Custody court with my husband’s ex

I have been married to my wonderful husband for 5 years. We have one child together and share 50/50 custody of his 2 children with his ex wife. His ex wife has struggles with mental illness since adolescence, but has gotten worse in the last few years. We found out about 4 years ago that she had been using explicit drugs and was abusing alcohol. My husband and I decided that we would not be taking legal action because this seemed very unlike her and we expected that if given support she would be able to recover. We have been dealing with her consistent relapses on both drugs and alcohol since the initial finding 4 years ago. There have been many notable instances that have resulted in our mistrust of her decision making and have led to some very scary and dangerous events. We made the decision to file paperwork in the courts to petition for full custody until she is able to get her life back on track. She refuses to take any real responsibility for her actions and insists that what she does on her time is her business even though she has had the children when things have happened. Unfortunately the court system has been less than accommodating and she has harassed us incessantly since the initial filing. This all has been going on for months and we were instructed by the court that we need to keep the current custody agreement until a guardian ad litem can make a determination. Since the kids have been going to her house on her designated time, she has told them lies about both my husband and I. We know this because she has sent texts telling us exactly what she has said. We have black and white evidence, police reports, voice recordings (legal in our state) and countless text messages to validate our concerns but we feel like we are being roadblocks by the courts. I feel at a complete loss. I feel like being the step parent I have even less control over the situation and the stress from what we have been dealing with has affected our marriage and our child together. If anyone has any advice as to what we can do or what to expect with the court system I would be very grateful. Thx. XO

At the end of the day, his kids are his lookout regardless of what you guys have agreed. The same applies to his ex as, until the court determines that she's hopeless at looking after them, for whatever reasons, her kids are her responsibility. She's correct, what she does with her time is her business whether her kids are with her or not. Being a step parent has it's challenges but you're already a parent & you need to commit 100% into being one for your own child. If you fail there, then there's no one to blame but yourself. Sure, it's frustrating & yeah, it would take a toll on your marriage etc but you need to step back a bit because there's not much you can do to make the situation any better particularly when the court's GAL process may be drawn out. The process could be bogged down with your husband's ex as she needs to assessed & interviewed so the order can be completed. There's something not quite urgent enough because if your husbands two kids were in real danger, the courts would consider acting accordingly, despite the police reports etc.