Doesn't sound petty at all! Your child should be able to feel special and be treated special too! Nothing would burn my ass more than a friggin skid and their sports schedule being the determining factor of my child's special day...heads would roll...I am BEYOND fed up with a world that resolves around poor little skids...all the parents are doing is creating rotten, selfish, entitled monsters that the rest of us will have to deal with!

The day my DH even tries to let his turd ruin our plans etc will be the day they can both have each other bc I will be OUT!!! No child is running MY life!!!

Please don't make the mistake I did and assume that "things will get better".

I fell in love with a man who had 3 children (one adult daughter from his first wife - this daughter, now a grown woman I am close to) and two young boys who are now adults and also wonderful to me.

The boys lived with us for a small time but they were raised primarily by their grandmother due to their father being away at work overseas. I only married my husband after the children were raised. Then - just prior to our marriage - he had a brief relationship with a woman who bore him a daughter.

All three of the older children are lovely, kind and respectful to me and always have been, even as children and teens. I spend time with them both with and without my husband.

And then there is the 4th child who will be entering HS in a year. Her mother abandoned her at a young age and so I have always been mindful of this (I can only imagine how awful it must feel to her).

She was a preschooler when we married and for the first 6 years or so we were very close. But once she reached her teen years, everything in the house changed.

My husband started ignoring me completely and making her the princess. When we go out to eat, they move their seating or plates to be next to her. She sits on his lap (yes, at her age). He runs her bathwater. She has never - not once - done any chores because he will not allow it (he will actually pick up her dirty clothes from the floor each night after her bath). He buys her thousands of dollars worth of clothing and gives her excessive amounts of money yet when he started doing this, chose to stop supporting me. (I have my own income but his is $75,000 a year more than mine, so this is a little disconcerting, to say the least, especially because he asked me to retire early to care for her since she was so little, and live off my savings and early retirement.)

I never complain and just take care of my own bills, but still it's ridiculous how my SD and husband regard money and family. For example, when we go grocery shopping, my SD gets cash to buy groceries for her and her dad, and on one occasion when I put a $2 item in her line, she rudely said, "My dad gives me money for us! You buy your own food!" My mouth just dropped open in shock (she was 13 at the time) but now this is a regular thing. When I tried to discipline her for this very inappropriate behavior, my husband instead chose to take sides and berated me instead of correcting her.

On her 13th birthday, SHE dictated what kind of car she wanted him to buy (he was in the market for a new car), insisting that it becomes hers when she turns 16, and she tells us we can't eat in the car because it's hers. I had absolutely no say in the choice of family vehicle; they went car-shopping together.

Recently she told me that my husband told her that our house was hers and that she would inherit it when he dies. Not only is this untrue (we are jointly on the deed) but it's incredibly offensive. Yet when I asked my husband about it, he confirmed he had said this. I told my SD that we jointly owned the house; that I had put a lot of money into it; and that if her father died first, I would leave it to all 4 of my stepchildren when I die. She then responded with her current mantra of "You're not family to me." And then I wondered: why am I even justifying to a child that I'm on the deed, etc.?

I know she hurts because her mother (who has abandoned all of her children by four different men - she is a drug addict) has never even bothered to send her a birthday card. I know this child is emotionally fragile, and she has been in counseling, at my suggestion, where she has been diagnosed as severely depressed for feeling angry at her mother abandoning her all those years ago. My guess is that she acts this way in order to try to regain some kind of control in her life.

But I am angry at my husband for encouraging her rude insulting behavior. She likes to tell me that I'm stupid and mocks me in front of her father. This so disturbed my stepsons that they've gotten angry and told her to start respecting me because they love me and that (even though they're grown) I'm their stepmom too. If I try to correct her, my husband instead corrects ME and this results in more power on her part. She knows she runs the show. I suspect, too, that he uses her as a tool against me, and this confuses me because we previously had a strong marriage.

He also discusses very adult things with her (such as telling her that his former wife cheated on him, which is true but none of a child's business) and uses her as an emotional crutch.

I've been in counseling for the past 18 months over this (my husband refuses to go because he likes things the way they are). My therapist agrees that this is not normal teenage acting out (after all, the other children never did it, but, as I said, their earlier lives were not so traumatic) and that my husband's relationship with my SD is a kind of "emotional incest".

I, too, kept thinking that if I could just wait until she's 18 and moves out, that maybe then I could try to convince my husband to go to counseling with me to repair our marriage. But today he announced that he plans on having her live in the house all through college and until she marries. And I'm betting he will, because I have no say in this marriage or this home any longer. There is nothing sexually strange (he acknowledges her as his daughter) but emotionally, he is crippling her and hurting me. He sets no boundaries and she is now more the wife (except for sexually) than I am. She decides where we eat out, and sometimes they will just take off together, without informing me, to eat out or go to a movie. My husband was NEVER this way with the other children. They were expected to get jobs in high school, do chores, and obey adult figures, and respect me as an equal ADULT partner in the home. And they all turned out great.

I have tried and tried to make my husband understand that he is creating a spoiled, insecure teen who will have a hard time when she DOES move out and get a job in a few years because she gets almost everything she wants all the time and has zero responsibilities (except in school). She's talked him into 4 different pets and he takes care of all them (he cleans the litter box, etc.)so she doesn't even have responsibility in this manner, either. She gets every new toy (IPhone, Ipad, and laptop) and her closets are littered with clothing with the price tags still on them.

My advice to anyone contemplating marrying a man with children: agree BEFORE your marriage what the parameters will be, because afterwards you will struggle to change what you don't like. I love all of my stepkids and am heartbroken to have lost this relationship with her, but even more heartbroken to know that she will probably never mature in a relationship with a boy or man as she ages as long as she is Daddy's Girl.

I honestly don't think my marriage will outlast their cozy little club where they both make it clear that I have no place in the home or the marriage. It is hurtful to me and hurtful to my other stepchildren who observe this. No parent or step-parent should compete with a child for power or love. The family unit should set boundaries so that the father's love for his child is separate from his love for his wife, both unconditional and not in competition.

Believe me - the chances of it getting better are pretty slim, my therapist says, and I am beginning (sadly) to believe this.

Yeah, he's an ass. But it's the best thing he could've done for you.