Mom2-

I don't think you are being selfish in the least. I would LOVE for the girls mom to move to another state! It would solve so many issues. The girls rarely see her anyway and when she does show up we normally have to tell her she can't take them because it's obvious she has been on another binge. The girls do alot better when she just goes away but then she always shows back up just long enough to throw everyones life into a whirlwind...and then POOF, gone again.

We are much happier (including the girls, they just don't understand why) when mom isn't around. I would feel the same exact way you feel if she moved and then told the girls she was moving back.

This is a horrible analogy but it's like being relieved you have gotten ride of cancer after battling it for years only to have it come back a year later and consume you all over again.

Thanks doodle. I feel so selfish feeling the way I do. But since bm has moved out of state our lives have been normal and happy. The kids are upset a lot less and they do not feel guilty about being close to me. Our blended family is great and I am just afraid that she will have a negative effect on all aspects if she moves back.

She will go back to showing up at our house whenever she feels like it and trying to dictate when she is going to take the kids without regard to our plans.

And I had an AWFUL thought....what if she gets an apartment in the same town as our house! I would want to scream!

Hey, no problem. I can relate to that totally. The girls mother lives ten minutes up the road. We hate it. She drives by our apartment five times a day and drops in unannounced all the time. She has even gone so far as to beat on our neighbors door wanting to know if she knew where we had gone or when we would be back.....pyscho much?

Seriously, I would throw a freaking going away party if she left state. She wouldn't be invited of course but we'd have a blast none the less. And if she left and tried to come back I would barracade the state line:)

I don't think you are being selfish at all. First of all, your feelings are your feelings and they are never "wrong."

I think what is really hard for you is that you got a taste of how peaceful life can be when BM is not so emeshed in your life and your SK's lives, as well. Nothing is worse than getting a taste of how things could/should be, and then having that threatened.

Is there any possibility she is just all talk?

In my situation, BM is full of hot air. She always talks about what she is going to do---get a job, move farther away, get married, go on vacation, whatever---it never happens.

Three or four times she has asked us to clear our schedules for a week because she and her BF were going to go to Vegas, or the lake--and she wanted us to have STBSS during that time. I can tell you that not one of those trips ever happened.

The first of the year is still a ways off--try not to stress just yet, it might not happen.

I am hoping she is all talk, but just not sure. I don't see how she could afford to move back here. But, if she keeps talking about it maybe there is something we don't know?

maybe BM met a guy who lives in your state and she makes plans. i know a lady who makes big plans every time she meets a new guy. during last two eyars she made big plans 5 times, that's how many guys she dated. she planned to move to a new house, move out of state, buy a new place with "him", get a new job, get a promotion, etc every time there is a new guy, there is a new plan. needless to say she still lives in the same place and does the same work and. maybe BM is the same way...

This is how SD'd mom was as well - all moves or changes centered aroud the man of the month. Could that be possible?

Well bm is back together with the same bf she originally moved out of state with. So their plan is supposidly to move back here.

Neither has family or friends here to help them. They had lived with his family out here for a while till they got kicked out. BF is a heavy drinker and the kids said he and his relative got into numerous fist fights and cops came there often. So I am assuming they had to move out because they could not get along.

So I guess that they are going to move away from family out there and move back here just to be near the kids? The same kids who bf refused to watch when they were there and she had to work. Instead, if she even picked them up she used to bring them to sit in the break room at the store she worked at. So for an 8-9 hour shift the kids got to hang out in the backroom and watch themselves....real good huh!

None of it makes sense to me and seems so unrealistic. But if she is telling her family and the kids that they are planning on moving back here there must be some truth to it...right??

"The same kids who bf refused to watch when they were there and she had to work."

Just a little comment here - I don't think it's really mom's BF's obligation to watch the kids for her.
Just as we as SMs or FSMs or Dad's GFs decide our level of involvement and feel that it's unreasonable for people to expect our lives to stop for our SKs, mom's BF has that right too.
Now if he was just sitting at home playing video games while he expected her to pay for a sitter, then he's a jerk... But if he had something to, then I can see that he wouldn't drop everything to babysit.

But, agreed that the kids in the break room for 9 hours is awful and if he was a good partner and semiSF, then he would try to help her find a solution for he kids.