Of course I find this site the day before my two SDs go back home. I have been reading everyone's blogs and I feel like I'm not alone anymore. It is hard to find friends who understand because usually your girlfriends only understand the BM side of it from having their own kids. No one else I know is a stepmom. My husband and I have been married now for 5 years and he has two daughters, 12 and 9. It was a particularly difficult summer for me, and probably them. We spent the summer in a small apartment so there was no space for me/them to get away from eachother when needed. Also, this is the first summer I wasn't working. SO I stayed home with them all day. I really wanted to light myself on fire some days. I just don't get it. I know I was far from a perfect kid, but when I was 12 I wasn't acting up like that. She is behavioraly immature for her age. She was left back two grades. In my mind because the BM didn't take the time to sit down and help her in school, make her do her homework, and didn't take any "perks" away for doing poorly in school. In my mind, that is a form of neglect. Why is it that I could find the time when I was working (BM doesn't) to sit down with them, read, write, and do vocabulary/spelling and she couldn't? Now my husband and I are faced with a decision to send her to summer school while we have her for the next couple years to catch her up. We are willing to do it because at this rate she will be a 16 year old freshman. Other than that It escapes me how immune they are to discipline. I mean I know kids are resiliant and they get over things easily, but they get over it too easily to where they do the exact same thing minutes after. I had to sit them in their rooms yesterday (their last day with us) because of the physical fight they had with eachother. Sometimes I want to take them outside and just say "Okay, fight until you guys are battered and bloody and get it out of your systems". I made the grave mistake of slapping the youngest four years ago. She was screaming at the top of her lungs for no reason (she was just in a pissy mood) I slapped her across the face. Not hard, more so to wake her up and get her attention. Anyway the BM found out and still brings it up to my husband. I know, I shouldn't have done it, I am sorry everyday of my life for it. Mostly because it gets thrown in my husbands face year after year and I feel like I endangered his visitaions. Anyway, I made the decision to commit myself to them when I married him. I love them and even cried this morning when I said goodbye (like every year). WHich shows me that I'm not too evil, even though I felt like, as I said earlier, lighting myself on fire daily. I feel that I should be less of an authoratative figure and more of a fun adult who they can look up to, especially since the oldest is coming into her teens. ANy advice on how to accomplish this relationship, if possible?