Thanks for listening to my call of the day podcast. You can hear my live radio program Monday through Friday from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern time on serious XM Triumph 111. Mary, welcome to the program.

Hi, Dr. Laura. Hi. I'm sorry. I'm a little nervous. That's alright.

Before I get into it, I just want to say as a person who doesn't have a mother figure or anybody that I can turn to for the types of things I appreciate what you do.

And I just want to say thank you. I'm happy to be your surrogate mom. Happy to do it. Love having a lot of wonderful kids. So what can I help you with today, my child?

I did it when I say that, but that's exactly how I feel. And I like it. I'm ready to just take it on the backside for whatever I did wrong.

Well, let's not assume it's going to go that way. What's happened?

So our situation is kind of complex, but if anybody can make sense of it, it's you. I will just give you a quick little backdrop.

So as an I it's both of our second marriage. We've been married almost 17 years and just a couple days. It'll be 17 years.

My first husband left me because he was having an affair with the high school. So they left or he left, you know, to be with her.

And the custody arrangement that we had with my two kids, I have two biological kids. My current husband has two biological kids and we formed, you know, a family together over the last 17 years.

Everything is great as far as that. But there was, it came out in court. There was some abuse going on with my two kids when they were at their dad's house at the hand of their stepmother.

I mean, it was literally the wicked stepmother situation. And so it got so bad to wear my son quit talking. And he went like three months where he just would not speak at his dad's house.

We didn't have any problems when he was at our house, but they would accuse us of telling him not to talk. It was just it was really horrible for him.

Fast forward. Now he's almost. No, no, no, don't fast forward. No, no, no, no, don't fast forward yet.

When he was not talking, did anybody make the effort to find out that he was being abused?

Yes, we were in and out of mediation. It was almost three years of that. It was the worst. My husband had cancer, my current husband, and the custody stuff was 10 times worse.

For me as a mother and for my children. And we're all trying to heal and sorry.

But my situation with my son is I've tried to raise him with, I tried to give my kids everything I never add. And I don't mean monetarily at all.

I've tried to give them structure and just the place that they always knew that that's not really relevant right now. What is relevant is he was being abused and went so far as to not speak. That's profound trauma.

So how is that remedied? And for three years, the courts let it continue.

Yes, they did. And it was the only way it stopped was that my daughter wouldn't go back on the summer break that she was supposed to go back.

She just, she told me that she was feeling suicidal. And I took her in immediately to get, this was a lot of years ago, so I'm trying to remember.

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