Hello, everyone.

I posted once a few months ago when SD21 (aka Starry) moved out and got her own place, but I’m no stranger to this board. I came here a little more than three years ago frustrated beyond rational thought. At that time we had just reconciled with my stepdaughter after she did us dirty moving out almost 5 years ago when she was 16. DH and I had a lot of anger to work through, and during the time of my first post I hated being a stepmother and just wished I had never become one.

To say things have changed is an understatement.

So now you’re probably like, “Who the heck is this?” You’ll figure it out by the time I’m done.

I’ll try to give you the Cliff’s Notes version of my backstory.

1.    I’m a SM with no children of my own.

2.    DH just has one daughter. We tried for years to have children together but later found out I cannot.

3.    We’re fine with this now.

4.    Starry moved out in early 2013 and didn’t bother to tell us she was doing it. She let her mother into our home while we were at work to help move her out.

5.    Because of this we were on hostile terms with her for almost two years. DH keep in contact with her, but it was minimal, mostly by text.

6.    Starry graduated HS in 2014. That started us all on the mend.

7.    She took a semester of college, then dropped out because it wasn’t for her. Her dream career is working as a hairdresser She moved in with her mother (this lasted one month), and made plans to get financed for hair school.

8.    Luciferette (there’s your clue, people) falsified FAFSA paperwork, causing Starry not only to lose her financial aid but also caused her to have to pay on loans she had already taken out from college.

9.    She confronted her mom about the lies and asked her to redo the forms. Luciferette refused, then kicked her out of her house.

10.  Starry moved in with us in January 2015. This was supposed to be a six-month temporary living arrangement.

11.  It was much longer than that.

12.  Twenty-six months total to be exact.
 

So now you’re caught up. Figured out who I am yet?

I’m going to try to condense this update as much as possible. This is a long post already…

DH and Me: We had some tumultuous moments throughout this living arrangement. I was hesitant about Starry moving back in with us. None of that trust had been restored as far as I was concerned. Of course DH didn’t see it that way and called me a “Nazi Stepmom” for having an issue with this at all. For the next two years it was a series of peaks and valleys in our marriage. I had told him her coming back would cause us to have marriage issues.

And it did.

We both realized we had held onto things from the past. Starry living with us caused us to have to face these. He had always been a friend and not a father to her before, and I feared that would happen again. To his credit, he didn’t slip back into this like he had done before. He had a few moments where he wanted to do things the old way, but this time we worked together to make sure she was learning skills and life lessons needed for adulthood. Even in the backdrop of all of that, I still didn’t trust him. I was still angry about how he had screwed up before.

Resentment on both sides came to a head last year. I admitted I resented him and wept, telling him I just wanted to put this behind us. He accused me “having a problem with my daughter.” I told him the problem was with him and his selfishness, not with her and that I was tired of him putting her before me and himself before us all. Things got ugly more than once, to the tune of him telling me, “If you’re not happy, there’s the door” and both us of admitting we wished we had never married.

At a few points during this I was ready to leave him.

But I stayed, and thank God I did. Neither of us really wanted out. We were both hurt, frustrated and stuck in our opinionated ruts. There was a lot of talking but no listening. Both of us feared losing the other, which was why we had resorted to defensive hostility. We had a couple of serious and painful talks, which ended with both of us sobbing in the arms of the other. Since then we have both let the past go. We had a lot of things going on back then. Both of us were frustrated with the living arrangement but knew Starry couldn’t afford to be out on her own yet It sucked, but we made it work.

I had to deal with the death of an estranged parent through all of this too. That didn’t do much for my state of mind. And DH had so much stress at work that he became this bitter, negative and self-centered manchild. He’d tell you himself he was a major blockhead here. We just got had a lot going on.

We’re more than fine now. We pulled together and helped Starry launch. I was terrified this whole thing was going to split us up, but DH and I have always held the same die-hard loyalist position when it comes to our marriage. Plus, we’re Christians. Our beliefs and our faith in Christ are at the core of this thing.

Our last major blow up was almost a year ago. And we haven’t had one since. I think in the end, this whole thing needed to happen. Starry needed to move back in so DH and I could deal with our trust, resentment and fear issues. It’s done nothing but make us better now that we’ve faced them and let go.

Starry: She spent the time she lived with us working to save for school (we helped by paying what we could afford to help her) and learning to pay her own bills. We never paid her bills for her. No gas, no car insurance, no cell phone bill, no student loans. She worked and did all that herself.

She started hair school in October 2015 and finished last November. She’s now licensed, and up until a month ago was working as an apprentice in a high-end salon. In April 2015 she started dating a really nice guy she had met while in college, and they got engaged this past Easter weekend. Preach (I named him this because his dad was a pastor and he just got a degree in ministry) is a nice guy and a good match for her. We have always liked him. From the moment we met him, he fit right in with all of us. Preach also took DH out for dinner and asked him for his daughter’s hand last year. DH really thought highly of him for doing that. He joked and was all, “Nah, she can do better,” but then told him he’d be honored to have him for a son-in-law.

The wedding is set for this November.

Starry had moved out of our house at the end of February with a roommate. That didn’t work out too well. During that time she got a Yorkie puppy and Preach had proposed. She made the mistake of moving back in with Luciferette because she wanted to save money on gas and living expenses, and Luciferette lived near Starry’s work.

That lasted seven weeks.

This she-beast hasn’t changed at all. She did nothing but try to control every aspect of this wedding and pit Starry against her fiancé by saying things like, “Are you sure he makes enough money to take care of you? If he’s not making enough, you’ll just end up getting divorced anyway…”

And then there was the issue with the dog.

Luciferette kept dropping subtle hints that Starry had no business owning a dog. And of course Starry was terrified her mom would sell this dog behind her back (just like she did the last time).
 
So she quit her salon job (because she was making minimum wage without FT hours), found a job as a teller where she makes way more money, and found a house to rent closer to her new job. Her mom and stepdad helped her move, which was them dumping her stuff off (some of it damaged) and leaving, but not before Luciferette telling Starry’s new landlords—right in front of her—“She’s been nothing but a problem, and that’s why she’s moving here.”

Sigh.

DH told Starry if it weren’t for the dog, she could have moved back here (our dogs hate this little guy). She said she would rather be on her own because she needs to know she can take care of herself before she gets married.

Ha! Now she’s all up on Facebook posting memes about how real adults pay all their own bills.

And we are the cause of this, not her psychopathic mother. We taught her how to be independent and gave her a secure home to practice that in until she could get established.

Now she’s out on her own and happy. Preach just got a better job and as of next week will be working at the same tomato canning factory where DH works.

So the kids are doing great too.

Starry and Me: I never thought we’d be in the good place we are. She texts me sometimes when she needs advice, hugs me when she visits and tells me she loves me all the time. It’s nice. She and I have been through a lot. We both had our issues of mistrust with each other. It makes sense. We’re polar opposites in personality and interests, and her parents divorcing was a sore spot with her for a long time. It’s like I represented the fact they would never get back together.

And it was hard for me to be nice to her all those years when I knew she couldn’t stand me. But, I’ve always had a soft spot for her because I have always loved her (even when I wanted to smack her) and understand what it’s like being a COD. My position was to treat her the way I wanted to be treated when dealing with her. Looks like that paid off.

I can say now I no longer have two families under the same roof. The last time she lived with us we were one family. We are one family now.

*Takes a seat in new dugout of successful step life with Rags.*