I have been losing my mind over my stepkids. But the real problem is my husband and his ex-wife. I married my husband 2 years ago but we have been togther 5. He suffers a lot of guilt over leaving his children behind when he divorced the crazy b**** but he couldn't take her insanity any longer. One of the children, the 12 yr old eldest, isn't even biologically his but he has raised him from the age of 18 months and considers him his, a fact that I deeply respect him for. His BS is now 8.

Ahh, the ex. She's such a horrible person that I won't even speak her name. I do not feel she deserves even the basic courtesy of having her name acknowledged. I call her "the huffalump." For the first few years everything was ok. She would call and beg for money until DH put a stop to it. Visitation was fine, no real problems, just your usual bulls*** every now and again, a flare up here, a flare up there, big deal. Then she met her current live in boyfriend and got knocked up at the ripe old age of 37. Can you imagine? I can understand a teenager get knocked up but at her age she should have figured some things out, ya know? But the guy is bipolar, lives off of disability, and, most importantly, takes all of the "responsibility" off the ex's shoulders. And that is her biggest problem, she absolutely cannot handle responsibility. He can't marry her because he is currently married. And once he moved in with her, the real stuff hit the fan.

When they divorced she moved to another town about an hour away. DH didn't quibble, she refused to meet him halfway so he drove the entire distance to her home (where she lived w/ her mother in a trailer bought with her father's life insurance money) and picked them up. When cluckles moved in, however, she told DH that she had always found it VERY uncomfortable for him to pick up the kids at the house and demanded an alternate meeting place. DH suggested a town halfway between the two towns to which she agreed. That lasted 2 trips because cluckles didn't want to pay for the gas or waste the time. This guy, I have to say, takes the cake. The huffalump almost never gets on the phone w/ DH anymore, he always has to talk to cluckles when he calls. A man who has jerked the phone out of the 8 year old's hands and proceeded to scream Motherf***** blah blah blah at my DH while the child still stood there. He has threatened to kick my DH ass on more than one occasion and even once brought a witness the meeting place. Oh, did I mention that the huffalump never bothers to come to the dropoff point anymore because cluckles does it? What's funny about the fighting stuff is that this guy is an overweight 40 something with greasy hair and my DH is 6'6", slim, and 30? LOL

I warned my DH that cluckles was an abuser because I recognized the signs thanks to my own abusing ex. I told him that if they guy really is an abuser, the mother who was living with his ex would be kicked out sooner rather than later so as to isolate his victim. Well...guess what happened. The grandmother (who doesn't like DH after the divorce, go figure) actually called US to complain about cluckles. Come to find out they threatened her with calling the Sheriff and having her removed if she didn't leave of her own accord. See, grandmother, trusting that her daughter loved her, put the trailer bought with the dead grandfather's life insurance in the daughter's name. So now the huffalump has kicked out her own mother and owes her $25,000 for the trailer. Hope granny isn't holding her breath.

The list of egregious transgressions goes on and on. The 12 yr old boy is on 6 different medications because the huffalump swears he has ADHD. DH confirms that as a child SS12 did suffer from the disorder but he appears to be one of the type that grows out of the condition. She has since started SS8 on ADD meds. He needs ADD meds like I need a second evil head. She is a horrible parent but shoving pills down her childrens' throats makes her feel like she is parenting. DH says that she does love them. I haven't said but often thought that Hitler loved Germany, too. She is totally out of control and always has been. And then it got worse.

My DH is not a macho man, he is a wonderful, caring, brilliant, loving man. But no matter how you slice it he is scared/intimidated/fearful of conflict or whatever when it comes to the ex. If I tell him that he is any of those things though, he puffs up a like a tom turkey and says he absolutely is not. But let me tell you the series of events that broke the camel's back.

We had kept the boys for 3 weeks over the summer of '08. I don't like them to stay when my BS is gone because the skids like to play with him and something about him being home really greases the wheels, ya know? I have no problems when he and they are here. I also have a 5 yr old BD, by the way. So last summer was the first summer they had ever wanted to stay very long (first summer with cluckles in the home, hmmmm what a mystery there) and it started with them coming...the week my son was away at summer camp. I tried to do my best but I was so frazzled by the end of the week I couldn't think straight. I HATE having them here when he isn't and that broke me of the notion ever again. But then BS came home and the next 2 weeks went ok. At the end of week 3 DH decides to call the BM to see if they can stay another week since they want to. My own children would be going to their BF's house that weekend and so I asked him, THREE TIMES, that if she didn't allow them to stay the extra week to take them home on that Friday night so that I could have ONE, 1, uno, day with no children for a break. After having all those kids for 3 weeks, I wanted ONE day. So he goes into the other room, makes the call, and comes out. She doesn't want them to stay, he says, she wants them home. I say, oh, ok, so you're taking them home tonight? NO, DH says, she said that would be inconvenient for her and to bring them home Sunday.

I could have died. After killing him. The skids situation is common as I've read. They practically come from another dimension, back talking, spoiled, the 8yr old didn't know what fish was until I asked him if liked Captain D's because they eat out all the time, they are lazy, selfish, they constantly break things, and it drives me nuts. I actually had a handle on those things until he did that to me. That b**** runs my husband and my house. And it's driving me mad. Add on the crazy SOB she's living with and it makes me homicidal! Well, kidding about that but you know. Did I mention that when she had the baby cluckles wouldn't let her go back to work so now they live in a 3 bedroom trailer with 3 kids living off disability and child support? OMG!

I feel like the man I love so dearly is a spineless, yellow, jellyfish when it comes to his ex. I feel like she runs my MY household. I am nothing more than a glorified babysitter/facilitator to her insanity and my DH doesn't do a thing about it. We even explored taking her court at one point as the abuse toward my DH got worse. The lawyer said we wouldn't have any problems with most of our requests such as meeting half way, making the abuser cluckles not be there, and DH not having to talk to cluckles on the phone when plans had to be made. But then DH just dropped it. He got over being angry and just...dropped it.

The bottom line is I feel like a cow turd being repurposed as a door mat by my DH and that he allows his exb**** to rule our house and our life. Whatever she wants, she gets. And yes, I've contributed to this by rolling over because I hate to tell my DH no. Who wants to tell the man they love and who treats his own skids like his own that no, he can't have that extra few days or weeks over summer because my BS is at camp or whatever? I finally told him I need two things from you. I need to know that I can say no to a visit if I really can't take it and to stop making plans like, the boys can come on Friday and stay until they want to leave. I just want a firm set of dates, you see. But even that hasn't work out.

The end result? I have completely disengaged from my skids and partially disengaged from my DH. I feel used and abused in the whole situation and it is manifesting itself in my complete disengagement from those poor children! I HATE it! It is not their fault, they don't deserve any of this, but I swear to you that this is killing me! I haven't smoked in a year but this summer he asked me to keep them a week while my BS had a daycamp. I said no but then he pulled the vacation bible school card (which was that same week), he wanted them to go and, as I said, I have a hard time telling him no especially when it was for something like that! And then I got so fed up with them (as I knew I would), so hate filled, so backed into a corner that I felt as if I didn't strike out somehow, I would really say and/or do some things I would later truly regret. I left the house, went to the store and bought a pack of cigarettes. Now, here I am having to fight that crap all over again! Now, I take full responsibility, I'm the one who went and got the damn things but I really tried not to get into a situation that would get me so worked up. So I guess I really do resent the fact that after I said no, he kept after me until I gave in. Is it my fault? Yeah, but I kinda feel like he should have had my back and didn't.

I have spent this weekend avoiding him and the kids as much as I can. My own kids are at the BF's and I know it shows. I hate to hurt him, I hate to be so distant to the skids, but I don't know what to do. Now here it is July 4. Independence Day, haha. He's supposed to get the kids for another 2 weeks in summer by our state visitation guidelines. It is his RIGHT. I warned him that summer is almost over, my bio kids start school 8/4. The skid's school starts 8/12. Guess what the ex wants? IF she allows them to come, she's talking about the first 2 weeks of August. Should I say anything to him? He knows I don't want them here when the bio kids are at school. But he also is (to date) incapable of telling her no, we're going to do this. I'm afraid I'm about to get bent over again. I'm already angry about it because I have no basis to believe he will do what he should and every reason to believe that, once again, I will be put in the position of a**hole. And I will, I'm afraid, feel guilty if he refuses the August thing, she refuses any other dates, and if he then won't enforce the guidelines, will lose out on 2 weeks with them.

I feel like I'm betrayed and am betraying others. I want to love these kids, I can overlook their bad behavior to a certain extent but this is getting ridiculous. How am I supposed to be able to love 2 kids when I have absolutely no ownership of them? I have to watch them be neglected (though not in any way the courts would care about), watch my husband be threatened and abused, be abused myself because I'm stuck between DH, the ex, the abuser, and a brick wall? I'm helpless, hapless, and cannot for the life of me manage to care for these children. And it really hurts me to feel this way about them.

I'm so sick of all this. But I'm so very glad to have found this site. Thanks to all.

Chariste