ok, SS and FH moved in early this month, rules were estabalished.
however, SS is hardly home (stays at girlfriends) he does come over on occasion to shower or wash a small load of laundry.
My confusion is how much responsibility should I expect. one rule was that if he does not work then he must do some other "chore" ie. clean cutters to make up for not paying rent also kids are giving a daily chore list but he is hardly at home.

BF and I are talking about getting married later this year. We do want the skids and my BD to be included in the ceremony. Although, I'm having second thoughts on this because their behavior at home is pretty disrespectful. I just do not want to have our special day turn into a day where we are constantly dealing with bad attitudes, and crying episodes.(Even talking about BF & I's relationship makes SD14 burst into tears.)

My future skid whom mind you is ONLY 12 has a myspace page saying she is 18, and a default picture that shows more cleavage than a porn star would show, and its public and her mood is drunk what does a child know about getting drunk.

Please forgive me.

You are my friends and I just wanted to share my sadness with you today.

A friend of mine has had the worst happen to him. His 14yo daughter took her life on Friday and as I held him with nothing to say, all he kept repeating to me through his helpless, neverending tears was...."My baby is gone."

Thanks Anne for putting everyone together in one place on your Myspace page and having a blog where we can post our ST names. It is so fun seeing everyone there.

I must say, Ladies and Gentleman,

I don't know if any of you out there find yourself doing this, but after the skids are gone, I completely get rid of any "sign" of their presence. Usually I have to practically disinfect the house b/c they are such slobs, but I put back all the "kid" stuff. I put away the "special" kid soap, the kid toothpaste, make sure all the skid toys are out of sight until the next visit. It's like I'm taking back my own house again and the hostage crisis is over. The cats get reassured that they are not coming back and it takes them about 4 hours to "get back to normal." I caught the youngest SS chasing the baby cat into my bedroom.

First, I just wanted to thank all of you for writing. I've been lurking for a while, reading what many of you have written. I decided to make my first post, b/c I saw "that will never happen" in several other posts, and it really made me sit up and pay attention.

I am engaged to my bf of 3 years we are planning to get married just the two of us none of our children by eloping in Reno this winter. I found this site because I was curious about what struggles there are in blended families.

So often I find myself feeling like I just don't belong in this family. The fact that DH has two kids and I come to the relationship with nothing has made me feel like a total outsider. DH does not seem to understand, no matter how much I try to explain to him, why I feel this way. He thinks that, because he wants to be with me, of course I should feel like I belong! I have been trying to explain to him that it is not that simple. Unfortunately, I'm having a hard time explaining myself in a way that he could possibly understand.

I hate being all doom and gloom but I am just stuck in a rut that I don't quite know how to get out of. I had the worst break-down EVER this weekend (and my mother-in-law was in town to witness the whole thing!) When I say that I had a break-down I mean a crazy, can't breathe, shaking, talking to myself break-down. I am so upset when we get my skids because my SS3 is being told that I beat him, that I am mean, that I am scary, etc. So my sweet little SS it LITERALLY terrified of me and once we finally get him back to "normal" its time to return him to BM and the whole cycle starts back up the next time we have him.

I have lived with my BF for over a year now. I have no children of my own, he has two from his ex-wife. They are wonderful girls. I love them so much. At first it was hard for me to find ways to bond with them or really even to know what to do, but we worked through it and now we have a great relationship. When I spend time alone with the girls its great! My BF is also great, he treats me well and we get along great - when we have alone time its wonderful.

It's been a while since I posted. Things seemed to be going well... But then again, maybe that is the time to start worrying...

I don't know how I feel at this point. My SD20 had been coming along pretty well. There were ups and downs, but overall, it seemed like things were clicking along. She is (mostly) taking care of her baby. Little one is almost eleven months old and growing like a weed. She is an absolute cutie, but I haven't really had a lot of interaction since my SD seems to be totally threatened by that. (She has literally charged across the room to interpose herself between me and her daughter when I bent down to tickle her.) Since they both live in my house, I sometimes find this rude and disheartening.

Will DH ever realize the terrible damage he has done to our family by trying to force us to be what he thinks we should be instead of accepting us for what we are? I am not SD8's BM and I never will be - that's just the facts. When we got married, I truly tried to be the best SM I could be - and it wasn't perfect, but I believe I was doing the best I could trying to figure out my new role and my new family. DH was not satisfied and he tried everything he could think of - putting me down, criticizing me, comparing me to BM - all to try to show me how much better things could be if everyone just did things exactly the way he wanted. The harder he pushed, the further apart we got.

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this site. I found this site seven months ago when I was overwhelmed. I am 42 years old and have one son who is 21. In December, I moved to another state to be with my BF. I have known him most of my life as we went to school together, but after graduation we went separate ways. Well 20+ years later he found me and we have been together ever since. He has a 5 year old. I need to let you know that this man is a wonderful father. When they were pregnant for their son he took a class called Boot Camp for New Dads. After taking that class and continuing to attend it until his son was I believe one he then became a teacher of that class which he teaches three times a year. He attends every soccer or basketball game his son is involved in and even was the assistant coach on his son's soccer team this past spring. He attends all school programs unless they are during the day and he has to work, although he does attend those that he can. He is a very active father. He is a very kind, patient, loving, and compassionate father. When he and his wife split their son was almost 3 1/2 years old. Finally, in the past two months she has "graciously" allowed us full EOW contact plus two nights a week for two and a half hours. Prior to that visitation schedule it was every weekday for two hours and every friday night until whenever she felt like it on Saturdays. Most of the time she would pick up SS by noon every Saturday, so it was hard to have time to plan to do anything with him.

Since yesterday I've had nothing to say to DH. To me he's a piece of crap. Tonight he came home to no dinner. I cooked some squash his mother gave me and thats it. (he and the kids don't eat squash) The skids kept asking whats for dinner and he kept saying "I don't know".

I'm engaged to a wonderful man, whom we can just call the dh. He has an ex-wife (ew)who just won't let go. She is just so much in our lives I don't know how much more I can take.
I live in the house they shared, but she didn't want. I still have my own condo though because I'm not fully ready to move into that kinda deal.

I'm going to try a new thing with my dh. I'm going to try to not get angry or cold with him. I'm very, very tired of his ew being in our lives...she's more in our lives than her own...which would be kinda sad except that she's not involving herself with us to feel better or because she misses dh, it's because she CAN and she likes the CONTROL.

DH threw this out there the other day...when we have another child, if he could stay home and take care of them..and I'd support the family. While I'd love to be the one to stay home, it just doesn't make sense for him to work becuase he'd have to pay BM anyways. To recap, BM lied about her income and works in a successful family business, so there's no way she makes minimum wage. SD is spoiled rotten by BM or her family. Anything monetary she wants, she gets. A Nintendo DS, a Wii? camp, private school...it's all hers.

that nothing I do for my skids will ever be enough. I love my DH and feel terrible for him when both BM and his kids treat him like poop. I finally realize I have to stop getting stressed about it and live my life.