Im new to this web site as i registered 2 days ago.

I have been with my partner for 1 & 1/2 years, we have been living together for nearly 1 year.

So my little girl ( pipes up as we are driving home from her dance class and asks, "Mommy, did you and **** (FH) date before you and daddy (STBX)decided to get divorced?"

Check out this article I read this morning. Note the father's comments towards the end.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081014/ap_on_re_us/girl_mistreatment;_ylt=A...

After reading blogs and forum topics, I am in awe of all of you. You all do so much, and care so much, I feel.... petty and mean.

This is my first post so I will fill you in on my current situation. (You can view the ages in my profile.)
We get my step children every other weekend (normally) however my husband is currently pulling the night shift and works every weekend. So that means he is with the Skids in the morning until he lays down to sleep around 1pm-ish. He gets up around 8-8:30p to get ready for work and leaves for work at around 9:30-10p. When the three of my skids are together they ALWAYS fight. I know, I know, this is probably normal. And it is in fact tolerated at the BM's house. My biggest beef is what to do with these kids when they start fighting. I have tried to engrain it in to their heads for the past 4 1/2 years to keep their hands off of each other, but it doesn't work. It is constant complaining and whining when they are all here together.

i think my 3 year old sd is having major issue. Her mother started a new job 3 weeks ago and she is never able to see her or pickup.dropoff to school. On her days of (sunday), she doesnt come to get her.

How do you handle play dates for your kids?

Do you schedule them in advance?

Do you have them on the weekdays after school, or just weekends?

Do you set them up when the child asks, or do you try to make play dates for them?

I know that sounds harsh and I feel totally guilty about it, but it's the truth. I can't stand him! This has been going on for years, it's caused many problems within our family and I really, really could use some advice from those who understand where I'm coming from.

Hopefully the third time's the charm - I'm pregnant!

So apparently though DH and I had no privacy over the holidays, we had just enough

This is actually my fifth pregnancy - third with DH. The first four ended in miscarriage so I am "cautiously optimistic" about this one at only 4 1/2 weeks. (I know it's bad luck to tell before the 4th month, but I'm sort of anonymous here so I figure it doesn't count as bad juju )

hello everyone I'm in need of a bit of advice here, its a tad long but here goes:

I separated from my ex in may of 2007 i can say now that we do not get along in the slightest, and sadly among all our animosity is our 13 month old daughter whom i have had custody over since she was born, the problem is that my ex lives too far away for visitation and doesn't seem to care about her, in the beginning he was all about her but as time passes he seems not to care anymore, i have sent him e-mails telling him to call her, send her something so when she gets older she knows that he cares, but alas nothing ever arrives, not even a birthday present, well he called his mother to tell her to tell me that he said happy birthday.

Due to busy schedules, me and my boyfriend have his two kids whenever his schedule gives him 2 days in a row which is almost every week. So for almost a year, we have been having the kids for about 2-4 days in a week, and on our vacation days we would have them for a whole week.

I have a 11 yr old SS with moderate to severe dyslexia, ADHD, and some speech issues. I have been literally begging my husband to get the boy some help, but to no avail. It's been obvious to me since he was 3 that he needs some help - speech therapy at least; but has received none.

Here's the deal. I'm about to get married. My future wife has a little girl whose six. She's the cutest girl in the world. However, she owns me. She disrespects me. I think that some of it is my own fault.

I'm very new and looking for good advice from other SMs (or SDs!) who may have similar issues. I have 2 ss's who have visitation with us every other weekend. We pay a large amount for CS every month but were told this weekend that they wanted to bring some pants back to BMs house because they didn't have any that fit at her house.

I have had issues with my daughter all through her growing up. But nothing quite prepared me for this. She graduated in 2006, and has had 9 jobs so far, moved back home with me 8 times since graduation.