Divorce Support Forums: Help or Hurt

No one "has to stay 5 days" at any shelter. She's lying, and I can't imagine why other than that meth user lie about everything.

Call protective services and get the kid back into the foster care system. As maligned as it is, it's better than life with a meth freak. And you being bedridden is not the way to have a wonderful childhood either. This kid has 18 months in his life when his family was somewhat normal, and now it's not. His mother is an abusive liar and his stepfather is... well, I can't figure it out, your story is a bit odd... But you say on one hand that it was an idyllic life, yet there is nothing you describe as idyllic. You claim that you're not interested in meth-heads, yet this woman who had zero track history of being straight managed to get into your bed and down the aisle. Whatever state of mind you were in when you were gainfully employed and doing well in life, that would allow you to meet, fall in love with, and marry a meth freak who had obviously lied to you and lost her own child for YEARS, had apparently been in prison before, etc... well, your state of mind was not all as upstanding and stable as you seem to paint. No one with such a great life would ditch it all for a stroll down the aisle with a 35 year old meth freak. There's something you're not telling us.

What is your own disability, how did it arise in a man who just a few years ago had a good job? Why did you quit work to go to graduate school (who DOES that when he has a family to support?)

It sounds like she's accusing you of awful stuff, and you need to stay out of it and let the police investigate if you have the inclination to run to them with accusations about her. Because if you engage in the drama, it will escalate. However, if all she's accusing you of is tearing up the expired registration tags and not allowing her to drive an unregistered car, well, it's not exactly abuse and not exactly the type of thing they'd arrest you for or welcome her with open arms into a shelter.

If she's really using and lying, they will find it out quickly. They'll be more forgiving of some strangeness from her because abused people do have some strange ideas and habits, but when she fails to show up for their upteenth group meeting, has excuses for why she can't work, starts picking sores on her skin during dinner and disappears at night, leaving the kid in everyone else's care... they'll figure it out. Five days and they'll figure it out for certain.

And what is your TEN year old on probation for? That makes no sense whatsoever, if his life is so idyllic (outside of his mother's binges) that all is well in the world for him. If he's got an issue that resulted in HIM being on some version of probation, then quite possibly he NEEDS to be out of his mother's house. You trying desparately to keep the two of them together will not be good for him if the result is that he has a mom who walks out on him to go see her drug dealer, who is incapable of putting food on the table or getting up in the morning to get him to school on time. These are bare minimum parenting skills for subsistence, not a wonderful life, and a meth freak can not manage them. Being PRESENT and AWAKE is a big deal for them, and they can't manage it. And a parent who can not even manage to be PRESENT and AWAKE is not a parent at all. She provided his DNA, and if you think it's a wonderful life for the kid to remain with her despite her addiction, you are so wrong it's scary.

It's quite possible that no one answered this post at first becasue it's so... ODD. I know part of it is that you're trying to condense several years worth of build-up into a single issue, but it's not working. IT ends up looking like you're minimizing your own problem and not being completely clear about what she is going through.

Please be a little more clear about what's really up here, or else we can't figure out what you're asking, let alone what the reasonable answers might be.