My OH and I have lived together for about a year. We're very different people, from different backgrounds, but we're good together- or at least, I thought we were! The main difficulties we have involve my eldest son and my OH's daughter (16, an only child). My OH is so stressed by his daughter's behaviour over recent months that it has made him very intolerant with my boys, especially my eldest (who can be wilfull, disobedient and loud, like most kids his age) almost to the extent that the poor kid can do no right in my partner's eyes, and, to make matters worse, he has now begun to be deliberately naughty around my partner to antagonise him. He's even admitted to doing this "so that (my partner) will go away". Whenever he misbehaves, my partner is also frequently loudly critical of me, blaming my parenting skills for my son's misbehaviour- often in front of my boys, which infuriates me, as the more he criticises and undermines me in front of them, the less they seem to respect me. If his own child were perfect, I might feel more inclined to conclude that I'm just a bad parent, but all she's done since long before my OH and I met, is run away, fall out with most of her family, my OH included, refuse to attend school, frequently put herself into unsafe situations with dubious people (from which, since I came onto the scene, I have frequently ended up rescuing her) treat her father and I with (at best) disrespect and at worst, outright, blatant contempt. (A typical teen? ) She plays my partner like an orchestra, bullies and cajoles him into giving her whatever she thinks she wants, and generally calls all the shots. He sometimes makes a token protest, but mostly he lets her get away with murder, and in his eyes, she can do no wrong. I also try to be kind to her, but won't tolerate rudeness, and certainly don't treat her as an equal, as I believe, as the adult, I should be in charge, not her. She also regularly tries to undermine my authority with my children, and parrots my partner in his criticisms of my children and parenting skills (extremely irritating, although I try not to to rise to the bait!!) After a fairly recent incident where she "borrowed" (without asking) and then ruined some clothing of mine,then denied having done it (my OH believed her, despite the evidence!) and then swore at me when I raised the matter with her, which I was not prepared to tolerate, I'm now the evil stepmother, and she rarely speaks to me. (Imagine my distress...) She is also currently heavily pregnant (the father is a 15 year old drug dealer, with whom she is insisting upon living.) Social Services are (thank god) heavily involved with her but she refuses point blank to live with us (I don't mind having her but I refuse to have her deadbeat boyfriend anywhere near my boys.) Although she's quite happy to accept money and lifts from me, she has refused to allow me to be involved in any way with the meetings with social services because I'm "nothing to do with the baby" and she does all she can to undermine my relationship with her father. To make matters even worse, he has just lost his job, and today she has demanded / attempted to emotionally blackmail him into moving back to the town she's currently living in. He is so stressed that he's in a permanent bad mood and I can do nothing right. My instinct is to stand by the pair of them and help them, however badly she behaves, but if I do that, am I doing the wrong thing for my own children, especially my eldest? I feel that they both benefit from having a father figure in the home, and from co-parenting. But I also feel he has unreasonably high expectations of them considering their young ages, and he seems to be making an implacable enemy of my eldest son. So what should I do? I love him, and also care deeply about his daughter. But i also love my boys, and don't want their home life to be sullied by conflict. Also, I was a lone parent before I met my OH, and it's tough. I have very little family support (my parents are in their 70's and very (understandably) involved with my recently widowed brother and his two children (quite a bit older than my two) but they see very little of us. If we split up, my mother will criticise me, and blame me for the split. She certainly won't be supportive, and is likely to treat any breakdown in our relationship with satisfaction, as she disapproves of my partner's working class background, and is aghast at his daughter's pregnancy, and at our continued support for her. I want my boys to grow up in a happy, stable two parent family, and to be accepting of others, no matter how diverse their background. But am I doing the right thing by my boys if I stand by my partner?