This weekend I had a revelation: I need therapy. I've never needed it before in all my 30 years but stepparenting has brought out the evil bitch in me and I don't like it.

Let me back up. DH and I met in late 2004 when we started working together. We became friends over time and I was his drinking buddy when his divorce was finalized in early 2005. Some time after that we started casually dating off and on. It was very shaky during the first year or so because we did work together and knew it would be frowned upon and because I knew he had 2 girls with his ex. In 2007, things got a little more serious and he asked me to marry him in 2010.

Shortly after we were engaged, he said that now that we are planning on sharing our life together I needed to know something. His ex had another child in very early 2007 and a recent paternity test confirmed it was his. Apparently during the time we were casually dating, he went back to his ex for a fling and she got pregnant again. He told me he was never sure the baby was his since it only happened a couple of times and never even had paid child support for her. Once we had decided to get married, he decided that was the time to get all his affairs in order and went ahead with the paternity test.

After alot of reflection and discussion, I decided I could handle this. He was stupid and shouldn't have lied to me if this was even a possibility, but I could handle it.

Fast forward to now. I think being pregnant brings out all the resentment that I had been unknowingly bottling up for the past 2 years. I get along fine with the older girls, but I can't stand the 5 year old knowing that she was created while DH and I were first dating. Her youth is just a slap in my face what a short time ago this all happened. Everyone treats her like a baby and it annoys me to no end. I am pregnant with a baby. This isn't how it was supposed to be. There wasn't supposed to be another "baby" in the house except for mine. I am so strict with her because I can't stand it when she baby talks and cries for no reason. I can feel myself being overly strict to her and I feel terrible but I can't stop it. Then DH doesn't know how to react because he knows it's hard for me but at the same time wants to stand up for her, which causes us to fight. I wasn't mean to her before. I was nice. I bought her clothes, combed her hair, watched movies with her, etc.

The moment I realized I needed therapy happened when we were out. We all went to this huge outdoor market. She had been whining that she wanted us to buy her something. She didn't even have anything specific in mind. She just wanted something. And she kept whining and whining about it. At one point the 2 older girls, DH and I were stopped at a shop and I noticed SD5 had wandered off and was no longer with us. DH and the girls freaked out and started running around looking for her. I kept shopping. I had zero emotion that she was lost. I might as well have told DH "That chair is pretty" rather than "I think we lost SD5."

I don't want to be this way. It's not her fault that her father was an idiot and her mother refuses to take birth control. It's not her fault her father lied to me at the very beginning of our relationship and didn't let me make a decision before I decided I loved him and I wanted to marry him. We only see them EOWe so I don't want to end my marriage over this, but I don't want to be this person.