Need advice, encouragement, hope, and support.

Dear Reddit, I’ve been married for a few years 32 f. I have a husband and stepson who’s about 8. This is a long story so get ready. When I first started dating my now husband I noticed some strange behaviors in my now stepson. If he spilled milk at the table he would react with fear, he would put his arms and hands up to protect his head and in a teary afraid panicked voice say, “please please I’m sorry please.” I was careful and made sure as best I could that his dad wasn’t abusing him. Then, my husband starting opening up more about my SS’s BM and how absolutely emotionally abusive and manipulative she was, screaming, throwing things at him, telling him she would report him for domestic violence falsely (he called the non emergency police line and reported her for her threats), she printed divorce papers and taunted him with them daily, she called him 38 times in one day while he was at work, and then when he finally filed for divorce she said, “you don’t love me any more?” she has untreated bipolar disorder , alcoholism, and a long history of violent boyfriends, restraining order against a couple of past boyfriends, hospitalization due to a beating from a past boyfriend, her parents have disowned her in the past, and then took her back multiple times, a boyfriend who stalked her, and then my husband who is sweet, autistic, gentle, calm and successful. She told him she couldn’t have kids and then boom! She’s pregnant and they get married. It didn’t even last 6 months, but she got her child support meal ticket. Over the years my stepson’s behavior continued to concern us. He would say I love you, a crazy amount of times. We counted it once and in a half hour he told his dad he loved him 18 times. That’s anxious attachment. He starred having severe separation anxiety, couldn’t check the mail without him running after you and crying, he wouldn’t even let us go to the bathroom without sitting by the door and trying to talk to you, when we told him bathroom time is quiet and private he resorted to passing drawings under the bathroom door. He developed a severe startle, the ice machine would go off and he’d jump and become frightened. He had nightmares, stomachaches, and severe teeth grinding (the dentist said it was the worst case she had seen in almost 15 years, he almost needed root canals on his teeth). We tried to get him in therapy but BM blocked it. We took her to court to get him access to therapy and court said, “no, therapy would cause too much conflict and mom would just keep fighting against, so no therapy.” Kid you not, that was the decision. Husband got him a therapist and told her and she had her lawyer call and threaten the therapist who then quit and blacklisted all of us from one of the largest therapy practices in our town. We lost hope. Then my stepson started opening up about life at BM’s house. He was acting all cagey and weird and I straight up asked him if there’s something you want to talk about but are afraid that someone will find out? He said yes and I assured him dad and I would not tell anyone. Then the floodgates opened,

1. Mom screams at me every day
2. I try to be invisible when I am at her house
3. Mom and her boyfriend fight almost every day, they hit each other
4. Mom hits me
5. I have to pretend to be happy or she is mad at me
6. I feel like a piece of paper and mom doesn’t like what’s written on it, so she crumples me up
7. I don’t think my mom likes me
8. I think my mom likes being mean to me, I think she does it because it’s fun for her
9. Mom screams at my baby brother (1 year old) I’m afraid she will hurt him
10. Mom’s boyfriend drives scary and they fight in the car while driving
11. Mom told me if I tell anyone I will never see her again or she will go to jail and I will never see her again
12. Mom said dad is a bad person and that’s why her and boyfriend fight and get angry because dad makes them angry
13. Mom says stepmom is a bad lady and trying to take her place and I’m not supposed to listen to stepmom or be nice to her, so I can make sure she doesn’t steal mom’s spot
14. Sometimes I think mom wants to kill me
15. It makes my mom happy when I say bad things about you and dad, so I have to say I hate my dad so she will be happy
16. He asked me if I would come to his kinder grad in a costume so mom won’t know I’m there
17. He told us about fight they had in a hotel room that lasted hours while he hid in the bathroom and he described her being on the ground and being kicked and punched while his half brother cried for hours and they ignored him. So naturally we called CPS and filed for emergency custody. We got the emergency custody through court and finally access to therapy for him by using audio recording of him disclosing the abuse. Then, We found out more from his teacher at school who also reported mom to cps about threatening to withhold food for forgetting his water bottle at school, and for domestic violence. Here’s the problem when my SS sat with CPS he said there’s no hitting just fighting. He described that she yelled at him but he can’t get across how she is, he doesn’t have words for it. Just yelling doesn’t sound bad enought, but its the pattern of fear of screaming inches from a child’s face that makes them feel terrified. How does a chiild get that across? It’s easy to hide emotional abuse. We had a little motion sensor cam in his room like baby monitor until kinder so we watched the recording of cps interviewing him. They asked him the same questions over and over until he changed his answer, you’re specifically not supposed to question children like that, it makes them think you don’t believe them so they alter their story until you’re pleased. He went from “ my mom has a pink spot between her eyes, blue dots on her arms, to no I didn’t see hitting, I don’t know if they hit.” Mind you there are police reports to back up the domestic violence claims. Cps described her house as being filled with empty and half-empty alcohol bottles. She told them she’s bipolar and doesn’t take meds. She lied and said there is no dv (even with a police report showing there is) and she told them she was interested in having her son in therapy but that dad’s taking him to a therapist whose a friend of his and sits in all the appointments and forces their son to make up lies about her. CPS didn’t verify any of this and arrived at the conclusion that likely we’re coaching him. BM lies about everything, EVERYTHING.
    We got private custody evaluator through court to investigate who spoke to everyone doctors, dentists, teachers, parents, stepparents, grandparents, therapists and he wrote a report for court. His recommendation was mom should be on supervised visitation, even supervised phone calls, and dad should have sole legal custody and sole physical custody. And the only way for that to change was that mom gets therapy, drug testing randomly every month, psychiatric care, medications, her boyfriend should stay away from danny, AA was required, and more. The judge looked at that went well let’s give mom a chance and let’s she what she does and come back in a few months. He gave her unsupervised time on on the weekends. 2 weeks before the hearing, come to find out she had been arrested on domestic violence charges and kept it a secret from the court and custody evaluator and everyone else for the entire 6 month investigation. That’s the ONLY reason we won the case, judge was heavily biased in favor of mom. He spoke meanly to my husband and accused him of parental alienation and said he was the problem , and then the custody evaluator’s report came and all he said, “I guess dad’s concerns about your household are legitimate, per the report all of the problems are in your household.” Guess what she did with the chance he gave her? She went to 1 therapy appointment and 1 psych appointment in 3 months literally last minute days before the hearing. What mother wouldn’t do everything possible to get her kid back? In 3 months from all the recommendations that’s all she did. During those 3 months my SS continued to report her abuse to us and then we discovered he never told his therapist about it. He lied by omission and directly. He would tell us she did something to him, husband would ask therapist to talk to him about it, snd eventually the therapist said we should talk to SS about BM at all because he’s lying to us and making up stories about her. We knew he was lying to her and not us (remember police reports) but she was really mean and both us are non confrontational people so we just said ok. Well SS started falling apart at home. He would beg to not go visit mom, he started acting out but we didn’t tell the therapist because by this point we were afraid she was going to label us as coaching him. One day SS lost a necklace mom gave him and went into a panic. He begged me to help him find it, hyperventilated, crying and freaking. Husband gently spoke to him and asked what was going on and he said I can’t tell you because I can’t talk about mom, hubby said it’s ok for today. So SS says “mom threatened him if he lost the necklace, that she screamed so bad at him he peed in his pants and she made fun of him for it, that she called him bad names etc.” this time I don’t report to CPS because I am tired of being labeled a liar in CPS reports, and afraid of getting in trouble for making false reports Well, SS went and told a mandated reported who then reported the necklace and peeing in the pants story, and the domestic violence, and that SS said he is afraid of mom and her boyfriend when they drink and fight. Again SS lied and said nothing happened, they don’t fight and I am happy. CPS interviewed us again and was rude and talking down to me and making comments about stepmom can be. BM told them I am trying to steal her son and adopt him. WTF?!
    At this point 4 times SS has come to us with tales of BM’s abuse but each time he lied to CPS. CPS over the years has started to shift towards seeing us as the problem rather than BM. When the custody evaluator did a thorough investigation he arrived at the conclusion mom is so dangerous she needs supervision for phone calls and CPS with their shoddy work, overworked schedules, decided we’re most likely coaching him.
    I am BROKEN. SS and I used to be close but now I just feel anger, hurt, resentment. I am scared of legal repercussions for his lying. I was accused of making false reports when all I tried to do was help a child. BM is so high conflict she reported us to CPS because we let SS go to Hawaii with grandparents while we went on our honeymoon. She told CPS we told SS to lie to her and say we were in Hawaii with him and that we refused all of phone calls while he was in Hawaii. None of that is true. Why would we need SS to lie about not going on the honeymoon with us? Who expects anyone to take their kids on their honeymoon?
    My husband does the best he can. But a lying 8 year old has crazy power. We got him a new therapist and he lied to that one too, when we asked him why? He said he was too embarrassed to admit he lied and when we tell therapists he lies you can tell they doubt it because of the whole split parents thing, there’s always the suspicious parents are pitting the kid against the other parent. I get it, BM coached him to lie about countless things over the years, she scared him into keeping her secrets by telling him he would never see her again if he tells anyone, he’s still afraid of his mom but can’t work on it because he won’t talk about any of it in therapy and just says everything is great. Meanwhile at home, he’s a mess. My mental health has been trashed due to all this. I have CPTSD and SS’s abuse mirrors my own. Being lied to and being lied about are huge triggers for me. I want to not care but it kills me that CPS reports are painting me as this villainous stepmom, when all I’ve done is love and try to help. I had to be hospitalized from the stress of all this, and dealing HCBM’s threats against us and weird behaviors. I’ve been suicidal over all of this. To suffer abuse as a child, grow up, try to help a child you love escape abuse, have that child lie, and then you’re labeled the abuser?! Life feels too cruel. Any advice? I wish I could leave, I love my husband dearly and he is deeply hurt and frustrated too. How can I expose the lying of Ss So he can get real help and so we don’t keep being accused of making him make up stories about BM?

Tl/dr: stepson reports bm’s abuse to us and other adults and then lies about it to CPS. Making CPS believe we are coaching him.