u/AggravatingDream2344

(For context) I have a 5 year old stepdaughter whose life I've been in for 3 years now. My stepdaughter's biological mother isn't in the picture. Her rights were terminated. Husband has full custody. His ex lied on my him and got my stepdaughter thrown into the system. The kid's been through a lot and it's sad. Long terrible story. I could talk for days about that but this is just about my weird MIL and our lives now.

I got pregnant about 8 months into my relationship with my (now) husband. Stepdaughter was the only granddaughter and my husband's only child, so she was treated like a princess.

MIL always went on and on about how stepdaughter looks just like my husband. She does look mostly like him. It's obvious she's his. People always comment that she looks like him, which is sweet. It makes my husband happy when people say that because his ex was so terrible.

She does have certain features of her mother's too (nose, eye folds, dimples ((which is how GENETICS work)). I only mention this because of how weird MIL is about our kids' looks now. Stepdaughters bio mom wasn't an ugly woman. My stepdaughter is a very pretty little girl. I wouldnt have ever even thought twice about any of our kids' looks if MIL weren't overbearingly weird.

When my son was born, he looked 50/50 like my husband AND like me (since, ya know, that's how GENETICS work). Any time I'd say our son resembles his dad at all, or send her a picture, or even say he's making a facial expression that resembles his dad, this woman would text something that makes me feel weird, pushing that he looks like both of us equally. I wasn't petty or trying to push anything. I'd just make small comments like "Aw, that face reminds me of (husbands name)." Yes I am aware our son looks like me too (duh). My body created him.

For example, one time I sent her a pic of my son at 3 weeks old where he was making a face that looked just like a face his dad makes, and she, WITHIN AN HOUR, sent me collage of side by side pictures of stepdaughter and my husband as a child and says she needs to pose stepdaughter in the same spot to recreate those photos of my husband as a child.

My son has dirty blonde hair (both my dad and husband's dad had dirty blonde hair as children) and this woman says sh*t like "Who in YOUR family has blonde hair?" (To me, when husband's dad had the same color). It's so uncomfortable.

She IMMEDIATELY made it feel like some weird kind of competition over the kids' looks, as soon as our son was born. My husband denied she'd ever be petty like that.

Fast forward, I just had a baby daughter. She's 7 weeks old (yes, we have 2 under 2 now. Oops, but not the point).

She was born on Father's Day (I was so proud of getting him that gift lol). She was born with a full head of hair like her dad (I was a bald baby). At the hospital, MIL asked me, "Is that your hair color?".... it's literally her son's hair color....

Since she was born, even my husband has said that she looks more like him as a newborn than any of the kids have. (No, I didnt ask him or pry to hear that). She has my dimples but somehow ended up with dad's hair color, eye color, chin, ears, face shape.. She really does look just like him. She's so pretty and I'm so proud.

I hadn't said anything about her looking anything like him at all to her (because of how petty MIL seemed over son's looks compared to stepdaughter's after he was born).

SHE sent ME a picture of my husband as a 2 month old and said "I think he was ____ (the baby)'s age".

I replied "Aw! Lord she really does look a lot like him lol". WHICH IS WHY I THOUGHT SHE SENT THE DAMN PICTURE, TO SHOW ME SHE LOOKS LIKE HIM.

To which she replied "And you! She and (mine and husbands son) are a beautiful combination of you both". Which WOULD be a nice, sweet comment if she didnt constantly go on and on about how stepdaughter is My Husband Jr. Weirdo.

Yesterday she messaged and told my husband that our baby is "(My Name)'s little twin". Yes she resembles me somewhat, too. She's my daughter (again, duh. Genetics).

WHY is it, that MY children are never allowed to look like their dad, but stepdaughter is CONSTANTLY compared? I feel petty and mean but its been over 2 years that she's been like this. My husband denies that she's trying to push him to see stepdaughter as the favorite by telling him she looks just like him. I feel crazy and gaslit.

She distresses me to the point I originally hoped my baby daughter was a boy so it wouldnt be a competition between girls (I'm very happy she's a girl now). This woman has done other toxic things in the past that my husband overlooks now (not petty things like kids' looks, but her trying to adopt his kid and secretly recording him talking for blackmail among other things).

This woman refuses to watch the younger 2 children and keeps stepdaughter half the week. Stepdaughter used to call me mommy and stopped, then started calling MIL mommy (husband put a stop to that, because gross). But my husband acts like I'm just crazy for thinking she's being sideways about the kids' looks. I feel like women can just tell when another woman has weird intentions. Maybe I am being crazy?

Thanks if you made it this far. I know this is a petty ridiculous rant. This woman has affected my mental health so much over dumb crap. I could use any input or advice at this point--literally anything. I'm so hormonal and sad and feel like shes trying to make this into some weird competition over the kids' looks, especially between the girls. I hate it so much, because how is it going to be when they're older? How would you all feel in my shoes? Am I just being "crazy" ?

Advice please. I'm at a loss.

I apologize in advance for how long and scattered this post will be but there's a lot to this situation.

When I was 15, my ex husband (22 at the time) started trying to message me on Snapchat and messenger (I'm 26 now). From 15-17 he would randomly message me asking me about my interests, etc. I had a rough childhood and life as a teen (dad was an abusive alcoholic, mom was on hard drugs), so nobody really monitored where I went or what I did. Had a low self-esteem. I was couch hopping by senior year and finally agreed to hang out with him. He love bombed me. I ended up moving in with him into his parents' basement a couple months before my 18th birthday. Got pregnant 5 months after graduation. Decided to marry him solely because I was pregnant. Had my son right after my 19th birthday. I worked full time from the time my son was a year old because he quit his longtime job he had when we got together and refused to keep a job after the baby was born for longer than a few weeks (The one time he did keep a job for 2 months, I learned that he was flirting with a 17 year old at work). So I would work full time, then come home and clean and take care of the baby who he left in the crib all day long while I was at work. Took me 5 years to realize that I was groomed (hit 22 and realized how disgusting I would feel hitting on a 16-17 year old at 22 years old).

I stayed married to him until the middle of 2023. Outr marriage had been dead for 2 years. We were intimate literally one time after I had our son (his choice). We decided on split custody of my son with a non-contested divorce. My son is severely (level 3) autistic and nonverbal. After we split in January of 2023, I moved in with my great grandma, who is in her 90s. I really wanted sole custody of my son as his dad was abusive to me throughout the relationship because I discovered his addiction to porn and his constant flirting with other women and attempts to cheat and would confront him about it. However by the time our son was 3, in 2023, hed become a better dad to our son and actually did help take better care of him, so I felt guilty trying to keep him out of our son's life. We actually got along really well after the divorce and had complete 50/50 split custody.

I ended up getting with a long-time friend after the divorce became official. My (then) new partner was dealing with his crazy ex at the time and she started making false reports to CPS regarding my now stepdaughter. She ended up having her rights terminated and we have sole custody of my stepdaughter now (crazy story for another time). During the time we were dealing with CPS, I explained everything to my ex, and told him I didnt feel comfortable bringing my son to our house as the ex was monitoring us and I was afraid she would make false accusations about my son to get him taken, and as he's non-verbal and severely autistic that he would most likely be abused if he were taken and put into foster care... So we started getting my son and taking him out to parks and other fun activities rather than keeping him overnight at my new place. My ex was very understanding of this at the time and a few months later, whem the exs rights to stepdaughter were terminated, things became "normal" again.

I eventually got pregnant with my youngest son. As I got further along into my pregnancy, my oldest son became increasingly violent with his meltdowns (he'd always had meltdowns, from age 2 on, but never this severe. He was biting, kicking, punching etc). My son also had severe outburts because he was disregulated my house. Autistic children need consistency and familiarity and due to only living at my exs parents' his whole life, the new environment (my house) stressed him out and would cause outbursts. I started feeling unsafe taking care of him by 6 months pregnant. I understood that my son couldnt help that my home made him feel disregulated and stressed him out, and that visits to my home were doing him more harm than good because he was in such distress while at my house. He was happy to hug and cuddle me, etc but just couldnt handle the unfamiliar environment. I still tried to call him every single day and text my ex every day asking how he was on the days I didn't get to pick him up to visit.

After my youngest son was born, I did marry my long-time friend (now husband). My ex's demeanor completely changed. He would stop responding to my messages and requests to video chat, and I'd ask repeatedly when I could come get our son to visit, only to be given the run-around ("sorry I didnt message back 2 days ago. I was at band practice" "I was sick" "ive been so busy" BS). I eventually snapped on him for trying to alienate me, and he threatened to "never let me see my son again".

The threat scared me because I knew that I hadn't been getting my son as often throughout my pregnancy due to the distress and meltdowns he had at my house. It's now gotten to where my youngest is a year old, and hes seen his brother maybe 5 times. I feel like a worthless mom even though I did literally everything for my oldest son for the first 4 years of his life. His dad is currently 32 years old and lives off of my oldest's social security check and food stamps by choice, and still lives in his parents' basement with my son.

My son is almost 7 and the last time he stayed at our house was 3 months ago. He cried the whole time because he didnt want to be here, and it made me so sad for him. He cuddled me and hugged me some but he didnt feel safe here and would scream inconsolably for most of his visit, and would randomly get upset and pinch and try to bite me. His dad guilted

me for the visits because it disregulates him so much.

My ex still doesnt reply to texts for a week at a time no matter how many messages I send and when he does finally reply and I ask to video chat, he ignores that message for weeks. I'm at a complete loss. I feel so alienated. I'm not even messaged on holidays. I essentially let my ex back me into a corner. I dont want to terminate my rights because I think about my son every day and do love him, but I understand he's not happy here for any amount of time, even if he can't tell me that himself. I buy him presents on every holiday and ask about him all the time. I miss him every day. I'm now scared my ex will try to hit me for child support after alienating me if I do push the issue, because he is a bum, and that my family here at my house will suffer because we have bills and 2 other children who depend on us.

What the hell do I even do? I feel so helpless with this situation. Any advice would mean a lot to me.... Thanks for reading if you did make it this far.