I would just like to thank all the authors who wrote all the books that I read over the past year on step parenting, and being a "second wife", which is a term I hate by the way! Those books were a life line for me, and continue to be even today. I didn't know anyone who's parents were divorced, none of my family or friends are divorced, and so I found myself with no one to talk to who could relate. Things have really changed in my life in the last two months, when BF and SD6 came to live with me unexpectedly. I am happy to have them, but it has brought things to light that I was unaware of. I didn't really understand what the families in the books, and people who's info I have read on this site, meant when they talked about stages of becoming a family, and how slowly these stages progress. I didn't think my BF and I would ever have to have discussions on boundaries with BM, or even disciplining SD6....wow was I wrong! Turns out BF does a lot of things for BM I didn't know about, helping her when she got audited last year, paying her credit card bills, and gets a lot of money from BF that isn't mandated by the courts, etc etc etc....and last week SD6 filled up the bathtub with water, and cotton balls, and hand towels and then splashed it all over the bathroom and then left it till I got home from work, lets just say BF and I had a talk after that too! All I can say is this better be worth it cause this is hard!! Wow is it hard. Talk about a lesson in grace and learning when it's best to bite your tongue. I applaud all the step mothers who have gone before me and made this work. I welcome all the advice and comments and life lessons you have learned. Please pass on the information that you found out along the way that you wish someone would have said to you!!