Just keep in mind that all pines are not created equal. If I had it to do over again I would have cut down all of my eastern white pines and planted different trees. I have five of them, all over 60-70 feet tall and they are dangerous to be under in any kind of storm. Not to mention the damage they cause when they drop a limb on whatever unlucky plant is below. Sheila try to see if you can figure out what kind of pines you have. Also look up at them and see if you can see any signs of snapped off broken limbs from previous damage. Weak limbed trees are a pain and make clean up a never ending problem.

I don't know about the back CS. I was irate with DH when BM dumped the boy off to begin with and DH didn't press the issue way back then. I'm hoping that DH's atty will do the best she can to at least get DH the past three years in exchange for the next three with BM. To me, that would be fair. As far as SS goes, he's only 12 but emotionally more like an 8-year-old. He is very childish but his parents and grandparents have allowed him to call the shots from the beginning which is part of the problem we've been having since we married. Unfortunately, DH denies it so he's just as much to blame. My parents never allowed my brother or I to dictate what adults did and I don't allow my DD to do it, so this is completely foreign to me. I don't understand how adults let a child who can barely wipe his own butt or who forgets to eat during the day to make such life altering decisions. I want to say "I told you so" to DH but know it's only going to fuel the fire. SS has flat out told DH he doesn't want to do anything here and DH has begrudgingly forced the boy to chip in doing chores while BM doesn't make him do a bloody thing. I know BM doesn't want him but at this point, this is all part of the game that she, SS, and DH play with each other in addition to wanting the CS. SS goes where he's promised the most material goods and the least structure, which she makes good on both promises. After all, she did say that divorcing and CS was easier than working. Unfortunately, I think this is a lost cause since DH refuses to accept responsibility for the situation.

It says the parents will have joint legal custody and share in the responsibility and confer in good faith on matters concerning health, education, & welfare of the child. The parents must confer in making decisions on the following matters: Enrollment in or leaving a particular private or public school or daycare center. Out of Country or Out of State travel. In all other matters in exercising joint legal custody, the parents may act alone, as long as the action does not conflict with any orders concerning the physical custody of the children. There is also a 'special decision making' section that reads: The father will be responsible for making decisions regarding the following: 1. Participation in school & extra curricular activities during the school year. 2. Non major or routine medical care. (Of course, the activities cannot be on BM's time, and apparently she has a problem with medical care on her time too) That's all it says regarding decision making, so he really can't tell her anything. He has primary physical custody & BM has three weekends a month, so it isn't any different than a non custodial father taking his child to get their hair chopped off... my oldest son's father did that several times to piss me off. When me would send my son back with a knit beanie, I knew what he'd done. He even had little lines shaved into the side, just above my son's ears. The result ended up that my son was teased because the kids in my son's school thought it was weird. It was a trend in the town where my son's father lived but had not been picked up here by the kids and he was made fun of for being different. In my SD's case, (or maybe moreso when it comes to girls just because they usually care more about their looks than boys do, in my experience anyways) it should be on the person that has primary responsibility for the care of the child since it would be easy for a NCP to take a kid to get a high maintenance hairstyle and then they expect the CP to keep it maintained? It's really not fair to expect the CP to now have to buy special hair products or spend extra time to maintain a style that the NCP wanted and only sees a couple of times a month. With older kids, it would be on the kid to maintain it themselves, but it was a challenge to teach my SD how to pull her hair into ponytail... that's why DH took her to get it layered. She didn't want to wear a ponytail but it was the only way to keep it from looking like she didn't comb it. I don't have time to flat iron it in the morning and she said she loved it layered. Maybe she is just going along with both parents and who knows what the hell she wants? All I know is that now it's going to take extra work to send her off looking presentable and I have to listen to DH complain about it.

I do think that it goes back to childhood abuse, & that the reason it's so common is that abuse is so common. My friend's sister (Mary)is the older child, my friend (Susan) is the younger one. Susan has told me: their mom tried suicide a number of times. Mary started getting pregnant at *13*, & this was back in the 1960's. Mary "hated" her mom & wanted her dad to marry her. Her dad coerced her mom to accompany him when he tied Mary up & took her to a back-street abortionist. The mother had to hold Mary down until the drugs took effect, Mary screaming hysterically the whole time. *The dad was the calm in the center of the storm*, at that time & forever after. (Remember what I said about the only calm one in a family of hysterics? *That's the guy who's in control.*) I'd bet money that that dad was the father of that first pregnancy, & that he'd been sexually abusing Mary long before she was old enough to conceive. Yet, Susan refuses to consider that it isn't all Mary's fault; Susan worships her dad, feels that her mom was a tragic & flawed person, & blames Mary for the chaos & misery in Mary's own life & the chaos & misery she's dealt to everyone in her circle. & Mary, like my mother, *has* dealt a great deal of misery; Mary's daughters are in professions such as stripping. she often threatens to "take custody" of her grandchildren. she's befriended one pregnant girl after another for years & years, trying to coerce them into giving their babies to her. she's had many many pets, but she always exchanges an adult pet for a new "baby". & she never never never let go of the desire to have her father love her. Mind you, she's a holy terror, & I'm afraid of her. but she's been wronged & damaged to a devastating degree, *& nobody will acknowledge it*. Susan, like so many younger children in abusive families, just doesn't see it. They aren't "supposed to", & they aren't inclined to, because acknowledging that the victim doesn't deserve ill treatment means that they could be ill-treated, too. My brother is like that. He severed communication with me & our other brother years ago - thank goodness, because all he ever said to either of us, or about either of us, was how horrible we are & how he is just entirely different. According to him, he's the only one who deserves respect, decency, & success. It's just the dynamics of the matter, just the way those things go. & there's no "fixing" the problem; Mary & the many others like her will keep trying to get love from people who are just like the one who mis-treated them. I did it myself for years, until illness finally slowed me down so much that I had time to sit & think. I guess that was the blessing of my illness, & it was a big one for which I'm grateful. uh. what was the question? I think that so often the ex-wives, the mothers of your stepchildren, sound exactly like abused women, & their marriages *cannot* work out. It's just the dynamics, & it looks insane to anyone who hasn't had similar experiences.