My boyfriend’s 30th birthday is coming up. What should be a simple task: planning a surprise party, has turned into a high school drama disaster event. In my first entry, I tried to explain the childishness of some of his family members and friends. Unfortunately I think I made him inadvertently look like the bad guy and while I do sometimes consider leaving and living a much less complicated life, it is obvious that I’m not going to. He is a really good guy and although he does hate the drama his friends create, they are still his friends.

My last two blogs were pretty easy to understand. I moved out of FMIL's where FH has to reside until I can get out of school and take over the business and pay our mortgage. (We'll have our own house by this time next yeeaarr! Finally!)

FMIl has gone mad. she is really angry that i moved out. FH has been keeping the kids away from her as much as possible. my last blog summed up real quick:

A quick background - My parents split 12 years ago - typical teenager I gave my SM and BD a major problem everytime I went there. BM would tell me how terrible my dad and SM were (PAS to the EXTREME! - took me 10 years AND my DH to open my eyes to it, and I was able to mend the hurt that I caused - we hadn't spoken in close to 5-6 years, then would speak minimally, and just in the last 2 years I have had a decent relationship with BD and SM).

This wkd SS8 spent the night at a friends house so we todl SS5 that it was b/c we wanted to spend special time with him. We took him to the harbor for ice cream and to a special dinner. So on the drive home, SS5 is talking about a variety of things as normal. When we got home, I was doing laundry and I hear SS5 tell DH out of the blue b/c they were talking about Wonder Pets that he wants BM's b/f, CJ, to move out so that they can have the place to themselves. So DH said you dont like CJ? SS5 goes no I do, but him and Mommy yell at each other all the time and their faces get red.

I'm new to this site, and I am glad there is a forum for us to share our experiences as step-parents.
My boyfriend and I have been dating since July 2008. He is in the military and he was stationed in a different city between March 2009 and January 2010. I visited him twice a month during that time. It was always like a honeymoon.
He has a 10yrd old daughter that he totally adores. We just moved into a new house in February and his daughter came to live with us on March 5th. The little girl doesn't get along with her biological mother and step-brothers... long story.

First- Thank you to everyone who has posted on my previous blogs & has been wondering how things went with the b-day party.

S-Talkers,

I was skimming some threads and found this little nugget of wisdom from one of our own Stalkers.

"No matter what… when you genuinely show a child the true love of a parent it leaks in… even through the tightest cracks." Moon Child Step Mom.

Wow, with people and wisdom like this, how can StepParents get labeled and saddled with the contempt that many feel for us?

It is easy to be one of the good guys when our community comes up with stuff like this.

Best regards,

Wooohooo...almost 2 years after The Albatross (BM) moved out of the house, and over 4 years since BF found out about her affair, the divorce will FINALLY be final this Weds. Even though they were long done before I started seeing him, I really do regret moving in with him before the big "D" was finalized. BUT, with that said, I love him tremendously and I feel like this will be a huge burden removed from our relationship.

So I have been feeling really nauseated and sleepy the last five days and in the past 2 days I've gotten really horrid diarreah (overshare I know). I took a pregnancy test to be sure it was that (although I knew it wasn't better safe than sorry) and of course negative. So I was talking to my mom and she seemed to think it's mono but I went through the symptom checker on Webmd.com and I don't have a sore throat but I am coughing more than usual. I am also have some abdominal pain upper and lower. Anyone familiar with mono?

We found out last week that we were going to get to have SD5 here with us this summer for a few weeks. Only crappy thing about it is WE have to drive the 1200 miles (one way) to get her AND drive the 1200 miles (one way) to bring her home. That's almost 5,000 miles in less than a month. A lot of driving, but I think it will probably be worth it.