To My Stepdaughter’s Bio Mom

I have heard you say numerous times “it is not my fault,” “I didn’t do anything wrong,” “Everyone else is lying,” “Everyone is against me.” Here is the truth from me, how I see the things that have happened, and how things have ended up as they are.

I have no idea what truly happened in 2001 when SD was taken into foster care, but here is what I do know; you claim it was your ex husband who abused SD, just about everyone else I talk to says or believes it was you. To me it doesn’t really matter if you were the one who physically hurt her or if it was your ex husband. On one hand you abused your child, on the other you left her in the care of a man who you have repeatedly told me abused and raped you as well as abused your oldest son, a man who you put a restraining order against in 1996 for attempting to cause you injury with a motor vehicle. You left your helpless 2 year old daughter with an abusive man who was no relation to her and for what… not to go to work but because you and your boyfriend wanted a night alone. You, your boyfriend, and your 4 children were living in a hotel room! So in the end even if it wasn’t you who left bruises on your precious little girl’s face it was YOU who abused her by leaving her with a man who you knew had a problem with physical violence. Form the stories I have been told I think it was you. I think that you were so tired and stressed out from the life you were living that when SD came to you crying inconsolably in the middle of the night you could not control yourself and pushed her and kicked her just to get her to be quiet.

When DH moved in June 2004 he made sure you had every visit you were entitled that summer by driving 400 miles round trip at the beginning and end of every visit. After giving you 3 months, spending our time and money and dealing with head lice after every visit and not getting so much as a thank you in return he had enough. Then you call up and throw a temper tantrum because he wouldn’t give you your way and bring SD to you every other weekend… when it was court ordered that you provide transportation… meeting half way wasn’t okay with you… you act like just because you laid on your back and spread your legs everyone should bow down to you. You picked SD up for your Christmas visit but once you dropped her off New Year’s Day you did not even so much as call her until April. I remember when we were fixing up the house to move and SD asked me “Can we not tell mommy where we live so she can’t come get me?” And the countless nights sitting up with her because she had yet another nightmare of her mommy throwing her against the wall. It broke my heart.

When you finally decided to show up for a visit in June you and your mom felt it necessary to bring a camera with you and take pictures of my refrigerator. Seriously what did you think you would do with pictures of a fully stocked fridge!! After I called the police because you wouldn’t go outside after I repeatedly asked you to you told the officer that I assaulted you, the house was dirty and there was no food. First off you were in my house and wouldn’t leave and second I never even touched you… but if I had then I would’ve had every right to. Third, you just saw the inside of my house, cupboards and fridge… did you really think something changed that drastically in the 5 minutes you were outside waiting for the police? Somehow over the years your story has changed from me grabbing your arm to me throwing SD down the hall all while being pregnant. After SD came home from that visit, she was never the same. While at your house she found out that, you now owned a pool table and 2 computers. SD’s precious little mind could not understand how you could afford to buy these things but you could not afford to call her for 4 months or exercise any of your visits with her in over 6 months. This is the first time I remember SD questioning your love for her, we were in the grocery store when she told us how she felt about this and asked “Doesn’t mommy love me?” It took every ounce of my energy to stop myself from crying and calling you with a few choice words of how you hurt your daughter. If a pool table or any other material possessions were more important than your daughter is then why didn’t you just leave her alone!

Then August… as much as I try to sympathize with you and understand why you did what you did I just can’t. How does a mother who supposedly loves her child and put them first before anything else just show up and rip a child out of their home just because they can? Then you shut off your phone so that she could not have any contact with her daddy who has raised her for the last 3 years! Oh wait… I forgot you waited until AFTER you went to file for child support before you came to get her. And yes you did have custody… but only on a technicality because someone messed up the paper work when DH first got custody 3 years earlier… not because you were a good mom and deserved it… remember you are the one who abused her and had absolutely no contact with her for over 4 months.

I remember when we got SD back a month later. She was afraid to walk outside onto our porch because she was afraid you would come take her. Almost every night was spent with DH or I at her bedside comforting her as she woke up screaming from her nightmares of never seeing her daddy again because you took her. How could you not realize the pain this caused her? How could you be that selfish to not realize that she was hurting?

Court was a joke… I cannot believe the lies you and your family came up with! Apparently the judge saw right trough them all because he still gave DH custody. I actually thought that things would get better and settle down after this… boy, was I wrong. It was March… not even 3 months later that you were stirring up trouble and writing letters to the judge because we were unable to submit to your request. Then you risk SD’s life by telling her to lay down and sleep when she clearly had a concussion, I may not be a mom as long as you have been but at least I am smart enough to know not to let a child go to sleep after hitting their head! DUH!! When DH woke her up out of the back seat of your car and she was screaming and crying inconsolably you were more concerned with showing off your wedding pictures than you were with SD’s condition, we told you then that we were taking her to the Emergency Room. You never called to check on her, in fact it wasn’t until 2 weeks later at the next visitation exchange that you found how things went and only because I told you. As a mother I would have been at the hospital along side my baby, how in the world did you not even think about it for 2 weeks, how did you not even call to make sure your child was ok?

In April we waited 3 hours for you to pick SD up for Spring Break because you forgot and hadn’t even left home when the pick up was suppose to happen. We probably should have just went home, but the pain in SD’s eyes made us stay. It took you 3 hours to make a 2 hour drive, so apparently you really didn’t want to come get her. SD was so distraught because of your actions.

By May … you were trying to ruin my marriage by attempting to convince my husband that I was lying to him; you and your mom were telling SD that DH was a stranger to her. You felt the need to continue to hurt SD by missing visits and telling her lies and nasty things about DH.

That summer you continued to play your endless games and hurt SD. You missed a visit because of a lack of communication. DH tried to contact you so that you could work it out but again you wouldn’t return his calls or put SD first.

At Christmas time you had SD for a week before you decided on New Year’s Day to take her to the Emergency Room, 3 hours before you had to leave to bring her home, and tell the doctor that you wanted her checked for sexual abuse and that her natural father was the perpetrator. Guess what… like all the other people you have attempted to convince that DH and I are abusing SD… he didn’t believe you either! Then you told her not to tell DH… Do you have any idea how much this whole thing hurt her? From the day school started until we found out on the 9th, SD had called me from school 3 times because she was sick to her stomach or had a headache… Gee I wonder why? We discussed motioning to have your visitation suspended at this time but didn’t because we hoped that maybe this would be the end… we should’ve known… the 5 children services case workers who investigated us and our home couldn’t convince you SD wasn’t abuse what would 1 doctor’s opinion matter?

You just drilled SD even harder, trying to convince her that she was being abused here and should live with you. She had dreaded visits for the last 2 years and it only got worse after that. She would come home and cry for hours over all of the stuff you said to her. How DH is stupid and her schools are behind, how she should live with you because she came out of your belly… I could go on and on. Most of it you had said before but now you set your mind on convincing her of it, if no one would believe you maybe if you drilled her enough to get her to say it they would believe her. Did you not see the pain this caused her? She loves both you and DH but she felt like she wasn’t allowed to love either of you because while you were trying to convince her how horrible DH was you really only convinced her that her love for him was wrong and pushed her away from you.

In July she finally had enough and told you she wasn’t going to go to the visit. Between being afraid of what you would do about the earrings and listening to you and your family bad mouth DH, her family here and other things that she loved she just couldn’t take it anymore… I can remember clearly the pain we saw in her eyes during these last months… how depressed and withdrawn she had become. What was once excitement and anticipation was replaced with anger and dread. She even began to think that spending time with her siblings wasn’t worth listening to you degrade everything and everyone she loved. SD was always a very loving and cuddly child, one of the first things I noticed when DH and I started talking was how close they were… that was no longer true… there was a distance between them that I can’t describe… as if she were afraid if she showed her love for him she would be punished.

After this she started to come back around and be her happy self again… your visits were changed to supervised. You had a choice to see her every other weekend for 4 hours but you had to drive half way or to see her once per month for 2 hours but we had to drive the whole way and you choose once per month… you picked 24 hours a year with your daughter over 104 hours per year with her, that is over 3 days!!!! But you weren’t done breaking her heart yet!!! You moved the kids to Texas… then lied about it… then told her you weren’t going to bring them because “they are afraid you will turn on them like you did your mother” instead of telling her the truth… you couldn’t afford it.

Still think you did nothing wrong and that you are Mother of the Year. You have abused your daughter, abandoned her, lied to her, ripped her out of her home, repeatedly bad mouthed her daddy, lied to her some more, destroyed the precious relationship between a sweet little girl and the parents she loved so much, blamed her for everything and yet you think that you have done nothing wrong and it is not your fault.

You act like you are the center of the world and everything that everyone does should be centered around you. All DH and I wanted was for SD to quit getting hurt. If you could’ve done what was right for SD instead of trying to have things the way you wanted them you could have saved SD a lot of heartache and hurt and your relationship with her would have not been destroyed. You destroyed that relationship with her, not me, or DH, or the courts, you did with your words, actions and lies. You are the one who has caused your children to not be allowed to have a relationship with the people that they should have every right to have a relationship with.

SD is very happy now, she has that sparkle back in her eyes, her behavior is spectacular, and she is only stressed out when she knows a visit is coming up. Hers and DH’s relationship is back to the way it was before all of this started. SD is sweet and loving, always going out of her way to help everyone… this is the way I remember her. She does miss the kids and she does love them and you, she expresses it all the time, but she is happy with things the way they are. SD is not “screaming for help” she is finally happy and the only person who can’t see that is you.

I keep thinking that there is something that we could’ve done different but in my heart I know that is not true. The only way DH or I could’ve saved SD from your toxins was for him to leave me and go back to you. I know that this is true because while he was with Tina you did the same things. You even told Children Services that Tina was sexually abusing SD, which caused them to force DH to have her checked. Your actions make me think that you wanted DH back not SD, and you would stop at nothing to try to get him back, even if that meant that you had to destroy your precious gift in the meantime. If you could convince someone that SD was being abused then you would get custody of SD then you would have control of him. You could keep her from him just like you kept your older kids from their father, your ex husband, and you knew that it would destroy him because he loves his daughter leaving him no choice but to submit to your control and do as you wanted. His only choice would be to come back to you or to not see his daughter.

I just hope that you can finally move past your selfishness and put your child first this time. DH will not leave me and his 2 other children to come back to you. He loves me and is happy with me, we have a wonderful life and 2 children together. Deal with it and get it together so that SD can have the life and mother that she deserves. Either by you getting it together or by you letting me adopt her so that I can fill the role completely. She deserves a mother who loves and respects her… every part of her and her life!!!

~ by Stepfamily Letter Project on January 19, 2009.