Hey there. I wasn’t really sure wether to post this here or in a step-parenting subreddit, so I apologize if this is misplaced.A little back ground:My wife and I are a married lesbian couple. We met when my wife was 5 month pregnant. Her ex (babies bio dad) was basically a ghost. When things started to get more serious, I wanted to meet him. I just wanted to know who he was because they were going to coparent. I also wanted him to meet me so he could know who I was. I wanted him to know that I had good intentions and that I also wanted this baby in my life. We asked if he would meet up for lunch or dinner and he always canceled because of his job taking him from place to place. It was frustrating but we just rolled with it. The first time I met him was when Sarah was born. He held her for a few minutes, said thank you and left. He came back the next day to sign her birth certificate, held her again briefly and then left. A month later they drew up a parenting plan that made my wife Sarah’s sole caretaker. They came to an agreement about times he would get her and see her and they figured out child support. During this time I let them hash everything out. After all it wasn’t my place to try and sway them one way or the other. So I supported my wife’s choices.Soon after Sarah’s birth my wife and I got engaged, then married a year after that. I love Sarah with all my heart. She is the best little girl. So smart and independent. I quit my job when she was born so that I could be a stay at home mom while my wife worked. I raised her. When she cried I held her, when she was sick I stayed up with her, when she learned to walk I was there cheering her on. Everything a mom would do, I did and I loved it. She is my daughter.Just before Sarah’s first birthday, he posted on Facebook how he is paying way too much money for a child he barley sees. This was frustrating to my wife because they decided the parenting plan together. They agreed with the days that he would get her. He never mentioned wanting more time or anything. If he did they would have worked it out. I think he was just mad because his child support was too high for him. Anyways, my wife called him and asked what was up and he just ranted that child support was too high. So my wife just said, ‘if it’s too high then let OP adopt her.’ He just said, ‘ok’. That was really surprising, but I went with it. I absolutely wanted to adopt her. She makes me so happy and I love her.So we set the adoption in motion. We got a lawyer, an amicus attorney, the whole 9 yards. We paid out the nose for the whole thing but it was so worth it. Every piece of paper we sent him, he signed, got notarized and sent back. He never fought us once during the entire process. The adoption was officially declared June of last year. She is legally my daughter. We got her last name changed and everything. We are over the moon ow that it’s done because it was a long process.Sorry for the length, I just wanted to clear up some of the back story.Anyways, today Sarah is 3 years old. She has been with bio dad a few times a year since she was born. My wife and I want Sarah to know her bio dad and we let him take her out every once an a while for a fun weekend. He is always super respectful and nice so that’s a bonus. The down side is that he is always with a different chick. Every woman he has ever been with since my knowing him has had a child about Sarah’s age from a previous relationship. He basically dates women with small children. Which is no big deal. It’s not my business. It’s just a pattern I’ve seen. Recently he has been dating and is now engaged to Mary. Mary has a 3 year old daughter from a previous relationship. Now that he is with her and they live two hours from us, they want to take Sarah once a month for a weekend at their place. Ughhhh.... ok... so my wife and I agree to it after talking it out some. My one condition was that I wanted to set some basic boundaries.Here’s the boundaries we sent them:No telling Sarah about he circumstances surrounding her birth. We will tell her when it is age appropriate.They can have her on a weekend but not during the week because she has a schedule at day care and it’s important to us that she keep her schedule.No large gifts. For example, no cell phones, tablets or otherwise expensive things.Don’t give her any medications without letting us know. ( had to add this because last time they had her Mary gave her children’s Claritin without asking. She just told us she did it after the fact. Which is rough because we had never given Sarah any allergy meds before.)No parenting decisions. We are her parents and we get to decide how to punish her if she’s bad, when to take her to a doctor, what she can and can’t do.Those were the very basic things we outlined for them. He agreed to all the boundaries. No problems. Well this last time Sarah was with them, they took her to church. Which is really not a huge deal or anything, but the way they went about it was bad. We found out when we read a Facebook post he had made that day. I was upset because they didn’t tell us about it before hand. They just made that choice for Sarah and took her. Now I know, she is 3 years old and she has no idea what’s going on. She probably had fun! I don’t doubt that. I grew up going to church and so did my wife. But we aren’t religious anymore. We don’t go to church and we have different beliefs. I have heard anti gay services in churches before. I don’t want my child exposed to that. I don’t want her to go one day and come back saying her family is a sin. That would be awful. So I brought it up to the bio dad and asked if they could please not take her to church again. We want our child to decide what she wants to believe when she is older. He was very respectful and agreed not to take her anymore. Two days later I see a post from Mary of Facebook saying:‘ I do not understand some parents! How could you have a child and not believe in the ultimate power! Babies are a kiss blown from the hand of God! How can you deny your child the right to know God! You say you want your child to be able to choose for herself then give her the experience of a lifetime! The experience of finding God!’Followed my a bunch of likes from her friends.I feel upset. This is not her child to parent. She is always making these choices for Sarah without letting us know. This is supposed to be time for Sarah to get to know her bio dad and go out and have some fun. This is for her to be able to say she knows where she comes from and have a full life. Not for some other girl who has no business budding in to control what my daughter does when she is with them.She is basically a stranger to my wife and I. We don’t talk to her and she doesn’t talk to us. We don’t even know if she is a permanent fixture in bio dads life. Maybe she thinks that bio dad should be making decisions for Sarah and she pushes them on him. I have no idea. We never bad mouth her or her parenting styles online. We are very respectful and keep away from drama. But this seems blatant. How do I get this woman to understand that she can’t make these decisions for my daughter?She also posts pictures of Sarah and her daughter on Facebook. Makes it look and sound like she is playing ‘house’. Pictures are always captioned with ‘my beautiful family’ or ‘they are so sweet together’ (referring to the two girls in pictures and pictures with bio dad)I want this to work for Sarah’s sake but I don’t want this to turn into drama. What do I do?My wife says not to bring it up and pretend like we didn’t see the post. After all we aren’t friends with her on Facebook. Her posts are public and sometime linked to bio dads page. My wife says that Mary can have whatever opinion she wants, as long as they don’t break the boundaries then there’s no problem. Which makes sense. But these ‘small’ things keep happening and I want them to stop before they escalate. First it’s giving Sarah meds without our consent, then it’s bringing her to church without giving us a heads up, what next? When bio dad wasn’t with Mary everything was fine. He never took her anywhere without letting us know. Heck, bio dad is Jewish. So I am thinking Mary is trying to play house with bio dad and Sarah.Do I bring it up to Mary that I saw her post? Do I just ignore it? I am so stuck. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2uKDbJa
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