I am VERY new to all the stepparent stuff. I was a childless widow when I married my DH in January. We had discussed his children early in our relationship and I knew there was a good chance that SS10 and SD5 would live with us at least part time at some point. That point occurred last weekend when we drove 4 hours to pick them up from BM.

DH hadn't seen or spoken to them for months, because their BM (Sybil ) wouldn't allow it. They have no formal custody agreement, but when things got so bad with Sybil that he couldn't take it any more, he left after 8 years and moved a state away. The home life was basically constant screaming by everyone involved, the 2 babies as well as Sybil's other teenage sons. DH couldn't take it any more.

He told her he was seeing me, and she accused him of making me up to cover up drinking binges. Ironically, he hasn't drank at all since we've been together. He says living with her made him drink. She drinks a lot and tries to blame slurred speech on medication.

So she says he will never see his children again as long as he's in a relationship with me. Lovely. By that time we were married, but decided she didn't need to know yet. He couldn't see or talk to the kids anyway so no way for her to find out. When he did tell her, the reaction was just as we expected. She went off the deep end screaming and cursing...mind you the kids were in the room with her at the time--we could hear them in the background. Nice lady, this!

She still hasn't accepted me, and has only spoken to me once, on the phone, drunk out of her mind. DH said he could tell from speech patterns etc that she was drinking, and when one of her teenage sons called us back after she hung up on us, he told her to be quiet, she was drunk and didn't know what she was saying.

We sent money and presents weekly, because it was the right thing to do-not because of a court order. She keeps threatening to take him to court for support and he's told her several times to go for it. She won't, because it will cut her food stamps and raise her HUD rent payment. Of course she doesn't report what we send her. I've been sorely tempted to do something about that :).

Lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago, she calls crying (and drunk) and says she is going to be evicted if she doesn't go to rehab...and CPS is going to take the kids if we don't come get them. She ASKED us to take them...mere months after she said he'd never see them again. So as of last weekend, I am a stepmom of 2 beautiful kids. The agreement is they're with us until the end of the school year, but DH says, and i wholeheartedly agree, that they aren't going back to that environment. Period. If Sybil doesn't straighten up, she can visit them, but they're not living like that again.

I panicked and googled 'stepparents' and also 'my husband's ex is crazy' and came upon this site. (BTW, that thread describes Sybil to a TEE!)

I have no idea what I'm doing. Never been a mother, never had kids around me more than 24 hours at a time. This is really a life-changing step. Uh, no pun intended.

I feel bad for the little ones, SD5 already wants to call me mommy...and said she'd call BM by her first name when i told her she couldn't call me mommy, it'd hurt her mommy's feelings (actually, BM would go psycho/ballistic at that-she thinks i'm trying to steal her kids. I just want them to be healthy, happy, and safe.) We're working on nicknames for me, for now they call my by my first name. SD identifies herself to others as my daughter. somewhat disconcerting, that she'd take to me so quickly. I thought she'd dislike me because her mommy's not here. DH says she's been very neglected, and my being nice to her and not yelling at her and everyone else, is all it takes for her to like me.