Hi everybody,

I've been a member for some time now, but I haven't blogged in years, so bare with me!☺️

Just a bit of a back story... I've been with my Husband for 12 years, married for almost 3. When we met he had a 2 year old daughter. So I've known this girl for most of her life. My husband and I had a baby together in 2015 and I decided I needed to be near my family and my village so I moved back to my home state and waited for him to follow. He told his BM that he was moving and of course she thought my whole plan was to take him away from his daughter. Meanwhile she's damn near 40;still living with her Mom for help with her kids.... I'll get to her in a minute. So, while I got a job and saved for a place, he was still in Georgia. Once he was ready he moved out here and we started our life in California. His daughter would visit on the holidays and she loved her baby sister. Well one particular holiday she told us that she wanted to live with us. My husband told the BM and they agreed that she would live with us until she goes to high school and then she would go back to Georgia. Well the summer before her 8th grade year, she said she did not want to go back toGeorgia and that she had just found out OVER FACETIME that her Mother was pregnant. Mind you, she had spent the entire summer with her mother, but she waited until SD left to call her on FaceTime to tell her. Needless to say SD was very upset. She said she doesn't want to move back because she knows that she won't get to do half the stuff we do with her, her Mom didn't have a car and she also felt like she would be a babysitter. Smart girl because all of those things are absolutely true.

Let's get into the BM... She's 6 years my senior, she knew my husband from back where they grew up and they ran into each other when they both moved to Atlanta. They had a night together and then boom, she got pregnant. She had a 5yo son at the time that became close with my husband so he thought let's try to make this work. Long story short, it didn't, she moved in with her Mom and my husband would visit his daughter everyday. We never had any beef before her daughter moved out here. We respected each others space. Once her daughter moved out here, everything changed. She told me that I was jealous of her daughter because she was his priority and I lost it on her. I said, first of all why would you have your daughter come live with somebody who you think is jealous of her and also, shouldn't the kids be the priority? I don't think I would want to be with a man who didn't make their children his priority. She had nothing to say about that. she actually text me the next day and apologized because she made a complete fool of herself. That wasn't the last time she said some crazy and apologized. It has been a complete circle of chaos with her. She blames everything on me. She tells me to stay out of certain things which is kind of funny because how do I stay out of it if you're a kid is in my household.

Fast forwarding to present day and the reason why I said I think it's time to disengage. I have done everything I can do for this girl and I am tired of feeling like the bad guy when I'm the one who puts down the discipline because her dad will go back-and-forth with it for some strange reason that I have not uncovered yet. Anyway, we have told her several times in order for her to stay in her extracurricular activities that she needs to have certain grades. Well let's just say that those grades are not where they need to be. So we are constantly on her to improve them. She gives me so much attitude. She doesn't call her dad "Dad". Matter of fact, she doesn't call any adult anything, she just pops up and starts conversations which is the weirdest thing and now she saying she may need to go to therapy to see why that is. And that's fine. We will get her therapy. She has a horrible relationship with her eight year old sister. My husband and I are constantly trying to help them improve their relationship but she acts like she wants nothing to do with her. There's a 7 year age gap. My daughter is eight and she can be annoying sometimes ( what 8 year old isn't!), but that's still your sister. You should want to have a good relationship with her and not always ignore her or be mean to her. Every time she gets in trouble, we sit her down and tell her what it is she needs to do going forward and she acts like she understands, but then afterwards does the same thing and I'm so sick of having the same conversations and being made to look like the bad guy. I just found out that she told her mom that we didn't go to her award ceremony that they had for last year ( we gave her stuff for her grades last year, but this year she has an F, so we aren't really down for celebrating last year when you are messing up currently) but she feels like if it was my daughter we would have went so now she's trying to act like we treat them different, which is hilarious to me, because after everything that I've done for her as a step, for her to say this is ridiculous. Her mom doesn't do anything. Anything! She doesn't send money she never asks if she needs anything she barely gets her plane tickets for her breaks with her. But yet I'm the bad person. She told her mom that I'll just go with whatever her dad says, which of this point is right because I don't believe that I wanna be involved in the discipline or anything anymore because it's always made out to make me look like the bad guy and I get frustrated because when we do discipline sometimes my husband doesn't always hold up to it and ends up breaking the punishment, so what's the point? If I'm the only one who's gonna care, but in return, get treated the way I get treated then what is the point of any of this? I just think it's time for me to disconnect and disengage and let him handle it going forward. I know that was a lot, but I had to get all of this off of my chest and I would love some feedback from you guys. Thank you.!