Step Talk

When my husband and I met I went out of my way to accept his 3 kids, ages 18, 17, 11. Many times I treated the 11 year old girl better than my own children, then ages 11,8. I bought them presents took daughter on shopping trips and on an expensive Disney trip. My husband did nothing to bond with my two children "in case his daughter might get upset". As the relationship progressed, and we got engaged his daughter changed (probably under her mother's coaching) and she began doing everything she could to destroy our relationship, telling me he was a wife beater- and telling my children and friends the same thing- and my husband did nothing to control her. She progressively got worse, throwing tantrums, treating everyone terrible in public, bad mouthing her father behind his back, and calling him a f%%%er to his face and me the B word to everyone including my children. She ruined our wedding rehearsal, by throwing a tantrum in front of everyone, and wrecked our wedding day with her attitude that was embarrassing to everyone at the wedding. After the wedding all three children, under their mother's guidance, tried to cause problems in our marriage, admitting later that they wanted us to divorce. The situation came to a head three years ago, after about a year of marriage and dealing with her weekly tantrums, crying fits and verbal abuse of everyone in the house,the daughter began hurting my 9 year old daughter physically (she was 13) and mentally abusing her-again he did nothing to control the situation. I finally banned her from the house because of my daughter's safety and the toll it was taking on our marriage, we were very close to splitting up because of her behavior and his lack of any type of control towards any of them, including ex-wife. Daughter was asked to make amends and apologize before she could return to our house, which she refused to do. Instead, she started crank calling all our phones for hours on ends, we had to turn the phones off in order to have any peace. Eventually, after weeks of this crank calling nightmare, I had all my numbers changed, including my home phone and cell so she couldn't continue harassing. His answer was to ignore the behavior rather than confronting her or her mother. During Xmas of that year my husband's sister came to visit. She immediately took ex-wife's side and began treating my children badly. After several days she screamed at me in a restraunt blaming me for the families problems and calling me horrid things- she moved in with ex-wife. Husband's children continued trying to end our relationship, now through not only their mother (who had broken up all his relationships in the past by using his children in the same fashion-after two other relationships ended because of them, he still didn't put his foot down when they started to do the same antics to end ours). At this point ties where cut and they were told to make amends for their actions (all three did all they could at the wedding to let all guests know they didn't want their father getting married. The oldest stayed at wedding for a half hour after refusing to show up at rehearsal dinner, and brought his dog which barked during the whole ceremony so the guests couldn't hear). After 3 years none have attempted to apologize, ex sued for extra child support and sister returned home to tell entire family how awful I am. Now, he is missing kids and I am to blame-no they haven't attempted to reach me in any way, his excuse is I won't accept their appologes anyway so why should they try? My daughter still has the three inch scar on her foot from when his daughter threw her against the refridge and he excused it as an accident. Now I am the bad one even though he probably could have intervened in the beginning and disciplining his children in order to resolve the situation before it got to the breaking point, yet didn't even try. I can not stand these people and can't imagine ever having anything to do with any of them ever again. My thought, if he wants a relationship do it away from me- too much water under the bridge, which they haven't even tried in anyway to make amends for. I still think given the chance they would be causing problems to end our marriage. Did I mention that he treats my now 15 year old daughter like dirt? Advice????