Ok! My brother is married, but seperated from his wife. This is a very volitle situation between them and somehow I found myself in the middle. I'm really at a loss now, because I've never personally had to deal with this. The only reason I still care about this situation is because of my 3 year old nephew who doesn't deserve to be treated the way he is. I love him and it is tearing my heart out. Here's a little background:

When they got married, he was 19 and she was 26 and they had only been dating 3 months. I didn't like her and told anyone that would listen what would happen. I tried to talk him out of marrying her, but to no avail. I said that she would start trying to get pregnant right away. That happened. I said that she would quit working and everything when she got pregnant. That happened. I said that she would turn into a complete and total lazy slob. I hit that nail right on the head.

She found out she was expecting their first child about 1 year after they got married, even though she had been trying much longer. She almost immediately quit her job because it was too much for her to stand on her feet all day or sit out in the heat. She worked at one of the photo booths at a theme park and was only 2 months pregnant. I was shocked! My brother started having to work 70-80 hours per week.

He was exhausted, and, when he would finally get home at nearly 8pm every night, he had to clean the apartment and cook dinner. You could see it was taking its toll on him.

Fast forward about 5 years and we are at the present. My brother broke his wedding vows and began seeing his ex-girlfriend from before he was married. He was seen in town by some friends of her parents and, at the time, he, my nephew and my sister-in-law happened to be living with her parents. They kicked him out of their house not telling her why. He now lives with his girlfriend/mistress and her 3 kids.

She, by her own admission in handwritting, is crazy and needs psychiatric help. She refuses to get any help, but will admit to needing it. She is feeding my nephew all kinds of terrible things about my brother, including that he should be called by his name and not daddy. I was infuriated the first time I heard it.

I personally think that the baby, who is 3 now, would be better off in the care of someone else more stable than either one of them, but that isn't my call. These were just a few of the highlights.

My brother now wants a divorce and to arrange for custody/visitation. He says he can't afford it, but is eager to see it settled so he can see his son. She is not allowing it. He is even having a problem with getting to speak to him on the phone. I don't know how to help him. Any advice?

Wow TM,
The lady definitely needs councilling. My sympathies for the children involved. As for your brother, are there no legal assistance avenues in your/his area? I also suggest you get out of "the middle". Your support is important but being in the middle cannot be good for you.
Feeding the nephew with untruths will come back to haunt her. Does she think this boy won't grow into an intelligent man someday? with that, he may grow to resent her.
My apologies for my post. I never thought to check this first. Keep us up on this one. Good luck.

Hey! I forgive you!

I didn't know what else to do, so I thought I'd post his story on here and see what everyone on here could come up with. There are legal assistance places here, but he says they tell him he makes too much money. He makes more than I do and I have a mortgage and car payment to make on top of all the other bills and daycare. He only has half an apartment's rent and utilities. How does he not have the money? Where is it going? I don't know the answers to that. I just know that my nephew is being put up as the thing they want to fight over most. I hate to see that happen. He's such a sweet and happy baby. I'm only in the middle because of him. Like I said, I think that my brother and sister-in-law need help. Neither one of them is stable. They need to get a divorce. She doesn't want to because it is her way to hold on to him and he does to get that part of his life over. I don't know how else to help!

You may not be able to help. Maybe just taking your nephew often can get him out of the crossfire. I still think your brother should be able to get legal help somehow. There's always a way.

I know I may not be able to help, but I'm not good at feeling helpless. I wish I could take my nephew more often. I'm not sure where they are living now since her parent's house was destroyed in the hurricanes. I don't even have a new phone number to be able to call and talk to him. I miss him so much and so does Ty. Like I said about my brother, he makes more money than I do and has alot less to pay out in bills. I just don't understand where all his money goes. He isn't even paying to help care for my nephew. I'm just really having a problem with this.

Ty's mom, I will respond to this later on. Similarities between brothers, that might help if I vent even
Hopefully, you can find out where your nephew is, since that's they only avenue of real help there is. Being there for him as you are able.

I'm at a loss for words for you TM. And that's not like me. But maybe, and this might get you in more trouble, you can phone the school or something and ask them to step up. I still think if he wants legal help, he can get it. Sounds like he's resisting. Just a thought.

I look forward to hearing you vent, Don! Any advice is welcome. I love my nephew and am so upset that they are doing this to him. They really should have never had kids because she is nuts and he is immature and irresponsible. My poor 3 year old nephew is just stuck in the middle and I don't know where he is to rescue him even for a few hours.

JD, just the other posts alone where you brighten my spirits is enough. Believe me, I don't wish anyone to know this situation. I'm sure he is resisting, but I don't know why. I just wish I could figure out where his money goes.

Have I mentioned how glad I am that I never got married? What a nightmare!

My brother is married, just got married he is 21 she is 18, I dont approve, neithier are educated living at my house thank god they have no kids, but I stay out of their problems and I tell them both I do not get involved I will give advice but otherwise I keep to myself. It has really helped, they stay out of mine. I have enough stress with kids,school, hubby I dont need theirs too.
My advice if you feel the child is in any harm call CPS put it in their hands.
Otherwise be there to support your brother and stay out of the middle of it. If your brother isnt taking steps to ensure him to see his son, court what have you, then their isnt much you can do.

Whittney

Alright TM here goes.
My brother works for/with me, lives in the studio apt. attached to my house rent free other than paying the cable and dsl bill, and still never seems to save money. He moved in there 2 years ago after he split up with his son's mom. He was supposed to take advantage of rent free to bank some money to get on his own feet. Instead he very quickly became involved again with someone else and seems to lead the life of leisure with her and her kids.

He has 2 kids, a 16 yr old daughter and 4 yr old son. For years his exwife (daughter's mom) made it impossible for him to see his daughter. She would even keep in somewhat contact with the rest of our family except for him. She'd only show up for holidays if she was assured that he wouldn't be there. After a while the family got pretty fed up with it. I even told his ex that I just didn't feel right about it all, when he very much wanted to see his daughter. Just hadn't taken the legal steps to force it himself, though he was paying support the whole time as well. Well it worked, she opened the door for my brother to have a relationship with his daughter again and he hasn't been making the effort to keep his foot in the door and keep it going.

He sees his son every other weekend. And still seems to quite often make plans during those days so that my daughter or my parents babysit for him while he goes to the show etc. with his girlfriend. His son's mother is very naive on how to raise a child, 4 yrs old in another month that is, passifiers, diapers, is very behind in communications skills I think because he isn't being worked with on a regular basis. He is currently being assessed by some doctors for any developmental problems. I think he is plenty smart, I've taught him things that he's instantly picked up on and remembered since. He has these race cars with different sponsors for example. I showed him each car and who the sponsor is. Instantly he could name each sponsor according to the car, and retained that every time I see him. My brother is fast to criticize her for not spending the time working with him but won't take it upon himself to get him any extra times to work with him himself. Times that she has asked him to take him any other time besides every other weekend have resulted in angering him. At least we should be getting some doctor's opinions very soon, and perhaps some changes will be made accordingly.

The girl he's involved with now was with her husband when they started flirting. She was talking about leaving her husband as it became apparent they wanted to get together. I told him that he shouldn't do it, if down the road she left him on her own and was away from him for a while and they still felt this way about each other, then maybe. Nope, and part of his money spent? counseling for them to work on the times they've split up mostly due to her guilty feeling for leaving her husband and getting right into another relationship.

I have loaned him money when child support froze his account for arrears so that he could pay it them off to $0, telling him to make his payments the first of every month only to find out that payments were being sent in end of the month so not even being recorded until the beginning of the following month to appear as arrears again. As the employer I am supposed to withhold wages from his checks, but try to let him be his own man. And honestly their bookkeeping with partial payments every week was not good. Refund checks were being sent back to him, only to turn around and claim arrears a few weeks later. Full payments at the beginning of the month would have solved all of it. And at least I THINK that is finally happening now, well since they haven't bothered me in a few months wanting to know where his wage garnishments were.

I love my brother, we've been through some things together that would make your hair stand on end to say the least. I know I've done my best to help him and yet still, it just doesn't seem to change a thing. Sometimes, even for family, we just can't help those that won't help themselves.

Hopefully you will learn soon where your nephew is.

Wow, Don! That is unbelievable. I love my brother, too, but am done worrying about him. It is only my nephew that I really, truely worry about and would like to see grow into the person he should be. My sil lets him still do the pacifier, bottle, pull-up thing at 3 1/2. I can't stand it. I'm no where near perfect as a mother, but Ty had no bottle after 1, no pacifier after 1 1/2 and was potty trained fully at 2 1/2. I can't stand to see a kid that age w/things like that. It does put them behind and those are the kids that get picked on when they get older and in school. It breaks my heart. He is also not as well developed in the communication department. He has just recently started putting together small sentences. My sil is Puerto Rican and taught the baby Spanish first. While there is nothing wrong w/that (Ty knows more Spanish than I do), he isn't going to be where he needs to be for school is my fear. I think it is great he has 2 languages. I encourage Ty to learn as many as he can and am looking for a tutorial for both of us to learn Portuguese so that if he ever meets his father and that side of the family he will be able to communicate w/his grandparents who speak very little English. However, his first language is English, since that is how the teach in school!

I won't turn this case over to Dept of Children and Families (DCF) because I don't want to see my nephew go into a foster home, but I'm so worried about him. I have no fear of his physical harm, but his emotional and mental well-being are very much at stake. I did report my sil and her parents to a corrections facility office because they were letting my nephew talk to her brother. I know that sounds really strange, but let me tell you why I did that. Her brother is in prison for child molestation of one of her sister's kids. He is to have absolutely no contact of any kind with any minor child. I don't want my nephew speaking to that monster and have since put a stop to that I believe. I have an email into the officer I had been dealing with to make sure that they are closely monitoring him. If I could be assured that they wouldn't put Caleb into a foster home, but let me have him, I would report them in an instant. I don't have the money for that, though.

My brother needs to learn to take care of himself, and I couldn't agree more, but my nephew has these two, and excuse me for saying this, IDIOTS for parents and has no way to defend himself. I just wish I knew what to do that was in the best interest of Caleb, not my brother or sil. I guess I'll keep thinking about it.

Thanks. Your reply helped!

Hmmm..I've heard the words - if I could just get my nephew away from that situation I'd grab him up and raise him myself.

Jennifer, the DCF doesn't always look for a foster home. More often than not, they look for a relative willing to take the child first. They generally want a relative to take the child first and foremost, as long as it is into a good, healthy home. Because Foster care really is so hard to find, children end up in a Foster Home or Guardian's Home. If you initiated the case and showed them that you or your mother both have wonderful homes and that Caleb has a place to go, why would they put him in a home?

Blindsky is right. They will always look for a family member first before a foster home. When things hit the fan with my daughter's mom, my daughter's little sister was given to her aunt. There was no family member present when it first happened so she did stay one night in foster care until her aunt could be reached, but then was immediately released to her. We couldn't take her since CPS could only release her to a family member.

And hmmmm, something else kinda similar. My daughter's younger sister's dad was in jail at the time for what he plead guilty to as consensual *** with a minor, she was 14 and basically his step daughter, my daughter's older sister. Her mom was still visiting him in jail and upon release was even allowing him to come around the kids. There wasn't that restriction in place, but I didn't care and made sure that he at least wouldn't be coming around my daughter. The other sisters I didn't have a say in since there weren't any restrictions on it and they aren't mine.

For my nephew I'm thinking, hoping, that the doctor's reviews will be done very soon. At least then we should know more positively why he is behind. And it'll be documented that way. If he does have special needs they can be addressed, and if it's just simply lack of proper raising, we'll have to cross that bridge then. My brother has already said that he doesn't want custody.

You can only weigh things out according to all your known details, but should they choose to remove your nephew from them, you would have first option of taking him in versus foster care.

Oh, and I know my other post was more venting that lending advice, so I wanted to be sure to say thanks for listening
I guess I'm mostly just saying you are not alone in wondering what to do for a nephew in such a situation. I guess we both actually are in need of similar advice. I'm hoping for those doctor's reviews to be completed soon to see what the next step might be.
A lot of help I am huh?

Don, I think that you and Blindsky have been a great help in this. I think more than anything that I just needed to let off some steam over it. The one difference between your daughter's sister's father and the monster I'm referring to is that he is still in prison and does have that stipulation to have absolutely no contact of any kind w/any minor child under the age of 18. I find that sick, though, that she would still subject her kids to that man after he admitted to sleeping w/a 14 year old. And his step-daughter to boot? That is sick!

All I need is the confirmation from the correction facility that the monster had been talking to my nephew to move forward w/this. I do love my brother, too, but I have a difficult time with the immaturity he runs his life with.

I don't like the idea of taking a child from their parent, but know that there are circumstances that I wouldn't leave them there either. This is one of those situations where I'm not sure if ripping him away from his parents is the right thing to do. Will it cause him more harm? I don't want that to happen. He is already his mother's caretaker and he is 3! That is unacceptable.

My brother lives in a small 2 or 3 bedroom apartment w/his g/f, her 3 small children and her brother. I don't know how they get away w/that, but that is no place to add another child.

If I could know that her parents wouldn't get him first, I would report this case. That probably wouldn't happen since my sil lives there and they were putting him on the phone w/the monster, but I would hate to take that kind of chance and lose. I have a 3 br home that I am buying in a private, gated subdivision, a stable job and am known in the community for being a very active parent. Does this mean that they would view that as a good place for him over w/one of his parents? I guess I am just worried about harming him any more than he already has been mentally and emotionally.

My brother says he wants a divorce, but can't afford one. I don't understand why, but for a second let's just pretend that I believe him. Where do I tell him to go for at least that? He says he went to legal assistance, and they won't help him because of the money he makes. I told him that he could represent himself, but that any one that represents themself in court has a fool for a client. I don't know if I just feel like I have to help because he's family and I love him or what. I know I really do need to stay out of this, but that is easier said than done.