We currently have placement of my stepson around 30% of the year. The only reason as to why we don’t have more is because it’s a 45 minute drive to his school. We also went to court when he was younger and the GAL thought at the time the drive would be too long for him. This is when he was 4. Now he is 9 and we’ve been contemplating on going back to court. Anyways he is with us during the summer week on/week off and the the school year holidays and weekends. During the summer I am home with him as his Dad works. We’ll when he’s here I’m home with him I take care of him. Make sure he’s fed, clothed, happy, and take him and his siblings on trips. Anyways we don’t get along with his mom due to past issues. This has created huge issues with my stepson. He lies to his Mom about things. We asked him why and he’s told us that he is scared of her. We’ve told her about this and she doesn’t think it’s true. We’ve witnessed it happen numerous times. He’ll also tell us how he gets bad anxiety with her and her parents. Anyways he ended up in a boot for hurting his foot. It wasn’t broken or anything. It was more for comfort. Well we were having a birthday party for him and his sibling that weekend he had the boot. We told him he was unable to take his boot off to go into the bounce house and unfortunately had to stay out. Well when we got home he immediately took his boot off and went in the bounce house. I told him that his mom is going to end up finding out and that he will be in trouble so he needs to listen to her and keep his boot on. He straight up said to my face “she won’t find out!”. That was the last time I ever said anything about his boot. The next day his Dad told him he’s either going to leave the boot on the rest of the day or leave it off because he’s not going to have him running around with it on. I had no say in this conversation nor did I want to because it felt like it wasn’t my say. This last weekend we went to go pick him up and his mom told me that he said my mom, sister, and I blocked him in a corner made him take his boot off and get on the bounce house. My family wasn’t even here and they even showed up late to the party. I was so devastated and broken that he would say anything like that about my family and I. My family has always been there for him(his mom doesn’t like it). They have never treated him unfair. They’ve always bought him gifts for Christmas and Birthdays and offer to take him places. I’m now at the point in life where I am exhausted. My husband and I argue about it. It affects my other children and I no longer know what to do. What do you think?
Think it’s time u all sat down and became one as his playing u all off each other to benefit his self xxxx
I think family counseling would be next step. You all need to get along for the benefit of him especially since he knows exactly what to say to each party to get what benefits him.
He is a child.
He is placing blame on you so mom doesn’t get mad at or punish him.
The fact that you and dad don’t get along well with mom is going to play in his favor right now.
He knows what he’s doing.
His mother, his father and you should sit down with him and talk to him together and confront him about it. He will either tell the truth or get caught lying in front of all of you. Stop letting him say things to each of you that aren’t true. Parenting is a team sport. When he was at the party and he refused to leave his boot on I would have texted his mom and explained what was going on and ask her what she felt like could be done that way you all were on the same page… That may not work in every situation but it at least gives some type of heads up to the other parent
I’m sorry but y’all got to get on the same page.
His lying like that has to be stopped because those are some interesting accusations he’s already making up so if it gets worse it could actually have some real consequences for you or anyone else he makes stories up about.
You and your husband need to sit down with him and his bio mom and start talking all these things out because it WILL get worse if you ignore it.
I would say it is time that you all sit down with mom and son and stop this little fellow in his tracks. He is playing both side again the middle. There needs to be a common ground. Good luck and God bless.
I think this young boy is playing you all & needs a good butt whooped! And dad & mom need to have a serious talk with him regarding his lies & his games he’s playing! You need to immediately call his biological mother when ge disobeys you so she starts believing!
I think family therapy is a good idea as someone mentioned above and I think you all need to sit down and discuss this either with or without the court.
He is playing you guys good and getting away with it. Yall need to sit down and talk it out because it wont end soon and ths adults need to side with each other.
Kids lie 
what I do with my kids is say I can see a red dot on their forehead when they lie. Only adults see the dot and the dot only comes when a kid lies. Catch the kid in a few lies and pretty soon you won’t even have to try to catch them they will just give themselves away by trying to cover the dot 
My 30 year old daughter (who knows it’s a trick) will still subconsciously try to hide the dot if she is being deceptive to someone lol
Mom and you two n the child need to sit down n have a talk about his manipulation tactics but beware mom will get defensive n he might too but it’s time for it to stop with the lies n manipulation
I think he’s 9 and 9 year olds lie. You have to call him out on it every time. You and your husband will need to agree what punishment lieing will incur and then consistently apply it.
So I’m in agreement that you all need to sit down and have a chat as parents.
I also think it was your responsibility and your husband’s to respect the boot like his mother asked. When he said mom won’t find out and you dropped it you gave a literal child control over a situation YOU are responsible for.
Even if you let him keep it off you should coparent with honest and have texted or called his mom and let her know, say you didn’t want to cause a scene at the party or whatever but that’s on you and your husband.
I coparent, I am lucky enough to have week on week off custody, but any rules or punishments transfer between houses for the stability of our son.
The issue I see is your families lack of communication.
I called this “love the one your with”. My experience from my divorce years ago, our children would lie to the other parent to seem like they are on their side, plus lie about the child’s bad behavior, making it the other parents fault. I caught on to this very early. My ex husband, not so much. My kids are grown and I still see glimpses of this lol! My ex husband and I got on the same side eventually and once the kids realized we were comparing notes, it slowed way down.
You should sit him down and talk to him tell him flat out you might be able to behave like that at his mom’s but lying is wrong and he’s not going to do it while he’s at your house you expect him to be respectful and honest as long as your expectations of him are clear and set boundaries then he will start listening to you and he will have a lot more respect for you
He needs to know that you and his dad communicate with his mother and that his lying will be revealed.
Start discussing this stuff in front of the child, all 3 adults and the boy. Before hand and anything that comes up after. 
If you all know he’s lying when the other parent(s) not around, stop giving him options and ways to continue. I’m not trying to place blame, but this is why they say a child should stay in a child’s place. He knows the relationship and details to how and why you guys don’t get along and uses this to his advantage.
Time to grow up and bite the bullet, co parenting isn’t always easy but if he’s lying about stuff like that, he could lie about anything. It’s in the best interest of the child these things and accusations are brought up in FRONT of him, while you’re all there… Wether you like each other or not. It’s just teaching him it’s okay to get away with it because “they don’t like each other so they’ll never talk about it”.
Hes a child.Hes manipulative. That’s life.State the truth.
If he’s lying on them and telling them lies he’s doing the same to you and your husband. He thinks it ok!
It’s prime age for kids to test out lying too. Normal development.
Can also probably sense how both households feel towards eachother. You adults need to communicate and be amicable as possible
This child is manipulating ALL OF YOU because he can. Y’all don’t get along with his mom because of past issues, well it’s time to get over that 
. This kid is not stupid, he knows that y’all aren’t getting along and can use that to his advantage. It’s time for the adults in this situation to put y’all bull:poop: aside and do what’s right for this child. Y’all don’t have to be all chummy but y’all need to at the very least be on the same page.
RECODE IT duhhhh that’s why you have phonessss!!! record it and show his mom!!! Like wtf it’s not that hard to think of!!
If you know he’s lying ABOUT you, he’s probably lying TO you as well. So, everything he says about his mother is probably not true. I think some family counseling is a good place to start.
Why would you get a bounce house for his birthday that he couldn’t use? That’s just mean. Your friends, cousins etc can play & enjoy but you can just watch. Wtf would you choose to do that to a child? You & your husband are partially to blame for him for him removing the boot. You had to know it was going to be a problem.
You’re not owed visitation of your husband’s kid. If he can’t take the time to raise his kid then he should leave him with mom. It’s better to be with his parent than a non-related person. I’m sure he has a lot of resentment towards you for taking him away from his mom, family, friends & primary environment just to be with a person who is not his parent.
Kids lie. It’s difficult to do what’s best for them because of it. You probably even encourage it. You just don’t want to admit it. When you tell him to not tell mom something. You’re encouraging him to lie. When you tell him Santa, Easter Bunny, tooth fairy is real you’re encouraging to lie. Yeah I know I just hit a nerve comment below, please. Show me how much of a liar you are. Anyway I think your husband needs to go back to court & tell them that due to his work schedule he is unable to take care of his child every other week. Maybe he can take a week off work & spend time with his son instead of pawning off on you & causing this rift between you & his ex.
Are you sure those words came from him? Or is she saying that this and blaming it on him.
Take the kid to therapy and start having them work with him and document things.
Sit down with the mom & see if you can come up with consistent rules and consequences for violating them that work at both houses. Maybe do this with a family counselor present to keep the peace and help keep the session/s positive and constructive.
All of you go to family therapy to learn to work together better.
So much going on here.
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If you don’t coparent well, then look into parallel parenting. It’s such a blessing in high conflict situations. You absolutely do not HAVE to coparent. Your husband can place boundaries in order to have a healthier family unit in his home instead of constant drama with the ex, which can most definitely be exhausting and cause issues in your home.
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You and your husband need to be a unit. This is true in all marriages, but even more so in a blended family. It’s not you vs him. It’s you both vs the problem.
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A 9-year-old who has parents who split up years ago…yeah…he’s going to manipulate and pin one against the other. Just how he tells you bad things about his mom, he’s going to tell his mom bad things about you. It’s up to his Dad to shut that behavior down and call him out on it. If your stepson is able to communicate well, his Dad can ask why he lied. Maybe there’s something bigger going on that would be cause for professional therapy. You can’t control what he says at his mom’s house, but you can control how you react to it. It’s not personal.
Every situation is different, so I can only comment and offer advice based on the tiny bit you’ve given.
My experience with lying: We’ve told my stepson that unless he’s in danger or feels unsafe at his mom’s house, we do not want to hear any negative comments about her home anymore. He can gladly share positive stuff with us if he wishes to. However, he was using negative things to pin his parents against each other even more than they already were, and we put an end to it (in our home) by setting boundaries. He continued doing it at his mom’s house for a while, but we didn’t care. 
After a while, he stopped trying to create drama with his parents, and I think our boundary really helped towards that.
Good luck! Blended family life is HARD. Remind yourself that you do this out of love for your husband. Hang in there.
He was caught in lie and if he’s truly scared of her, he made it up to get out of trouble. She already doesn’t like you so he probably didn’t think it mattered much. I think it was more about getting out of trouble than it was to get you in trouble. You’re his safe place. It’s not okay, but I can see why he did it. Also-he’s 9 and could just be playing both sides. But I don’t think he meant to hurt your feelings.
I think he loves you both and he lies to his mom maybe to get attention from her or, like you said, he gets anxiety. He might not want to tell her he has a good time with you.
Sounds like to me he may need some counseling along with some of you too. It sounds like he has learned to manipulate and lie to get his way or to get out of things.
Seriously, counseling may help the whole situation.
He’s taking advantage of all of you. Tell his mom the truth. It was between him a dad. Tell her he lied. But, also that his care and discipline are Dad’s responsibility. But his lying needs to be addressed immediately by parents. He is pitting them against each other to get what he wants. You are right to back off. God bless.
He’s lying to the both of you. The only way it’s going to stop is by recording it. Record him telling you things about he’s mum and record the interactions between you and him. When he says something to he’s mum and she ask you, you show her the recordings and then you can both work together to stop he’s lying.
Start by playing friends.stop giving him reason to okay you against each other. Be a team and talk I front of him
Stop taking it so personal he a kid they lie sometimes If he’s scared of his mom he’s going to lie to her.
You have to start recording his conversations and you have to get him into counseling.
My daughter drives an hour with me to our school. We love it! 
Cameras. He doesn’t understand what legal position he could end up putting you in by lying. Only thing you can do to be sure you have proof in case he ever says anything worse is put cameras up in the common areas and on the outside of the house.
Sounds like this child is in a loyalty bind. A cry for help, if you will.
Could be the transition from both houses. Are the rules the same for him in both houses?
Maybe he feels that he has to suck up to both of his households for feeling of love. Does each of the houses trash talk the other parent? This could cause a loyalty bind. Or if one parent does it…
My step daughter goes through this when she visits her bio mom because bio mom tells her that what we are doing is wrong, or that we don’t love her, etc…therefore it causes an issue at our house. She feels she has to lie to get her way now…at each house. Bio mom believes her…we catch the lies here, etc etc. It’s all in the behavior.
Maybe your stepson felt that he would be in trouble with his bio mom if she found out he actually did it himself with no pressure (It’s easier to blame who isn’t there at the moment kind of thing). If she believes it, he continues. Or of he lies to you guys and you guys believe it and he continues. Kids repeat behavior that a parent either rewards them with (Like believing lies) and if they think they can get away with it.
To fix this is to work with bio mom. No blurred lines. Same rules in each house and to understand that each of his parents isn’t there to hurt him but what he said could get parents in trouble and would he want that?
Now…if you feel that his bio mom is causing the issues, get your son a counselor and maybe through the counselors help, you can prove that his bio mom isn’t the best placement. It’s causing a loyalty bind, etc.
I hope this gets sorted out for you. It’s hard to not make the situation personal, you know?
I think
A 45 minute ride to snd from school is entirely too long for a youngster. That being said have a conversation with the mom
Kid needs therapy. He’s obviously wrestling with a heap of emotions he doesn’t know how to handle.