Yes! 50/50 custody is terrible. You barely get a break before they come back and theres no stability or "normal." As soon as you get used to them being there or being gone it switches again. Very anxiety inducing and stressful. It's hard to realize how much so until you've lived it. And yes my husband changes based on when SD is here or not.

If BOTH bio-parents have their act together and your DH has your back as his wife and BM appreciates you vs. curses you, SKs can be a blessing, a/k/a bonus children.  If either one of the bio-parents is lacking in the common sense department, BM is even remotely into Parental Alination Syndrome (PAS), is manipulative, controlling, and DH has his head in the sand, is weak and enabling--any and all of this to any degree--then SKs are a burden, because they'll wind up becoming either mini- BMs or DHs and going for SM's jugular or expecting SM to just wait on 'em.

What percentage of parents BOTH have their acts together--guessing here and probably a little high, but I'd put it at about 10%.  The other 90%--one or both of 'em are going to be messed up or out for blood of some kind or in competition with each other or SM or even SKs.  So given those odds, I guess you'd have to say it is amazing that anyone chooses to be a SM!?

If you had asked me 2 weeks ago, I would have said a bit of both.  You know how you always wonder if something happened to one of your bio-kids if you would end up resenting your skids because they are here and yours is not?  Well, I found out that answer in the most horrible way.  My beautiful son (23 years old), took his own life Friday night.  Instead of resenting my skids, we have all become closer than ever, and I WILL see that it remains that way.  They are mine, fully and completely.  Yes, they have a mother (who has been wonderful through all of this), they are no longer my skids.  In my eyes, they are my kids, as much as they are DH's or BM's.  I don't want either of them to ever feel that they are not loved or not good enough.  All the past pettiness or our relationship is gone - both from me and from them.  (My remaining kids are SS22, DD18 and SD18 - I say SS and SD only so you know their relationship to me).  

Oh yes, this is sadly so common

My DH used to change too when SD's, espeically YSD, were visiting

Most of it has to do with disney dad guilty parenting, need to prove he's a great parent/super close to his kids, all that guilt ridden need to prove something behaviour

Communication is key 

But also understanding...being in their shoes, if the role were reversed, would we be any different I wonder sometimes....

I am not sitting on the fence on this one.

Stepchildren are a drain on the step-parent, the marriage, the biological father who has to endure unfair child support, a crazy and interfering BM and fly-in, fly-out children.

Particularly for the step mother (me in this situation) as the stepkids age out, they get worse. SS18 and I used to be close but after continuous bad behaviour on his part he now looks at me with nothing but disdain in his eyes. 

Every time I hear either of their keys in the front lock it makes my skin crawl with anxiety.

How could living like this be seen as a blessing? 

CURSE.

Is this a trick question?

A curse.

Is this a serious question???  If they were a blessing then we would not be here.  We would be too busy feeding Lucky Charms to our unicorn out of a golden bucket.

I feel the same exact way. I hate the weekends we have his kid because all the attention gets shifted to his child. Which I get but also I get ignored. I will start talking and  he will be listening and the moment his son starts talking he shifts his head to listen to his son. It’s bs. 

My sister-in-law had a stepdaughter in her first marriage.  The BM was a disaster.  After her divorce the step daughter continued to live with her.   She totally raised her.  When her SD was an adult she asked my SIL to adopt her which she did.  Her now adopted daughter is a lovely person with a great husband, now grown daughters who are also having children making my SIL a very happy great grandmother.

Her bio child - a son who is the SS of her current husband (my husband's brother) is a worthless POS.  He truly rivals my SS34.  He's a couple of years older - most recently beat up his mother (my SIL) and stole her car, phone and credit cards.

She's proof that no amount of good, decent parenting can make a "bad seed" become a normal human being.  She has a now adopted daughter (a previous SD) who in spite of a hideous start to life (spent the first 5-6 years of her life with her mother in truly horrendous circumstances) is a lovely, wonderful person. 

Her bio son who had a much, much better home environment is just horrible.

Her SD has been total blessing in her life.  Her husband's SS (her bio child) has been worse than a curse.

An absolute curse from start to finish. You try everything to make it work and it blows up in your face, everything is your fault, the only answer is disengagement (then you cop it from DH as he goes on an dand that 'you hate them!') so really it's a no brainer - stay the hell away from step parenting if you can, it's a poisoned chalice. (Having a particularly bad day today as BM is on her second holiday of the year and I'm stuck looking at the gormless skids for 2 weeks. Pass the gin!)

Mine has definately been a blessing. Though there were a few times over the years that his mom and I could not agree on strandling him on the same day. That is the reason he lived to launch at 18. One or the other of us was willing to give him just one more day. So he survived. If we had ever agreed......         

DW and I met and started dating when SS-26  was 15mos old.  We married the week before he turned 2yo.  I have been his dad since his earliest memory.  He is my kid.  His mom and I always made him our primary marrital responsibility.   The three of us have always been close.

When he was 22 he asked me to adopt him.  We made that happen.

Curse.  As the stepparent, DW looks at me as the financial support for "her kids" SD23 and SD19, but I am forbidden to have any input whatsoever as to how live is lived within MY house.

As a step parent it's always me vs them, In my case the them being DW and "her kids".  They are a team and have a side, and guess what, as the Step Dad, Im not in it if I don't 100% agree with what DW does.

Yes, I do feel that my SO acts different sometimes around kids.

In particular we'll be having a great week, then all the sudden his daughter shows up and he's more concerned with pleading her-which sometimes means ignoring me.

At times he would be cold to me then accuse me of being in a bad mood. Consequently wed argue and he would then go confidence to his daughter. I really hated that.

So I explained to him or was innappropriate for him to talk to his daughter about me and our relationship period. It made me feel bad that he felt comfortable telling her about our arguments and how I'm acting rather than coming to me and working things out.

I told him it made me feel like the outsider and I didn't appreciate feeling that way.

I told him it was not his daughters place to be involved in our personal relationship and it was making her actions hostile towards me because she was playing the 'mini wife' role rather than the daughter role.

After extensive conversations Bouton how I felt he eventually stopped doing it.

Thank God, it was really starting to get to me

Hopefully if you clearly explain to your DH how you feel you'll achieve the same result.

*Oh and to fully answer your question: they can be both. They definitely teach you alot. It's hard to be a parent or role model if they don't accept you early on.

I think most of us here have gotten the "cursed" lot with our SKs.

They are entitled, spiteful, suffering under PAS, jealous, competitive, greedy, selfish, etc.

It is NOT impossible to have a good relationship with your SKS though. 2/3 want nothing to do with me, but the 3rd is an angel.

He's sweet, super goofy, prays with mes, does chores, ask if he can help me in any way, loves his baby sister, is sensitive, does well in school, loves to be around DH and I. Just a great kid. I wish the other 2 had turned out that way, but hey. I'm not gonna mope. I love my stepkids, I just can't have a relationship with all of them.

We have one weekend a month and struggle with the same issue. Our easy, happy, exciting marriage is paused for one weekend a month and it takes us about a whole week to get back to normal.