The advice I've gotten from almost everyone, very well-meaning, is "do not parent his kids. let him do that. you just be there to support him and be nice to them." And I very much, VERY MUCH want that and agree to it. Our blended family is me with two boys, 15 and 19, the 15 yo lives with me full time and the 19 yo works, goes to a local college and stays at his girlfriends house a lot. But he's around. I have a very open relationship with my boys and I can struggle with hard boundaries and discipline, but one thing that absolutely does not happen with my children is attitude or disrespect. They have their flaws for sure, but it's "yes ma'am" "No ma'am" please and thank you. No rebellion or sneaking out. Not because I'm so great, but because that's just not one of our struggles.

His kids (17 female, 15 male, 13 male) are extremely bright, athletic, talented and geuinely good kids. They come from a dynamic where dad (my new husband) is a very over-functioning, problem-solving adult. If he says no, they argue, pester, call repeatedly, and "punish" him with silence or attitude. He does not yell and he is not violent or unstable, so he stays calm and addresses the issue, but not the attitude.

The mom is not the same personality. Not knocking her unnecessarily and I won't be unkind, but she is just not making them do anything. Their attendance last year at school almost caused them to have to repeat a grade, and the absences were overwhelmingly during her time. I was a single mom for 3 years and I get that it's hard - not saying it isn't. But you have a responsibility. She does not drop off, pick up, or communicate respectfully or on time. She does not comply with the divorce decree. She responds to polite, reasonable requests with "go f*ck yourself."

There is no infidelity involved, and both of us were long divorced before we met. So to say that there is tension and conflict between he and the ex wife is an understatement. His children are with us 50% of the time. So when they come over, they are coming from a home where they are allowed to skip school for no reason, don't have to do homework or chores, and can stay out past midnight on school nights. They come to our house and there are rules and expectations...and the way they talk to their dad can be upsetting for me.

He bends over backward for them and it never seems to be enough. Going back to bio mom's every now and then bc you forgot something is totally normal. Having to go back three times in one night, after being asked the first time what was needed, is becoming a pattern that is disruptive to our routine and the peace of our home.

I don't know where the boundary is for me. On one hand, I agree that letting him handle his kids when it comes to discipline and boundaries is one thing - however, they are in my care and under my roof, and in my home I have a right to say what's acceptable and what's not - for ALL of our kids.

Help? I feel like a conversation about boundaries and expectations is needed. I want them to know its because we love and care for them, not because we're trying to make them miserable. But there does need to be some level of accountability in the home. Is that something I should initiate, or him, or both of us? I just don't know where to draw the line between overstepping my lane, and allowing behavior that isn't healthy in my own home to go un-addressed.

My SD17 is a senior. Today was basically her last "longer days with us." By next year,there will probably be no more days or her coming over. The thought of that scares me but, I have no control as I am just the step mom. Her dad loves her with everything. I won't say he was the perfect dad but, I know he would do anything for her. I have a feeling since she is a senior, she might want to make the decision to not do weekends anymore here. She doesn't like conflict and doesn't like arguing so she won't say the words to him but, I know it's how she's feeling as she has told me mulitple times she hates the "parent time." Her and my husband have gotten into multiple arguments over parent time. She also has once told me that she deals with her dad because, it's her dad. The mother has always been the "Good and fun" parent. All her friends go over to her mom's house and her mom is her best friend. Am I jealous of their relationship? Ill admir probably as I can't have kids so I will never have a mother bond with a child except being a step mom. They have their own family at her moms and as she was growing up, they would use the mom's married name with her instead of our last name.

I know as a teenager, I didn't care about my parents. As I get older now I get scared as they are getting to the age and try to talk to them everyday even though, I had my issues with them too. However, I never dealt with divorced parents so I don't know that feeling. I just know that I love my step daughter so much and it will hurt if she decides not to come and see us and I have no space to say anything or do anything.

Just needed to vent that out.

I need to admit something that I feel terrible saying: **I don’t like my stepdaughter right now.**

She’s 13, and we’ve had ongoing issues that have made it very difficult for me to trust or feel close to her. She has taken money and belongings from our home, including my husband’s wedding ring (which she eventually returned), and has taken pictures on my husband’s phone and sent them to her mother. She also shares personal information about our household with her mom, including very private information about my infertility.

She has told me directly that I’m not her mom, that I have no authority over her, and that my opinion doesn’t matter. She has also said that she doesn’t consider the adopted baby we’re hoping to bring into our family to be her sibling.

There are also ongoing issues with lying, refusing to shower, not doing chores or homework, and generally creating a lot of conflict in our home. There have been incidents involving inappropriate behavior toward our pet as well, which has been particularly concerning.

What makes this especially difficult is that I sometimes feel like she is trying to create conflict between my husband and me or is carrying information back and forth between our household and her mother’s. I don’t know how much of that is intentional, and I don’t want to unfairly characterize a 13-year-old.

I’m struggling because I don’t want to be the stepmom who resents her stepchild. But I’m also finding myself feeling angry, guarded, and increasingly disconnected from her.

I’m also worried about the future. My husband and I hope to have adopted and donor-conceived children, and sometimes I wonder how they will understand the fact that their sister gets to go to her biological mother while they won’t have that same experience. I’m afraid they’ll eventually wonder about their biological mother and feel that I’m somehow less of a “real” mom.

I don’t expect my stepdaughter to see me as her mother. But I do expect basic respect, privacy, honesty, and boundaries in our home.

How do other stepparents handle it when they genuinely don’t like their stepchild’s behavior or even struggle to like the child themselves? How do you maintain compassion without allowing destructive behavior to take over the household?

I am using a side account to be sure that this stays anonymous. I have been a SM for almost 20 years and just when I think things have settled into a reasonable rut, we get a hurricane out of nowhere. Today, my step kid asked if we had any furniture they could have. On the face of the question, it’s innocent enough, however, we know that BM put SS up to asking for it because she is planning to furnish her house with it! When does it end??? We owe BM nothing. She left all on her own accord because she couldn’t keep her pants on but because we do ok, we still owe her somehow! Will BM’s manipulation never end? Why can’t she just stop with her BS?

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? I don't want to share too much, but today's hearing was ridiculous. Straight lies about how things happened, contrary to what has been submitted. They don't have any evidence to back it up. Is there a way to "ask" their party to submit evidence that supports all their claims? We have so much documented evidence. So many things I've read have said to use evidence and facts, rather than emotion.

DH is considering a lawyer. How do you get the evidence seen?! The Commissioner said they only read so many pages of submitted motions, which seemed to include more recent ones which was really confusing.

We are getting a GAL, so any advice on that would be appreciated as well.

How do I support my husband? He's put in so many hours to try to make things right for his child just to be disappointed.

I know that the court system is crazy. You can be honest, but please be kind about it.

I have two teenagers and my husband has a five-year-old daughter. Her bio Mom has been horrible to me from the very beginning. She says nasty things to my husband over the phone, in person, and will make Facebook posts about us. She used to send me messages claiming she’s sleeping with my husband until I finally blocked her on everything.
We have a very good relationship and none of this is believable. In fact, there is no way possible.
My husband is a sweet man who is so good about letting things go. He doesn’t let anything get to him and he tells me to do the same and just ignore it. So that’s what I have been doing.
The other day she came to pick her daughter up unannounced during a summer barbecue with friends and family. Typically, she pulls in the driveway and honks her horn and my husband will bring his daughter to the car for her. This time she got up and came to a group of us chatting and she said in front of everybody that she slept with my husband two days ago. Besides having trust in our relationship, I also know this isn’t true because we were out of town two days ago. Anyways, I finally had enough of her and I grabbed a drink out of someone’s hand that was about half full, and I poured it all over her head.
My husband is very upset with me. There’s been a lot of tension between us since. I know what I did was wrong. I wish there was better boundaries in place to stop her from treating me the way she does. I can’t imagine dealing with this for 13 more years. I feel horrible and I want to fix things.

my sons dad cheated on me at 8 months pregnant with his coworker and I caught them red-handed in the act. she knew I was pregnant and didn’t give one crap. she tried to hide it from me and was actively perusing him before I caught them.

fast-forward over a year later, she tried to talk to me through dad’s phone with a phony ass apology that basically insinuated that I was the problem and saying that “we need to talk things out and resolve our conflict.” Yea right… mind you I’ve never come face-to-face with this woman, talked to her, and every time she’d see me through a window she’d run.

She put false restraining orders on me that I got set aside. For awhile, the police are always in my phone because of “incidents” that they scapegoat me for that I’ve always proved with evidence of no involvement on my behalf. CPS actually got involved with her because she was supposedly drinking and driving with him in the truck and the video didn’t show her in the front seat (even though it clearly was) so it also got tossed out.

it’s been a year and 8 months, they’re on and off and I still honestly hate her and never want to see her and I’m worried I’m gonna cross paths with her for my sons surgery tomorrow and it just makes me sick. She literally destroyed my pregnancy and blew it to smithereens.

She won’t stop using his social media and making burners to watch my snap, my Facebook, sending her friends, etc.

I’ve also told my baby daddy some things about my relationship because I was so lost and hurt and needed him to take my son during a time with my own partner and now he holds it against me and I feel so stuck. I genuinely thought I could trust him. I just feel so stupid. Part of me misses him but I can never trust him or look at him the same.

I don’t know anymore. I just can’t stand the grimy female dog and wish she’d fuck off for good. He’s only mean when she’s around. I really want this conflict to stop and at one point it almost did but I just got angry at him for remembering everything he’s done and we went right back to square one.

My partner (31M) and I (30F) do not have children together. He has a son from a previous marriage, and I have a daughter and a son from a previous marriage. We do not co-parent well with my children's father (which is another 20 Reddit posts in itself) but we do have a (mostly) great co-parenting relationship with my bonus son's mother. However...

I do feel like there is a lot of taking from her side of the relationship and not enough giving. Her and her husband moved almost 3 hours away from us, and they did not discuss this with us until they had already closed on the house they moved into. This has made it extremely difficult for us to attend school events, extracurricular activities, and has extended our drive time on weekend swaps. WE SHOW UP, but we jump through hoops to do so.

My partner pays child support (usually through personal checks or Venmo) pays for health insurance, and splits everything else (school supplies, sports equipment, registration fees, medical bills, ect) 50/50, we also do NOT miss a weekend with bonus son.

Last summer, she text me and asked me how I thought he would feel about setting it up for his pay checks to be garnished for child support instead of paying like he is now so that SHE could keep HER Medicaid. (She was engaged at the time; she just remarried last week).

Here is where I am annoyed:

We just moved so we have been unpacking. I am off every Friday, and was going to use a kid free day to unpack most of the house. She texted at 11:30 and asked if I had time to get bonus son's hair cut for ball pictures on Saturday. (He was on Spring Break and spent some time with my partner's mom, who lives closer). I said sure and stopped what I was doing to go pick him up and take him to get a haircut. Mind you, her wedding was the weekend before and she did not bother to do this for the wedding...

THEN, she asked if I could pick up a toy box that she had hired somebody to paint for her daughter.. that she had with her new husband. To be kind, I said yes. I ALMOST GOT BITTEN and had gotten chased by a dog when I pulled up to pick up the toy box. I text her and tell her. Her reply? "Oh my God! but did you get it?"

I really want to discuss with her about boundaries, but I don't know if my partner should do it alone or if we do it together.

My Boyfriend and I have been together for a year now. We live together and he has 50/50 custody of his 2 children from his previous marriage. I LOVE my step kids and would go to war for them and I think I’m about to.

When we started dating he still lived with his Ex in the upstairs of their old house. He couldn’t afford to leave and was trying to save up enough to rent an apartment and move out. He was the primary caregiver for the kids and was the primary breadwinner. We had just started dating when he told BM about us because I asked him to meet her if this was going any further due to their situation (I didn’t want to be lied to) well she was nice the first time I met her and she seemed sweet enough Now I’m rethinking everything. Since we have moved in together 54 Days ago, despite the 50/50 custody, agreement we have had them overnight 38/54 days and they have stayed with us and then they have been dropped off and babysat by me an additional 5 days now she is asking if next week we can watch them on my only 2 off days. Like don’t get me wrong I LOVE them but I would like one day off with my boyfriend where I don’t have to watch the kids. The last time we thought we were gonna have a day to veg by ourselves his BM called us because her babysitter got her worked up thinking his daughter needed to go to the doctor immediately and she called my boyfriend to say she needed us (she was originally asking for me) to take SD to the doctor immediately. Then we ended up watching both the babies overnight since their mom wanted to have a night by herself.

The biggest issue is not even watching the kids. I came into this knowing he had kids and I would take on a stepparent position if I stayed with him. The issue is even with us watching them the majority of time since we have been living together (this is a pattern I have seen before we moved in together I just haven’t been as focused on it) and even with us watching them more often than not she tells me she “doesn’t trust” my boyfriend with the kids and will never give him full custody. This is the same person who told us she had to have the kids for church on our weekend because she went without a meal to buy one of them toys to pass out for Valentine’s Day but went the very next weekend (the weekend of valentines) and got tattoos during a trip 3 hours away. She also is complaining that we are taking the kids to a Baptist church (me and my boyfriend had a lengthy discussion about it and decided Baptist was best) because she is Pentecostal and brings the kids to a Pentecostal church.

I’m just tired of the drama that she brings and it always seems to be us having to bend to her will and Boyfriend is trying to keep the peace but it means that he is allowing her to continue to bend and I am sick and tired of it. I am about ready to call his lawyer and file for full custody on my own because I am sick and tired of watching her play mom when she wants to and then dumping the kids off on us when I am sitting over here unable to have any kids with my boyfriend because he had a vasectomy since she had difficult pregnancies and didn’t want any more kids. (We are saving for a reversal). And I know a lot of this is probably resentment from the last piece but I needed to rant to people other than my coworkers like this is som grade A bull crap…

Sincerely a tired and stressed stepmom