Oh boy, this is going to get interesting.

I am a bit puzzled, as you say you have only been on the site a few weeks, yet your bio states over 2 years.
You must have seen that we get posts like this every so often ie "you knew what you were getting into" posts - and they do nothing except make people irate, because it is such a naive and simplistic statement.
Not really sure why you would want to post this unless you want to get heavily criticised.

Well, guess what? When you are involved in ANY WAY WHAT SO EVER with a man with kids, you can't win. I saw the issues...I decided pretty quick that I would not marry this man, no way could we blend our families with the problems with the exw and our parenting differences due to his coddling/Disney Dad behavior. We do not live together. And STILL I get grief because apparently I am supposed to be stand-in mom when he has his kids. I'm supposed to plan my weekends around them, spend time with them, let them in my house to trash, and cater to their desires. And so are my kids. *I* control my life and my happiness, *I* decide how much drama I'm going to let into it, and if that doesn't include his weekends with his kids, I should have that right. But NOPE. So you can't win.

And no...there aren't plenty of men out there without kids at my age. But these men are old enough to see the stupid things they are doing and get a grip on how they are raising their children. I think most SM's have a bigger problem with the SO than the skids. The skids are doing what the bios allow...and that's the bios fault.

Meh, my DH's "kids" were adults when we got married. No package dealio for me. Oh and believe me, SD27 knows I don't like her. It's OK. The world keeps spinning.

Bookishworm, what a wise question. Earlier on in her monologue about how sane and balanced she is, Tweety criticised other posters, as motivated "more looking for people to back up their rants and keep it rolling". I chuckled somewhat but read on. I'd say that related to about 1% of posts. Then finally I read, "I originally came on this site for some advice about my SS and after reading all the posts I decided that I would not post my story or ask for anyones advice because it just seems like everyone wants to bitch about how bad their lives are."
So, instead of carrying through her amazing karmic superiority by simply dropping the site and departing in a civilised fashion, Tweety decided to deposit some little green droppings on our heads as she twittered off on her merry way.
I had a look at her bio by clicking her name, and found "I am a step parent to a 15 year old boy. Our relationship has deteriorated over the past couple of years. I am frustrated and not sure how to deal with this. It is affecting my relationship with my partner as well".
I'd say shit or get off the pot.

Tweetybird, you need to understand that most of us that come here needed an outlet because our situations are not as lucky or simple as yours ( it seems ). Maybe there is a better place for you where there are others in your situation. But coming here and basically slamming all the rest of us for being bitter, rude, horrible, stepmonsters ( which is what you're saying without coming right out ) is only sparking an argument and I'm sorry, but in some ways it feels like you're either a bioparent who logged on to read us all the riot act , or possibly even faking just to stir up trouble for parents who are NOT in your lucky situation and actually need this forum to get things off our chests.

You seem like you're only here to chastise the rest of us and rub our noses in what we use this site for.

Why are you here? Can you answer that question? What's your purpose.. to start arguments? To make yourself feel good by essentially scolding all of us for being here?
Do explain.

You coming here to Steptalk is like you're going to the wrong self help meeting.

It's like you've shown up to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, but you're not an overeater and you're telling us all how fat and disgusting we are... Does this analogy help?

It's like you're talking to a bunch of people who have broken bones about how it can't possibly hurt to break something, but you've NEVER BROKEN A BONE so you HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT AND WE DON'T RELATE!!!!

Don't you GET IT?!

You claim your SS stole from his grandmother and you justified that by saying there was a bit of history there and that he had no respect for his grandmother. The way you have written it, it comes across as if you think Grandma has given him cause to disrespect her, and therefore she deserved it. Okay, let's say Grandma is a rotten old cow, maybe she even stole his tooth fairy money from under his pillow as he was growing up and for that and a million other reasons he has no respect for her. FINE, if he has no respect for her, then stay away from her, that is what he should have been told. However, clearly he went around to her house and he STOLE from his own grandmother, and for you to somehow make it her fault, well that's just not right. He "tries" cocaine of all things ONCE you say, well I would say that was once you knew of. God only knows what else he was on before he tried the cocaine. By the way, not EVERY teenager tries it, although far too many of them do I agree. But I have never heard of any of them going straight to cocaine. Now maybe they do, but I would be wondering if he hadn't been smoking funny cigarettes at least before he tried cocaine. But, you excuse his drug taking like you excuse his stealing. You went so far to say it was NORMAL teenage experimenting. It is not normal anything to try cocaine. Why did he steal, was it for drug money. You come across with an answer and an excuse for everything, you've got it all sewn up, so why did you come onto this site in the first place.

Somewhere in your posts you said your original intention was to post on this site to get advice, but after reading through some posts you decided we we were just pretty much vindictive and hateful (not your words) but that is pretty much what you meant. Okay, you came, you saw, and you should have just gone, but no not you, you had to start attacking posters on this site and letting us all know what an understanding saint you are and how bad we are. I suspect you have far more problems than you let on, the fact that you even looked for a site like this in the first place, let alone posted on it indicates that despite you coming across as having all the answers, you don't. Attacking people on this site to make you feel better about yourself and your parenting is not going to help you or your SS.

Okay I am going to take what you have written above at face value and accept that you did not intentionally come on here to start an arguement. I also accept your apology. May I please offer a word of advice. Don't generalize. Everyone's situation is quite different. I note you say your SS father does the parenting. So many of us on this site wouldn't even be here if we had just that much. A parent who parents the child.

There are parents on here who are bio parents and their kids are pretty much being punished by the new partner because they are living in the family home while his only come on access, there are parents like myself I have three adult children, my husband also has three adult children, and none of them live at home, they all have their own homes/families etc., his can (well they to used till I said no more) come in here refuse to say hello/goodbye, isolate, humilate and ignore me completely, go through private paperwork in the pretext of having to use the computer, demand anything and everything in the most ungrateful disrespectful way and a zillion other things, including the the sooner you two die crap, and according to my DH, they are his kids and they can do what they like, he does not care. No my kids, well God help them and myself if they do not say "hello" first to my husband when they come in the door, he even told my 4 year old grandson once, you haven't said hello to me yet, I won't be saying it to you first.....a 4 year old and he demands respect from him, his adult childen, well not so much. My DH and his children expect to be treated as God's they all know they are a higher class of human being and the rest of us are here to serve.

Now this gets me to your package deal theory. When you make that statement, you are assuming that we all met our stepkids and saw how our partners interacted with them before we married/moved in, set up a life with them. This alas is not always the case. In my case, my husband and I had been married for a year and a half before he even spoke to one of his kids on the phone, let alone met them. I fell in love with the man he said he was, he was fine for that first year and a half, but when his daughter wanted a new car and decided to come back into daddy's life, well.............The man I married disappeared well and truly, he changed almost overnight. He changed I guess to the man he really was, not the man he pretended to be to me when we met.

I put up with so much from him and his children and I did it for 8 years. I did not throw in the towel in a heartbeat. I tried so hard, I always left the room whenever they came around just to give them a few minutes alone time with their dad in case they wanted to set up something with him, ie; I want to talk to you in private lets' meet for coffee. I desperately wanted my husband to be happy, and I wanted him to have a relationship with his kids. However, and this is the part I have only just woken up to. THEY DID NOT WANT TO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH ME. I was never and will never be part of their family, not because of anything I have done, but because as long as I am with their father he will not hand his pay over to them and that is what they apparently always had. He gave them everything they ever wanted and now we were struggling to build a life together and could not throw money at them they were mad as hell and I got the blame. The fact that they are all adults in their thirties has not penetrated their skulls, they still think they should be riding on daddy's gravy train, that in itself is a problem, however the bigger problem is that my DH thinks they should be too.

Ultimately in her quest to break up our relationship his daughter went behind the boyfriends back and suddenly after 6 years of having sex with this guy, has an accident, and falls pregnant. Her behaviour which was horrendous before turned pure evil once she became pregnant. The baby was her trump card, she knew 1000% that once she had that baby daddy would leave me. So, it finished up me banning her from my home. 8 years of hell, 8 years of me becoming more and more physically and emotionally ill, 8 years of destroying my self esteem and my confidence, 8 years of trying to find my place in this family, when in fact, there was NO PLACE in this family for me. Package deal, no, there was no package deal as far as his kids were concerned, and as far as my DH was concerned, he thought he could run two families, with his children being head of one of them. All he wanted out of this was to do whatever his children wanted him to do, the moment they wanted it, and give them whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it. He bred a pack of blood sucking vampires and he still wanted them to feed of not only his blood, but mine now as well. He wanted me to prepare myself for a lifetime of abuse and hatred from his kids, and he wanted me to do that without complaint. He and they had no intentions of changing, of meeting half way, of ever accepting I was part of their family. In fact the daughters boyfriend rang my DH up after she had had the baby and was home from the hospital and said his daughter wanted him to come around and see the baby....however, if he wanted to see the baby, then he had to leave me.

I did not sign up for this, the only things I knew about my husband's kids before we married were that they were fantastic kids who got hurt when he left, but could't see him because there mother would not like it, but they loved him. Yeah, in his dreams. But when you suggest that we knew our partners had kids, and we shouldn't feel the way we do, you as I said are assuming an awful lot.

My doctor has advised me that people with the disorder my husband and his daughter have are masters at being charming until they hook you in then they become what I am living with, and it is not good. I had no option but to ban his daughter from my home in the end, I could not live with more than one person with NPD my husband, his sons and his daughter all have it, his daughter well I think she has crossed the line and is a physcopath and this was as I said not the package my DH let me to believe I was getting. This girl almost got her wish, I was becoming so depressed that dying looked pretty good for a while there, then sanity prevailed and I just told her not to come back to my home ever again. I told my husband he was free to go with her and now I am looking after myself first, and my husband second. I now take care of myself because I know my husband is incapable of looking out for anyone but him. This is not the man I married, but it is the man I now live with and I have a lot of work on my hands trying to see if this marriage can be mended after all the damaged DH allowed his daughter to do. My story is not disimilar to many others on this site. It is not all cut and dry. It is not so easily explained as you knew he had kids before your married, sure, but what we didn't what was kept from us, was that our DH's were never going to parent them, were afraid of them. Would defend them to the death even when they were clearly way way out of line, and would expect us to happily put up with playing second best to his kids. You are very, very lucky your DH parents his son. You have support from your DH. Most of us on here are doing it on our own, and worse still with a partner who thinks his kids can do what they like and we should shut up and live with it.

It is not ALWAYS the steparents fault, in most cases it is NOT the steparents fault. The biological parent is primarly to blame for allowing the situation to exist in the first place. The failure of a parent to parent is the real reason for all of this, so attacking step parents and thinking it is up to us to make it work is unfair. It is up to the biological parent to teach their children respect and their place. It is up to our partners to support us and it is up to our partners to stop the abuse their children throw at us. Doesnt' matter if we knew what we were getting into or not, once this situation turns sour, our partners should be a partner and a parent, and it does not mean he has to be one or the other, it means he needs to support his wife, and he needs to teach his children some manners simaltainously. You as said are lucky, your partner is taking responsibility for his child, yet you too are on this site. How much harder is it for us who's partners are too scared of their kids to parent them.

Thanks for that tiny little bit of a hint, Tweety. Seemingly you and DH have managed to eliminate the BM, apparently with the help of a child therapist and her own lawyer. So woo hoo, cat's away, birdies can play. No wonder you don't get the problem. Your SS has no conflict of loyalty and you are never under attack.
I'm really happy for you and your DH and SS, Tweety, despite your strange desire to pity other SPs who haven't polished their crystal balls hard enough, but you're still not spilling the beans. Why are you coming to a site where step-parents come to vent?

nobody owes miss perfect an explanation. i hate my sd19. so what? i didn't just decide to hate her, she decided that with her behavior. if the bridge dweller really thinks things are that black and white, what chance does anyone really have of getting thru? why bother? i can feel however i feel, it's not wrong. it just is. how anyone else feels about it really isn't relevant to my life.

Tweetybird you say you have noticed many steparents on here are not even willing to go to counselling....well, let me tell you this, many steparents on this site, not only do go to counselling sessions, but go on their own, because the biological parents, don't think there is anything wrong with them or their kids. There was a poster on this site that wants to go to counselling, step family, can't quite fit it in, has read books on the subject, came onto this site to look for answers, seemed to be doing everything in her power to make this step family thing work....what did her DH and his kids do, nothing. I was more than willing to go to counselling, but again my stepkids are wonderful, going to counselling brought out hoots of laughter, and my husband was once again offended that I should think his kids needed counselling, and as for him, his response was........ME! You think I should go to counselling, what about YOU, you're the one who needs it, you just hate my kids. End of discussion. Me, well I am seeking help, I too got on this site, and I am smart enough to sort out the riff raff from the genuine good people who have good knowledge on the subject and can pass it on inteligently and without bitterness.

I have only seen 2 adult stepdaughters getting on this site and asking for opinions, I have seen a few stepdads getting on this site, but don't recall any biological parents getting on here and saying my kids are doing horrible things to my wife, how do you think I should handle it. My own husband has and will not read a book on it, will absolutely not attend counselling, when the GP mentioned it to him, he didn't even bother to answer him,just sat there and said nothing till the doctor moved on from the subject. Complete denial. You do not have a husband like that.

I am the only one in this family that has sought help with the step thing, and let me tell you this, If I stopped working on this tomorrow, if I threw my husband out lock stock and barrel, no one could blame me. So if you see people on this site refuse counselling, there may very well be years of being the only one trying behind it. Stepmothers cannot fix this up all by themselves, because usually, the kids don't want a step parent, and dad instead of understanding that, and saying, look, she is not your mother, but she is my wife, so zip it, panders to them and says, they don't want you to go here or there, they don't want you at their wedding, at the hospital after the birth of their child, they don't want you to touch their child, so that's all good with me, I am going to live two seperate lives with two seperate families, see ya. My own husband felt they were quite within their rights to come into my home and not say hello, goodbye or kiss my butt, because they didnt' want too, did they have any reason to treat me like that, NO, had I done anything to them no, they just didn't like daddy having someone new in his life, they of course had gotten on with theirs, and daddy was not allowed to have an opinion in who they chose as a partner, but that again was okay. NO, that is not a marriage. That is just an easy way out for daddy.

Your situation is unlike most of ours and I realise you cannot appreciate what we are going through, not in your wildest dreams, because you have a husband who parents his child, who would not allow his child to insult you, to isolate, humilate and ignore you. The complete lack of support from the man of your dreams against the continuous attacks of his kids is unbearable, you don't really care about what his kids are saying to you as much as you care that your husband, the man who is supposed to be there for you, the man that you were always there for, completely lets you down, and worse still, sides with another woman against you. Make no mistake tweetybird, his daughter is the other woman, and she knows it. These grown women with partners and babies of their own, will still flirt with daddy, play the helpless female with daddy, continually ask daddy for advice but never follow it because they really don't want his opinion, it is just an act to play cute with daddy. Daddy on the other hand keeps doling out the advice and is wetting himself with excitement doing it,because his baby values his opinion.

You have something far more valuable than you realise. Most of us would kill for a supportive husband, we don't have it and we vent on this site to save our sanity. I also don't like some of the things I read on thi site, but have never started a thread like yours. I realise you have apologised twice now, but go back and read how you started this and then you may understand why people are getting hot under the collar. You may be right perhaps some people just want someone to in your opinion back up their rants, but in mine, I think they are just looking for support. When something gets put in writing it does not always come across the way we meant it, your post when you started this thread for example came across as nothing but your so perfect and we're so bad. We get enough of that at home thanks, this site is supposed to be safe from it.

The thing is: you can't know exactly what you're getting yourself into until you're already there.

Tweety, I am sure your intentions are good, but it comes across a bit snobbish.There are many Smoms who tried hard for years but simply gave up after years of frustration and being rejected.Nobody here a hateful person until all those challeges came up, the way you put it across it sounds as if those who struggle and vent here are somehow evil and that's not fair.You can't really only blame the smoms for the disaster they live in- many times the skids , who are not parented well, are really hard to handle!!
The way I look at it is some of us have it easier than others.I am a lucky woman because my SO is mostly supportive and listens to me more than at the beginning.SD 7 was a princess and an entitled mini-wife for SO and I got very resentful when I realized with what she got away for so long.She also put herself into the middle of him and me.
Thanks to this site I managed to articulate many of my concerns and SO listened and changed a lot around.
Most of the times I feel ok with SD and sometimes I even feel close to her and find her cute.BUT THIS IS DUE TO SO PUTTING OUR RS FIRST AND TREATING SD AS A CHILD INSTEAD A MINI ADULT NOW.I am very sure that if SO would have been still allowing SD everything like before I would have eventually ended up hating her one day or running away.
So, Tweetie, before you tweet about those Stepmothers who come here to vent, please try to give them some credit instead of blaming them.Most of us trying our very best and I havent seen anyone here being abusive or straight forward mean to their skids.All they do is letting it out here and normally suck it up.

LOL it's like poking an angry bear.

Imagine this situation:

- Woman marries a man, becomes a stepmom to his kids. Has only the best intentions of a happy family.
- Interacts with the kids, and does her best to try to be a part of their lives.
- The kids are resentful of the new "mom" and reject her as not really their mother. Much of this is due to the BM not liking the stepmom and wanting to create problems.
- Stepkids are mean or rude or disrespectful (or all of the above) to the stepmom.
- The stepmom continues to try to make the situation work.
- The kids continue to be disrespectful, and to make matters worse the DH allows this to go on. He is afraid to upset the kids or not seem like their "friend".
- The stepmom tries to discipline the kids herself since the father will not, but this only makes them more disrespectful.
- The relationship becomes strained between the stepmom and her husband because she never sees him taking up for her or her feelings.
- Family functions are very unpleasant, with having to deal with rude stepchildren and the bio-mom.
- Even though the situation seems hopeless, the stepmother hangs in and hopes that one day things will get better.
- Instead of leaving, she disengages from the situation in an attempt to stay sane and reduce the crazy levels of stess she deals with every day.

Now I know every situation is not like this, and there are cases where the stepparent is mean to the stepkids from the start, or maybe do things to create the bad situation. I would guess that is a small minority of situations, however. In most, the whole reason there is a family is because they love the SO and want to get married. They realize the kids are going to be in the picture and try to make the best of it.

Why are you critical of these people? They are trying their best in a very hard and unhappy situation, and rather than leaving they are trying to make it work.

I totally agree with tweetybird's original post & to be honest im surprised at how many "I hate my stepkids" posts I've read on here. Now i can't say whether they are warranted or not.... Since i am not in their shoes. I will however admit to praying that i never have to feel the same hatred towards my skids as some of the ppl on here do towards theirs. Believe me I have my days with them that are far from pleasant but i still have a genuine love for them and go out of my way to show them they are wanted.

Lololol

So package deal huh?

I guess then, horrible, rude, mother-in-laws, father-in-laws, hostile siblings of your spouse are also included in this "package" right, especially since they basically share the same amount of DNA as my spouse? And I must put up with it?

Okay, but I damn sure hope this package came with a good defense system (my spouse) to protect me from that crap. If not, I might have to write my own software for it, whether they like it or not.

My signature can be taken as a positive or negative... Depends on what kind of day we're having lol

And yes my mother in law definitely isn't my biggest fan but she is still treated with the utmost respect. Not only because she is my mother in law but also she is a senior and i was raised to treat my elders with respect... To do otherwise only taints my own character & gives her exactly what she wants... An actual reason to not like me. Not to mention i expect my spouse to treat my family with the same respect!

Yes they are a package deal. Nobody said they weren't. What pisses us SM's off is when we are expected to take on a parent role and love them like we would love ours. The skids don't have to love us like we're theirs, now do they? My DH's kids are his thing. I don't have to or want to be a part of it. I never told my DH to choose me over his kids. WTF? Don't come onto our site and get all preachy and shit. We hate that.

It is true. I knew that my DH had 2 young daughters (10 & 15). He's 56 and I'm 50. I had already raised my son, but he was a widower and I had always wanted daughters. I should have taken my own advice, "be careful for what you wish for" because I got it in spades. Their mother's death took a toll on them. I was hoping I could come in and save them all, but I was "dead" wrong (no pun intended). I took on children who were dealing with a traumatic experience. I immediately got them into counseling, I tried to be the supportive, understanding woman figure. I didn't come into their home and change everything. To this day there are still pictures of their mother hanging up. To the youngest SD10, I am the wicked step mom whom she hates with all her might. She has put food coloring in my shampoo and conditioner, she has broken my things, she has no respect for me and I think in some strange way blames me for her mother's death.

I came into this marriage wearing my rose colored glasses and now I am suffering migraine headaches trying to help this child.

@prinloel1 "I'm a step mom, i love my step daughter"
Sentences like these i have rarely seen on here and i think that may have been the posters point.

I love my skids and by no means lay down and die with a smile on my face if they decide to get under my skin. I do not however blame them for everything as i can also be at fault or (more likely lol) its my DH that has arsed something up! But i refuse to write them off or give up on my relationship with them.. And would definitely not encourage or demand that their father do so either because imho any man that willingly gives his children up for the sake of a woman... Is not worth having! (although im sure there are exceptions)

not2sureimsanea... Beautifully said, and absolutely correct.

This is the exact reason this site exists. When you are mad at your mother you tell your bff or sib. When you are mad at your SO you tell someone. When you are upset with your Skids you vent here. To people that don't make you feel bad for it. It is okay to be unhappy with different situations. Just because someone states their skids drive them nuts or they secretly cannot stand them doesn't make them wrong or bad, it makes them honest. It is hard to be selfless and love someone that comes with baggage like bm's or skids. This site makes me feel sane for the way I think. I am a nice person. I married a nice person. He has a good son with a not so good person. I come here to blow up so I can be a good role model and wife. I hope to be an influential person in all I do in my life. This doesn't mean that I do not get mad. I get down right PISSED! Without this site I would have cussed out bm, dh, gma, and ss and said to hell with this. There is a time and place for everything. I say "Say whatever you want ladies! I will not judge. I actually applaud you for your honesty and not letting this get the best of you."

Yes it is a package deal but everyones situation is different. In my case I met my no husband after my job relocated me. I had a super nice apt. but we discussed it would be more practicle if my son and i moved into his house. everything was peaches and cream at first for we both had good jobs. Once we started remodeling the house which was in need of many repairs our money got a little tighter. My SD was 19 and on disability. Diagnosed as being mildy autistic. Very mild. She is smart and u would never notice it unless you spent enough time around her. Her reading is bad and being 19 boys was an issue. A big issue. My son was only 14 and I even had to watch her around his friends. He was even smart enough to tell his friends she had problems but yet he could not have normal friend stuff because she would try to force herself on them. My husband was receiving sui to help with her support but when I came into the picture she decided that all the money should be spent on her. Now she had about 100 dollars a week for herself but she wanted it all and I started looking at the bank statements and seeing for myself. I asked to talk with both of them one day and said" Your dad gets help because of your age and disability. You have spending money what is the problem? By the time he bought her "special shampoos and stuff and paid the huge electric bill, for she would change no joke 4 to 5 times a day and do about 30 loads of laundry a week, we were in the minus on his part. until i came along what SD wanted SD got. before we got married we sat and discussed all the issues and we agreed on how we were going to handel things but it never happened. She said " You take care of your son why should'nt my dad take care of me?' THis child had a good mind for money. I said" Number one this is your dads house and I am helping him fix it up to make it a home we can enjoy" " I don't have to but I am because i love your dad" "Secondly My son is only 14 and does not get a check every month and I pay a lot for him and I to live here" " Now if you like we can sit down and divide things up because i would like to have a savings account that grows instead of shrinking" So since you want to be treated like a grown up we caan divide into 3 way all the bills. She turned red and got mad went up and slammed doors. Now we were not ogars and we made sure she had spending money in fact we always came out on the losing end.But you see yes it is a package deal but things always have to be made fair for everyone involved. She ruined every relationship he tried to have. One time she spilled all of his GF perfume in the toilet and put the bottles back, broke her hair dryer etc....needless to say the lady left. Package deals does'nt mean a person should be treated like a nobody because of one selfish child. everyones cicumstance is different

I have to get in on this conversation! Listen, yes we knew that our BFs or in my case hubby had a child or children. Most of us here have accepted that aspect, myself included. But with any blended family or when there are SKs involved there are certain issues that arise that it helps to be able to discuss with others who have experienced or can offer advice. Furthermore I would never make my hubby choose me over his child, that is ridiculous nor have a seen any posts on this website where anyone has stated such. You have a SS17, LMAO! We will see how happy and accepting you are in a few months, if not sooner! ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!

FINALLY

All I see around this site for the most part is stepparents whining and complaining about their stepkids for the most part. I'm sooooo glad someone said this. I understand that relationships with stepchildren can be stressful and all that but WE DID KNOW WHAT WE WERE GETTING INTO. It makes me laugh so hard that someone would call that statement naive. Honestly? People who think it's going to be peaches and cream are delusional, and borderline stupid. Stepchildren, in my opinion, have every right to be angry, harsh, demanding, and anything else deemed "unreasonable". Do you know why? Because their lives were basically torn apart. Maybe if people spent more time trying to understand this than they did posting crap about how unfair their lives are (wow, that sounds like a 5 year old state of mind) they might get somewhere with the kids. Yes. They are a package deal. You are SO right it's amazing. I do my best to understand my stepkids and they turned out great. Their BM isn't the best lady, in my opinion, but she's their mother nonetheless and you need to deal with that. Dealing doesn't mean hostile CHILDISH behavior. Thank god someone finally pointed this out. There are so many delusional people out there that it almost makes me wonder who told you all it was all about you.

I married my DH because i wanted to be with him and thought yes it might be hard with SD but thought i could make it work. tried and tried again and guess what it dont always work with skid package deal or not. me and DH have very strong relationship but i have no relationship whatsoever with his kid. here is what i see is major problem with skids. you constantantly have to walk on eggshells with them you can never say anything that might hurt their feelings. with my own kids i can say exactly what i feel, if i hate what they are wearing i say it, if they are being rude i say it, if they are acting like baby i call them out and when they are doing good i point out the postive or if they look cute i tell them wow you look nice today ect ect ect but with skid you cant say anything negative ever without looking like evil stepmom. i used to say stuff to SD good and bad but if i pointed out the bad i am awful so damn if i will only point out the good how the hell would that make bio kids feel?? so bacially the skids end up alienating themself from the SM since you are not allowed to talk to them like your own children makes it hard to develop any sort of connection with them.

I have not had the pleasure of reading through all of the responses.

Seriously, you can not expect anyone to predict the future. Crazy BM's often are in hiding until after a wedding, once they realize there is an actual "stepmom" or "new wife" in the picture, it knocks a screw loose in their brains. There is no way to explain what happens. And I assure you that there are plenty of NUCLEAR marriages where the husband or wife feels the need to vent about the other. This is not a new concept, venting about things in life that annoy you. I don't understand why we get so much heat for venting about our spouse's ex's, and/ or the kids. I happen to be very lucky in the skid department. He is a great kid, but I tell you what... I vent about OTHER peoples kids all of the time and if any one of them would have ended up my skid... my posts here would be much different!!

Relax, no one is saying that we just didn't realize he had kids... or that he had "baggage" blah blah blah... sometimes we just get the "I didn't sign up for this crap" feeling, and if we don't get it out... then we will explode!!