I've never blogged or actually even read a blog before, but I am reading a book in which the writer talks about how helpful she found blogging (in a completely different context). So here I am, giving it a try and hoping it will help me too.

I am not a biological mum, but I am a step-mother. I've been with my husband for ten years and met my step-son on his 8th birthday. He has just turned 18. I won't go into many of the details of the past ten years (yet) except to say it hasn't been easy. To provide a small bit of scene-setting, as I was meeting the child for the first time on his birthday I took him a small gift - a collectible that I knew he was in to. When I handed to him he opened it without a word, looked at it, looked at me and then said 'You can think yourself lucky I don't already have that one'. I was kind of gobsmacked by the lack of a 'thank you' but let it pass. Little did I know that was a small taste of things to come.

I will be honest at the outset and say that I never wanted children of my own. Not that I disliked kids but it just wasn't something I wanted. However when I met my husband I really wanted to establish a good relationship with his son. I had a nephew of a similar age, and many of my friends had kids so it wasn't as if I hadn't been around children but I did find this boy different from any other child I had met. He was a much wanted only child, his parents split up when he was six and both seemed to have massive guilt about the separation which manifested in (what I considered to be) some quite indulgent behaviour. I quickly learnt that any comments about this (however well meant)were unwelcome so (for the most part) kept my mouth shut and my opinions to myself through ten years in which I moved in to my husband's house, we got married and then bought our own house together.

So fast forward to now. Many people told me that step-parenting was difficult but it would get easier as he got older. In some ways it has, but a recent experience has almost been the end of me (and our marriage). It was a Saturday night four weeks ago. I had pinched a nerve in my back and was lying on the couch feeling miserable. My husband was out and my stepson was upstairs getting ready to go out. At around 7.30pm I got a call from my husband, who had received a text from his son, asking whether he could bring "a few friends back to stay the night". I was kind of annoyed that my stepson had texted his Dad who was out rather than walking down the stairs to ask me, and that my husband had kicked the decision to me, knowing that I wasn't feeling well and we'd both been woken at 2.30am that morning by the stepson coming home, possibly drunk, and crashing around the house. So I asked who the friends were (didn't know), how many (didn't know) where they would be sleeping (unsure) and what time they would be arriving home (unknown as well, however the stepson was not going out until 9pm so possibly early hours of the morning. On the basis of this (lack of) information I said no.

About 30 minutes later I went upstairs and could hear my stepson talking loudly in his bedroom. I heard 'she's a bitch... it's not even her house... she wouldn't even know if I had people here...' I opened the door to see that he was on the phone (he quickly hung up) and asked who he was speaking to, to which he replied 'My Dad'. I told him that clearly he was annoyed with me and that if he wanted to have people to stay we needed to know sooner and to know who they were. He said 'It doesn't matter - I'm leaving' and left (apparently picked up by his mother). After he'd gone I noticed that he'd rearranged his room and made his two single beds into a double so could only assume that one of his 'guests' was going to be a girl. Just as the stepson left my husband called me. I repeated what I had heard and my husband said that conversation hadn't been with him.

Since that day I heave learnt that my stepson had already told at least two of his friends that they could stay before he asked us. He called a few days later and apologised to my husband for the short notice request and his reaction to the answer, but he has not apologised to me. He denies he said what I heard him say. I have said that before he comes here again I expect and apology and that we (his Dad, him and me) need to have a conversation about expectations now that he is an adult in our home. He's also refusing to do that so as a result he has not been back here since that night. My husband is now accusing me of 'driving a crowbar between him and his son' and is implying that I should just let the whole thing go. My husband also says I am not 'cool' and that he actually thought his stepson's request was perfectly reasonable. So now I am an evil bitch because I am the one who told this child 'no' for what was probably the first time in his life.

What to do...