If our unpleasant wounding has in some way enlightened the rest of you as to the grim finish beneath the glossy veneer of a step-mothers life and inspired you to change your ways, then our injuries carry with it an inherent nobility, and a supreme glory. We should all be so fortunate. You say poor BM? I say poor us.

Katie

Wow, where did that come from? Frankly, this site has been really helpful to me in coping with some tough situations. I've certainly had angry moments that were better vented here than to my DH. And some of the feedback I've received has been very helpful. So I don't focus on some posts that may sometimes seem over the top. I would never think that it was up to me to try to put people on here in their place though like this one. That's clearly not helpful to anyone.

Stepping,

You must be a JOY to be married to, and an absolute PLEASURE to have as a stepmother, if this is the way you behave to complete strangers. Seriously. I am sure your husband and steps extoll your wondrous virtues and kind heart. Of course, it does kind of negate your point when you are BEING a hateful jackass, while CALLING people jackasses, but such is your cross to bear. I am sure you just consider yourself "misunderstood."
Ta-ta.

This HAS to be my SD! Sounds like the Princess anyway.

Is this supposed to be some sort of joke? Obviously, I have no sense of humor because instead of laughing, I threw up a little in my mouth......

As my SD4 would say.. "I know you are but what am I". There really is NO reason to come here talking shit about other human beings with feelings then that of you having your own feelings hurt. Gotta be a BM?

Please do us a favor and be gone! Oh, if my marriage fails, it is because I gave up, not because my husband doesn't want to be with me, can you say the same?

Here, here!! A toast to thicker skin!!

(Milomom raises virtual glass of wine) - OK maybe not wine since it's only 9:30am here, but you get the picture! lol

BM trolls/stalkers...BE GONE!!!

So, what is your point? You have something against the vent? You don't know our motives and you certainly don't know how to say something helpful. I would say you are the problem, more than the cure.

We identify with each other through our notes. If you don't like it, maybe you should go to beamsunshineoutyourass.com

Steppin_onup...

To get to the root of your post, you expressed concern that a step-mother might not treat your daughter right because she suffers from bi-polar disorder. I'm not down-playing this diagnosis (so please don't bash me for this next sentence) but...in today's society, everyone suffers from something. Psychologists are quick to attach a label to children to justify inappropriate behaviour.

The majority of the step-moms on here WOULD empathize with your daughter's situation and would definitely help in any way they could....BUT...they would NOT enable. There IS a difference.

The problem most step-moms are faced with is that they are not allowed to constructively help. If I had a dime for every time I'm told, "It's not his (my step-son's) fault. He's suffering from post-traumatic stress because of the divorce (which happened when he was 3 years old; by the way). My boys are fine? Why? Because I remained positive and didn't allow them to pin their bad behaviour on me or their father and because of that, they are stronger and optimistically positive too.

The guilt that a biological mother/father feels impedes their ability to parent properly and does, in fact, create children who are not held accountable for their actions that then grow up and cannot function normally in a society where you are DEFINITELY held accountable for your actions.

Your typical woman is hard-wired to recognize personality traits in children that need correction and work on it. The frustration you're seeing here is that they can't 'fix' these things and yet have to continue to live with them daily.

A good analogy is;

Every time you get in your car, a VERY loud, EXTREMELY annoying alarm goes off.

There is a button right in front of you to turn it off and all you have to do it press it.

You know what to do and you badly want to PRESS THE BUTTON!!!

But....you're not allowed to…

AND you're not allowed to get rid of the car...

SO...you spend every day in this car, alarm BLARING....

And you know…

That you will have to do this for the rest of your life….

Steppin--stick around a little longer and give the site a chance. I was intimidated the first time I posted and shocked at some of the posts I've read.

But, I've learned that people come here to say what they can't say in life. There are good people here and just cull ones you don't want to read about. Most of the vents are from good people who really try to do the right things for the sks and end up being crapped on.

Give it a chance. You'll get support here when you won't get it from anywhere else.

In three little forum paragraphs and 5 days 2 hours as a member, steppin_on u p(eople) has managed to call us bitter, unreasonable, angry, kid ruiners, hateful jackasses, soul sucking misery, black, ugly, blatant, venomous haters, daddy stealers, and evil step mothers lacking in introspection, all heading for divorce, all done under the guise of looking for a site less hardcore than here?

Does that make any sense to anyone? I mean if you are sincere and have emotional investment in your heart felt quest for help, wouldn’t you simply ignore those posts that offend you and gravitate to those posts that speak to you rather than deliberately writing such inflammatory words with the sole intentional of stirring up trouble? That is just cruel.

Wha? :?

Maybe it's a 'guilty parent'. Who knows?? Ultimately we'll keep on our chosen paths and, I believe, as long as we can all vent here then it's all good. It's really difficult not to interject bad language when complaining about the issues facing step parenting. I am seldom at a loss for words but some situations absolutely demand the occasional f*** or b****, purely in disbelief!

One such instance is that we have custody, BM abandoned kids, daughter more than once. Our daughter is caught up in the juvenile justice system and we are following the program to help her make better choices. We are jumping through hoops to give the girl a chance to repair the damage she's done, to herself mainly. Now BM wants in the picture, the judge is not a stupid man and he's making her jump through hoops too, if she wants even a visit! It has to be said that each time our girl is associated with her mother there are problems and the justice system gets involved. The judge knows how it is and is going to act in our girl's best interests. BM tried to squeeze me out of the picture, using the counselor as an intermediary, saying that she was going to co parent with my husband and I was to take a back seat. I told our girl that I knew what was going on and she even said 'that sounds like what mom would say' so we are agreed that I am going to continue to parent her with her dad and her mom will work with us. I have known, and loved, this girl since she was 10, she's now 17 and starts university next week. I just wish that BM could stop with the nasty manipulations! DH and I agree that we will really only discuss our girl with her, we are not interested in her little games, who she is going to sue this time, or her soon to be ex husband etc....

It's a long haul but every 'step' of the way I am with our girl.