SD is 14. Recently moved to England with mom and step dad that's in the air force. Long story short mom spoke with daughter and made the decision to move without discussing with her dad. There is no custody order never has been. He was basically told it's what she wants. Mom always lets her do what she wants. She's missed weekends over the years to spend it with friends or birthday parties or her family. I've repeatedly told him to get an order but he just wouldn't do it. Biomom argues and her parents have a lot of money and we don't.

Every once in a while we go through this cycle of our youngest missing his BM. He cry's and throws a tantrum at 7 years old. Mom still lets him sleep with her in her bed and BD house we are trying to get him use to sleeping in his own bed as he is a big boy and we want him to gain confidence. I told him "we love your cuddles but you need room to stretch out. You are growing so much, and we need you to start practicing sleeping in your own bed. Someday you will have a place of your own, so start practicing now that way when that day comes you are ready".

Stepmum of a boy and a girl now grown up. I have been in their lives 21 years. When they were young we were extremely close, l was a mum in every sense including potty training they were so young. Their Mum left their Dad.  Now they are in their twenties l feel a distance. They visit and we get on great but outside of visits they only call and text their Dad, despite setting up a family chat they don't use it.  Face to face we chat away as always, l get all the news updates etc but in between nothing, while their Dad gets all the photos and in-between information.

We are a messy bunch bt that leaves no excuse to live in filth the two girls share a room wich is understandable it's gonna get messy bt I'm talking about just trash piled up and clothes piled up and it's a screaming fight to get them to even pick up enough to walk in their room and while there cleaning there room there throwing punches at each other and the step son sleeps with a huge pile of I dunno what and clothes on the bed all over the floor you can barely open the door most days and if I try talking to him about it i get told don't talk to me ur making me mad I dunno what to do we ha

Sometimes, when I have a calm moment, I wonder how the skids are doing with their lives.

Maybe it's because I want to confirm what I predicted years ago, during the early years of my marriage, when I first noticed them displaying some pretty unsettling behaviors.

While browsing OSD’s social media, I saw her standing on a street corner at night wearing what I could only describe as a ‘Lady of the Evening’ outfit. I had a choice to make: should I let DH know about OSD’s new post, or should I simply ignore it?

We had a recent snowstorm, and where i live, everything stops. Schools, government, roads, stores - all closed for a week. My SO had to remain at work from Monday until yesterday because of this, and SS14 and SS20 were at his house. Since i live only a few houses down, i promised SO i would look after them. I cooked for them, cleaned, and told SS14 that if he left to walk to a friend's house, please let me know.

Had to go to a customer's house today that was on the same street in the same village as Pumpkinhead's house (OSS28).  I had never actually been by his house before... I just knew that he and his now wife purchased it about 3 years ago.

This post is lengthy and probably not clear. My mind is spinning so please bear with me. 

SS12 visited this weekend. If you all remember, this visit was supposed to occur in February, but SS had a sport tournament, so BM unilaterally moved DH's parenting time to January to accommodate. DH and I didn't have any plans either weekend so we didn't fight it. 

Ah, after months of SS18 and DH not talking much, all of a sudden SS is blowing up DH's phone. Funny how that works when he needs something.

Morningmia recently wrote a powerful post about kindness—specifically, the selfishless and thankless kindness that a stepparent gives to their skids. The kind of kindness that’s poured out endlessly, even when it’s met with nothing but resistance, indifference, or outright hostility.

The responses to her post were like a collective sigh of shared experience—a raw, honest summary of what happens when good people try to extend love and kindness to those who have no intention of reciprocating it, and in fact, wish them nothing but harm.