I’m not entirely sure what group to post this in, sorry if this is the wrong one.

We don’t have any kids of our own yet, but my husband has a 10 year old son. His mother is an absolute nightmare to deal with. My husband won majority custody 2 years ago, and his son has been living with us for about 3 years. Currently, son goes to his moms 2x a week for a few hours, and every other weekend (Friday-Monday morning). He won custody because she was married to an abusive man, and she never properly takes care of the child. About 5 months before he won, she unexpectedly dropped the son off to him and completely vanished until the court date, no contact with anyone including her own family. He found out from her mother later on that she was staying in a nearby hotel with said abusive husband, shooting heroin. Her mom said when she found her, she was covered in track marks and bruises. Next time he saw her she had lost easily 50lbs.

Fast forward to now, she finally divorced this guy and abruptly moved an extra 20 minutes away. Which would be fine, if she would cooperate with anything at all, but she doesn’t. She signed him up for football at a school by her where he knows no one, and he’s already signed up for football at his own school (which he’s been at for the last 3 years). It’s previously been discussed in court that my husband ultimately gets to make those decisions, but they should be discussed together. She didn’t/doesn’t discuss anything, she just does it. Son has said multiple times he doesn’t want to play for the other team, but she won’t let him quit. He wants to play for his schools team, so we take him to as many practices as we can when he’s not with mom.

A couple days ago, she bought him new football gear for that team, but ordered the wrong size. So after she picked him up and realized they were the wrong size, she came back to our apartment (where I was home alone) and demanded the gear he has here. Knowing she would never return them, I told her no. She kept pushing for the gear, then called my husband to demand it from him, he also said no. She then screamed over the phone at him about how she was going to take him to court so they could decide what team he would play for (which will definitely be his schools team). She yelled all this right in front of her son. He was hunched in the hallway covering his ears, he tried to go outside but she told him no. I felt so horrible for him. At this point I had the door shut and locked and was just listening and watching through the eyehole. She then yelled that she was going to call the cops to break in and steal the football gear. After I didn’t answer, she pounded on the door as hard as she could for about 3 minutes straight, then went to our leasing office and demanded they give her the key to our apartment. She’s fucking crazy. Obviously they didn’t, and she never called the cops either.

Son just told us tonight that she sat him down over the weekend and explained to him how court works and that she was taking his dad to court for football. We’re so pissed, he absolutely does not need to hear about that. She sends massive 4-6 page texts on a daily basis bitching about how he’s a shitty father and stuff like that. I can’t stand it. I can’t believe the judge still lets her have as much time with him as she does, there’s so much more I could go on about. Trust me I want nothing more than for him to have a good relationship with his mother, and I really would like to be able to get along with her, but it’s just never going to happen. Son is starting to realize all the wrong things she’s doing and it’s really sad.