Okay, I've been with my husband for 7 years now. One thing I have to say is he always stuck by me and we parent together. The fact is, my EX-husband left and moved to an island, remarried and never looked back to my children, so my husband is an excellent father to them both. And my husbands ex wife? a snake. She poisioned her kids against me from the start and she is on her 9th husband already and had a swinging door so what do you think her daughters turned out to be??? which brings me to say this: One of them is so disrespectful and isn't welcomed into my home any longer.....but the other one? she calls me mom and came to live with us, I got her thru highschool, a vet tech school, and she and my kids and I are extremely close. She doesn't speak to her mom anymore because after years of her seeing my good role modeling, never talking bad about her mom, and always trying to improve her relationship with her mom? she finally saw that I was the good mother that she craved and her mom wasn't capable of much of anything at all......which is very sad. And even today? she's 22 and she calls me everyday, lives down the street from us and asks me my opinions for most of her decisions and totally trusts me. I love her back. I'm sick about her sister and I'm not sure why she went the opposite direction? but she did jail time, smokes pot, is 23 and lives with a 36 year old man, totally dysfuntional situation.....wouldn't know love if it stood in her face.....so I guess I agree with most of your comments? sometimes though? it does change? but not all the time. I thank God that we have a solid family with my two and his one and we all do everything together as a real family and no one even would know we were blended and once very dysfunctional. And my one stepdaughter told my sister the other day that if it wasn't for me? she wouldn't be the woman she is today and she's so greatful that I came into their lives......which makes me tear up from all I put into her...parenting is hard enough, but we did go to counseling together as well, and she got to air out all the poison her mom planted in her head and the counselor gave us direction....THAT HELPED ALOT!!!!!