Since coming to this site I have gained a lot of great advice and have been able to but things into better perpective. One of the best pieces of advice seems to have been just some common sense I think from TheWife....that is to wait at least half a second before opening my mouth (not her exact words but what I took from them). And another is to step back and not take things so personally. Sooooo, I have really been trying to do those things.

This past weekend we had a bit of a situation where I got caught in the cross fire between DH, SD and BM. Drama hosted by SD where DH and I and BM really were separately unaware of the rest of the dramatics. Typical kid manuipulation playing adults against each other. Add it a healthy dose of BM not being able to be a parent and say no. All adds up to SM being EVIL !!!

My reaction was to LET IT GO, hard as it was and not say much to DH about it. I gave it a day or so and when we were both calm I brought it up paying attention to not invoke his defenses. I simply asked " Did I miss something on Sat, because BM's interaction with me seemed unwarranted for the situation?" That lead to a very productive and calm discussion about how BM is and how it affects SD and how SD is being raised. He actually admitted that he is fearful of how she will be able to cope as an adult being raised the way she is by BM.

I was left feeling very positive, maybe not really about the situation or SD or BM, but definately about the communication between DH and I. In the past every conversation we had that involved SD was DH getting on the defensive and me feeling like the evil SM with no one to understand me.

Just wanted to share some positive thoughts and thanks all of you who are here.