u/No_Librarian5585

So background. I have 2 ss 10 and 8 and I have 3 other kids and am very pregnant with our 4th and last. I have been in a relationship with my husband for 9 years right before ss8 was born. Their mom is pretty narcissistic and she abused my husband and before we dated I watched her do it to him both physical and mental. Anyway she dropped both of them off when ss8 was about 2 weeks old and would visit them very rarely maybe some holidays or birthdays and this went on for 3 almost 4 years. My husband and I were very young and ignorant and did not take anything to court, just lived our lives with them and they were put into cbt for major abandonment issues definitely not completely easy but we were all happy. Then biomom gets a new boyfriend and starts showing up and then takes them away and legally there wasn’t much we could for a while do we didn’t even know where they were and she had us and everyone in her family blocked for 9 months. We finally find them and get some sort of custody (every other weekend) and biomom is fleeing her situation due to her being abused by the guy. The whole time she is claiming that they were never touched but since we have found out they were emotionally/mentally, physically and sexually abused and she knew about it and kept them in that situation with her for the 9 months and then turned a blind eye because she didn’t want to feel like a bad mom. Anyways she flees to a small town so he won’t find her and we move to the same town and even though through the court we are only set for every other weekend, we tend to have them much much to about 60% us 40% her which we are fine with because she is pretty neglectful abusive idk a lot to them. We live less than a minute away and they tend to show up in tears randomly because she will tell them that no one loves them and call them names like fat or stupid, cuss them out etc. we have tried for full custody but the courts feel kids are better off with their moms and there is no physical proof of abuse or neglect. Cps has been involved several times called by her neighbors or the teachers and she has trained them to not say anything and lie to the workers and the only thing we ever ended up getting “proof” of was a text she sent ss10 telling him how he’s unwanted and awful (cussing him out) for not giving her some birthday money her mom had given him. Cps said though it’s frowned upon basically it’s fine. She won’t put them into therapy, she did once for ss10 but didn’t like that she couldn’t know everything he said so they never went back. We’ve tried to make appts for them but she cancels them. They get in trouble at school constantly and at this point are extremely difficult to handle due to having so many issues. We’ve had a couple of different lawyers who all say the same where there’s not much that can be done it’s a waiting game for her to slip up or for them to be old enough to choose the household which our state is 14. Sorry for the long background but the issue that we are having now is that I am on our last baby number 4. And am high risk. My husband works and I take care of the kids. Right now we regularly have them Tuesday and Thursday from morning to throughout the night and them every other Friday - Monday. She tends to drop them off early on our days and then get them late on hers(not all the time but most of the time) my ss8 for about 2 years now is a very physical kid. He’s kind of a bully at school and very physically abusive to his brothers like not normal wrestling but tries to stop them from breathing. He’s a lot to handle and cannot be left alone. Once again my husband works and I take care of the kids and we have a system especially with me being pregnant that he (my husband) doesn’t get much of him time because he helps me with the kids and any household stuff I need him to do. We do not have outside support it’s always just been us. We have no idea what to do but my ss8 will attack me or the other kids or the dog and most of the time I can talk him down before it escalates but here recently it’s been harder and harder to talk him down so about 1-2 times a week he acts out and it’s bad. Sometimes it happens when my husband is at work and I can’t no longer handle it physically and am wearing down emotionally. This pregnancy has been very hard on my body and mind. We want to keep our house open to them because of how their mom’s house is but with no outside support and things how they are I’m getting severely depressed. My therapist thinks I need to take it easy and separate myself at this point due to the pregnancy and lack of support our family has. We have tried so many different tactics with him and nothing works. Idk what to do. I’ll try and answer and questions and any advice would be nice. Sorry for the long post and I’m pretty new to Reddit so don’t really know all the abbreviations yet I’m sorry!

So background. I have 2 ss 10 and 8 and I have 3 other kids and am very pregnant with our 4th and last. I have been in a relationship with my husband for 9 years right before ss8 was born. Their mom is pretty narcissistic and she abused my husband and before we dated I watched her do it to him both physical and mental. Anyway she dropped both of them off when ss8 was about 2 weeks old and would visit them very rarely maybe some holidays or birthdays and this went on for 3 almost 4 years. My husband and I were very young and ignorant and did not take anything to court, just lived our lives with them and they were put into cbt for major abandonment issues definitely not completely easy but we were all happy. Then biomom gets a new boyfriend and starts showing up and then takes them away and legally there wasn’t much we could for a while do we didn’t even know where they were and she had us and everyone in her family blocked for 9 months. We finally find them and get some sort of custody (every other weekend) and biomom is fleeing her situation due to her being abused by the guy. The whole time she is claiming that they were never touched but since we have found out they were emotionally/mentally, physically and sexually abused and she knew about it and kept them in that situation with her for the 9 months and then turned a blind eye because she didn’t want to feel like a bad mom. Anyways she flees to a small town so he won’t find her and we move to the same town and even though through the court we are only set for every other weekend, we tend to have them much much to about 60% us 40% her which we are fine with because she is pretty neglectful abusive idk a lot to them. We live less than a minute away and they tend to show up in tears randomly because she will tell them that no one loves them and call them names like fat or stupid, cuss them out etc. we have tried for full custody but the courts feel kids are better off with their moms and there is no physical proof of abuse or neglect. Cps has been involved several times called by her neighbors or the teachers and she has trained them to not say anything and lie to the workers and the only thing we ever ended up getting “proof” of was a text she sent ss10 telling him how he’s unwanted and awful (cussing him out) for not giving her some birthday money her mom had given him. Cps said though it’s frowned upon basically it’s fine. She won’t put them into therapy, she did once for ss10 but didn’t like that she couldn’t know everything he said so they never went back. We’ve tried to make appts for them but she cancels them. They get in trouble at school constantly and at this point are extremely difficult to handle due to having so many issues. We’ve had a couple of different lawyers who all say the same where there’s not much that can be done it’s a waiting game for her to slip up or for them to be old enough to choose the household which our state is 14. Sorry for the long background but the issue that we are having now is that I am on our last baby number 4. And am high risk. My husband works and I take care of the kids. Right now we regularly have them Tuesday and Thursday from morning to throughout the night and them every other Friday - Monday. She tends to drop them off early on our days and then get them late on hers(not all the time but most of the time) my ss8 for about 2 years now is a very physical kid. He’s kind of a bully at school and very physically abusive to his brothers like not normal wrestling but tries to stop them from breathing. He’s a lot to handle and cannot be left alone. Once again my husband works and I take care of the kids and we have a system especially with me being pregnant that he (my husband) doesn’t get much of him time because he helps me with the kids and any household stuff I need him to do. We do not have outside support it’s always just been us. We have no idea what to do but my ss8 will attack me or the other kids or the dog and most of the time I can talk him down before it escalates but here recently it’s been harder and harder to talk him down so about 1-2 times a week he acts out and it’s bad. Sometimes it happens when my husband is at work and I can’t no longer handle it physically and am wearing down emotionally. This pregnancy has been very hard on my body and mind. We want to keep our house open to them because of how their mom’s house is but with no outside support and things how they are I’m getting severely depressed. My therapist thinks I need to take it easy and separate myself at this point due to the pregnancy and lack of support our family has. We have tried so many different tactics with him and nothing works. Idk what to do. I’ll try and answer and questions and any advice would be nice. Sorry for the long post and I’m pretty new to Reddit so don’t really know all the abbreviations yet I’m sorry!

I am a 29 F and I realized that my whole life I was never myself but whatever my parents wanted me to be and that continued in my adulthood. Even after I cut off my family a couple years ago I am still trying to figure out who I am outside of my people pleaser ways. It might sound kind of silly but sometimes it’s hard for me to figure out if I actually enjoy something or if I’m just doing it to make someone else happy. Anyone else have this issue? How do you handle it?