy at our house. He never wanted to be an "every other weekend" dad. Thats one of the reasons I fell in love with him. His exe wife has stepped over our personal boundaries even from the beginning of our marriage. She made it very clear that "her exe had lots of girlfriends before me, and I would just be another girl" so therefore he didnt want me involved with her children. She has done everything she could to break us up. She's even mentally toying with her children's minds by basically making them think that their father loves me and my kids more than this. Its ridiculous. Ive attempted to be rational with her and try to work things out but she is not rational.
The custody papers say hes to have the boys every other weekend, yet we have them almost every weekend, some school nights, all holidays and every summer. We take them all summer even though were only supposed to have them two weeks and she still wants child support on the months during the summer we have the boys. She will not even tell us and drop them off and we have actually been on our way to a date night and had to stay in. We pay at least half on all sports they play (which is baseball, track, and football) and she still complains we do not do enough for the boys. She then makes the children hate their father because shes always bad mouthing him and me. She wants nothing more than to seperate us so my husband can be at her beck and call. Ive laid the line in the sand with her, but she says "I dont exist in her world"...
Ive tried to explain to her that if we got along it would be better for the kids and what Ive felt shes doing to them mentally. She ius so selfish or blind she doesnt seem to care. Shes taken the boys to a therapist and my step son said ever since his dads been married me to his life has been awful and its all my fault. I dont understand because Ive loved the boys, care and cook for them, do their laundry, drive them around, buy things for them, tried to bond with them. Ive been nothing but nice, however, I have rules in my home. its my understanding that before I came along their dad kind of let them do pretty much what they wanted. So I guess now parties over, and I'm the one to blame. She threatens that if I try to speak with her she will not let them come for visitations. She threatens to raise his child support if we do not help with extras. Most of the time we do, but sometimes we just dont have extra.
Then she tells him he's a sorry father. Then the boys start texting him that they hate him. I am in love with my husband and I love his kids and mine, but I dont know what to do about the exe...or how much more of this abuse I can take from her and her kids verbally. Help! What are my rights as a step parent? Is she able to just block me out of the family like this and say I have no input on he kids, even when they are in my home. This week she blocked my number from their cell phones. There have been times they couldnt get a hold of their dad they have needed to call me to get them. I dont know what to do anymore.

