How to deal with guilt? What GUILT? lol... just kidding.

Welcome! You came to the right place.
Visualize your guilt as a cloud that you are blowing on and sending to your SDs. Let it land in their
backyard. And sit there. Guilt is leaving your space and settling down in theirs.

You have your family and you can enjoy guilt-free holidays with them.
No games, no blackmail, no manipulation.

Why would you feel guilty for getting rid of dysfunction?
You deserve a stress-free family life.

Guilt? I have none. SD is only 14 but has been estranged for a few months now. I honestly could give a rat's ass if I ever see her again in my life after what she's put me and DH through.

I'm sorry you're feeling that way but for your sake - let it go. Toxic people (as the above posters already mentioned) need to be excluded from your life. I just had to recently let my own mother go. She crossed a line before, I let her in, and now 7 yrs later, I can see how much of a mistake that was and have let her go for good.

It hurts, yes. But you have no reason to feel guilty over them. None. Move on and be happy You deserve that!

Guilt is a reflection that you did or are doing something wrong.

In a situation like yours only logic can persuade you that you've done and are doing nothing wrong and therefore the guilt is misplaced. As a male I don't understand why women take on so much blame but I acknowledge that its a real feeling for you.

Can you keep reminding yourself who was wronged here? If not get a counselor who should be able to lead you out of this in just a few sessions, certainly no more than 4 so don't be lured into many more than that.

No need to feel guilty. IF your neighbor was being rude and ignorant to you would you keep going back for more? Of course not!

Just because they are step family, you do not have to accept bullying and abuse by these grown babies. Protect your health and sanity and enjoy your life. You deserve it. Like me, 20 plus years is TOO LONG already to have put up with the BS!

they are adults now, and if you didnt have a bond with them in the beginning it wont happen now that they are adults. I think its been long enough that you've had to keep your mouth shut, and understandable so they were kids they are all grown up now, its time for you to live your life and be happy!!!!....if they want to be apart of it. FINE, if not OH WELL!!!.....good luck to you. This is something I've always worried about when my SKs get older and how I would deal with it. Do you have any advice?

You sound like me only a few years ahead. dH has three miserable daughters and their mother is a vile piece of work. They have beaten him to a pulp everyway possible. Taken him to court for all of life's extras and still have the audacity to call themselves victims.
They refused to come to our wedding and actually ruined our honeymoon by dropping a bomb on dh the day after our wedding.
That was three years ago. Mercifully for me, the two oldest want nothing more from their father as they are now emancipated. Which means they can no longer extract more money from him.
The youngest has been calling dh for the past year, only in his cell. She still is in college, and plans on law school. She sued dh to go to the college of her choice. What a selfish brat!! So I believe she is coming around because easier to get a judge to force dh to pay for grad school when she can claim a relationship, as opposed to being gone for 4 years. She recently had the nerve to ask him several times to cosign her loans. Dh pays a third, she and her witch mother pay each a third.
Dh wants a normal family, but he created monsters with a sociopathic narcissist who was cheating on him from the before they were married.
I tried to like them and have them like me. Even after several cruel court motions, I still included them in meals and such. That was before our wedding. But after, they took off the kid gloves and really showed how sadistic they could be.
A few months after our wedding, I was diagnosed with cancer.
I wrote each girl a letter basically asking them to join us and move forward together. I never heard back from any of them. The day of my cancer surgery, dh was in court on a motion. To be honest, I absolutely despise each one of them.
So when dh's daughter started calling him again, I felt such a flood of horror and shock.
All the emotions of my illness and first year of marriage just came crashing out.
I realize several things. Dh will never quit...he will never shut the door on them. They are evil. Pure and simple. You don't do what they have done. Sure people can fight, say things, but what they have planned, carried out.....just shocking to me.
I will never never have any engagement with any of them. Dh now realizes the depth of my hatred toward them. And he accepts it, and wants to move forward with me and my children. I accept that he will always have this need to try and make them out to be what they are not---decent kind human beings. I just will not be a part of their relationship. And a part of me will never love my husband totally and completely because he has welcomed her back.
It is so complicated, but so simple. He loves them unconditionally. And for me, I have come to peace with my feelings toward them. And I have the choice to delete them. Dh can not force my engagement with them. That is in my hands. So I feel peace.

I will never forget going through cancer treatment, trying to support my husband in his daughter's lawsuit, and reading a bit of n email his ex sent. I have never met her, but she ended her letter with...." How awful this all is, and now I hear that your wife is ill. What tragedy! I truly wish her the best."
This was the day before my cancer surgery and the court motion. What a pig!! She dd not give a rat's ass about me and the cancer. Her daughters never responded to my letter.
I couldn't stand to lay eyes on any if them now.
And yes I suppose I will see them again at life's functions--- funerals, weddings, etc etc.
But I can see them as strangers. That won't be a lie.

My mother would have ripped me a new one if I'd called up my dad to bitch that he should have been a better husband. She would have told me that it was none of my business to meddle in their marriage. And that was in an intact family.

You should feel guilty - guilty that you put up with so much crap for so long. It's never too late to remove toxic crap from your life.

OP, WELCOME to the board. Sorry you feel guilty about disengaging, but don't. You have tried, and tried hard. Eventually you had to disengage from this nonsense or it would affect your health, life, and marriage.

We women generally carry the burden of trying to make things right....the caregivers....and thus naturally feed bad when we can't put the Humpty Dumpty's together again. The situation is beyond your control, let it go. Let them go.

And I agree with you about Thanksgiving....you have your family over as well as the SK's. It is a tradition for your family. If SK wants to have it on her own with her own people, let her. Perhaps, if you want, you can stop by for pumpkin pie and coffee later in the evening.

Let the guilt go, like pilgrim said, think of it as a cloud and blow it away.

I'm an old lady and I do Christmas Eve and Easter, and I will do them until I decide I can't handle it any longer. Only then will I let someone else take them over. It's tradition....my Granny did these dinners until late in her 80's (with us chipping in in the kitchen) and my Mother did them into her 80's as well. I have many years to go before I even reach my 80's so I still have them staked out.

Of course, I wish my SD, aka Twit, wouldn't come, but she is always looking for anything free abiet just a good meal.

Hello,

I read with interest all the comments and deep emotional suffering that many of you have encountered due to your skids. I am coming from the same situation basically and it seems to me that the skids are not to be totally blamed for these situations because if the spouses, that are allowing this kind of behavior in their adult children, would lay down the law in the beginning, so to speak, this would not happen. My husband is the same way with his children and I have come to believe that these spouses, like this conflict because they had such difficult relationships with their ex spouses and children that by letting you be the scapegoat, the pressure is taken off of them and they want their ex spouse to feel good somehow? It's the something over and over.

I say "I have had enough and want peace in my life, if my husband wants to play this little game with his (two ex wives and his children, let him but not on my account, done with the stress"..there's so many things that we all have in common and the idea that they are going to change later is ridiculous because it's not going to happen!!! We are just their to let them wipe their feet on us meanwhile manipulating every situation possible. They have no intention of having a relationship with a step parent, it's too difficult for them, when the ex seems bent on destroying the new relationship by poisoning the skids. Well, I think that we should just go on with our lives, I am so bitter now that even being near them makes me sick and I say " for our health and happiness, withdraw and find ourselves again"

Pelicanlover

Hi pelican. Yes we all on this board have many horror stories. Unfortunately these toxic people will be a part of our husband's lives, but I am learning that they do not have to be a part of ours! We have the choice and the right to say no. My dh last night started his rant about judges and lawyers and usually I would then go and say,hey it was your daughters and ex who brought you there in the first place! Duh!!!
But I was determined to keep them out, so I agreed, and kept the conversation non personal. And life went on.
The door stayed shut, and I love what step aside said---keep them out of all conversation, and you and dh will even think about them less.
I do want my marriage to work, and I do realize that no matter what they do, dh will always have a relationship with his daughters.
I on the other, have no desire or interest to ever see such cruel people again. Dh knows where I stand on this issue. He knows the intense pain I feel about the first year of my marriage. He believes it is my own issue--the stress of cancer and the hell of the treatments---I see it as how could they be so heartless knowing what we were going through. Even his own lawyer at one point said for him to be with your wife for her surgery and forget about this for awhile. The lawyer was astounded by the cruelty of his daughters and ex. Seems dh has fiorgotten all that.
I honestly do not know hw you ladies you have very frequent contact deal with people like this.
Life is too short, if my days are limited, they will not include them!