I spend a lot of time with my SS13. My skids live here. I rarely spend time with SD9 or SD4. SD9 is just a
strange child. SD4 is an asshole. SS13 seeks me out and not just when he wants something. He is a giving, loving kid. SD9 is a carbon copy of her lying BM. SD4 was basically born a
troll. So no, I don't waste time trying to treat them like I like them.

I don't like my ss14 so I avoid it most of the time. He lives here with us full time. My SO tries to get us to watch tv all together sometimes but I can't stand him, his smell and the stink of the two dogs he loves. Dogs and SS14 spend most of their time downstairs in the rec room anyways. I know it bothers SO that it's like this but I am a germ-a-phob and cannot stand dog smells and teen boy smells.

Yes I certainly do. My SD14 and I occasionally watch movies together and we have gone to the theater together. (we always go see the Twilight movies as her BM and my DH/her Dad doesn't like them and wont take her. It's something that we always plan to do together.

My SD6 and I do tons of stuff together. We play barbies, color, work on crafts....I do her homework with her and her projects. I take her to the park or we go for walks.

When they have done well or at certain times of the year I take them shopping.

In my house my DH made it known from go that I am the mom at dad's house. I am respected and treated as such by everyone involved so I very lucky in that regard.

I love my SD's with my whole heart....I take the good and the bad and I will fight for them and there relationship with my DH and secondarily with me.

OMG I love that you have a guest house!!! I want one. You know I'd be living there instead. Or better yet, I'd make the skids sleep in the guest house.

Anyway, to answer your question, SD15 is being a spoiled brat so no I will not be doing things with her. I don't mind hanging out with SS12 though. He's still nice to me.

Don't worry about it, just keep disengaging.
If only I had a guest house.

I have tried many times to spend quality time with SD16 but to no avail. I can never do things as "good as mom" or how she likes them. I have disengaged from SD for now. My D deserves a good mom not one that allows herself to be a victim to a brat of SD!!

Yes, I spend a lot of time with the future skids. We are going to the school fall festival tonight and going with my friends and my god kids to a corn maze tomorrow. Sunday we will probably watch football and play some board games.

They are nice kids and I like them. We have had some issues to work through, but my SO is not a Disney dad so I don't have the same issues as a lot of other step talkers.

You are doing the right thing, why bring brat drama into your life? You didn't make him a brat.
Not you kid not your problem.

I do spend time with SS13. But, he is good kid and I enjoy being with him. I disengaged from him the last two years, but we recently won full custody from his mom and when he turns 14 she has no more visitation with him. So I have started re-engaging with him and ramped it up rather quickly.

SD15 is another matter, she was a terror the 6 months that we were in the same house. She moved out and I have not had any contact with her since other than the occasional run in at the HS or on our cart paths. Even then she ignores me and I ignore her. She is a manipulatlive brat and her mothers problem now.

You have to find the relationship that works for you. THis works for me.

Not really. SD10, She either sits and stares daggers at me and pouts or goes into her room. If daddys home she hangs around us pouting and trying to get her way when he is not shes in her room.

Not really. SD10, She either sits and stares daggers at me and pouts or goes into her room. If daddys home she hangs around us pouting and trying to get her way when he is not shes in her room.

When SS comes for the weekend, I do interact & hang out with him but with all that's gone on I find it hard to make conversation. It's hard to for me to make small talk with him without just losing it on him.

I have a room set up for my crafting & sewing. When I need a break, that's where I hide. It's just off the living room (where SS & DH are usually playing PS3) so it's not like I completely isolate myself. I leave the door open.

Weekends are when I do my housework, so I can escape to the basement to do laundry or to our bedroom to clean.

I've been accused by BM & SD of not giving DH enough "alone time" when SS comes over, so if anything is ever said, I can chalk it up to giving them "alone time".

We haven't had trouble with him since he started coming around again. I mean, as far as interaction, our weekends go fine. It's the crap that goes on in between...the lying, hiding information, manipulating, etc that happens over the phone that is an issue for us at this point.

I'm ashamed to admit it but NO.

My late husband and I built an addition on our house with a top floor with a full bedroom suite/full bath. That is where I stay always. Let's say I go to the kitchen for something, here comes SD who stands in the doorway and stares and yaks constantly, then comes SS to watch too. Then one of them has to point out something to the other that will piss them off and they start their screeching and fighting.

Sometimes it's just easier to go w/o eating.

I'm not ashamed to it admit it. I don't and I can't imagine I ever will again. I used to when the kids were younger. We would lay around Saturday morning watching cartoons and cuddling, then spend the afternoon playing at the park. This caused BM to completly lose her nut and she made darn sure that the kids were made aware that I was the enemy...after I had spent months working to win them over. Now, after all the mean things that have been done and said to me, DH and BS in the past I'm just not interested. Besides, I really don't have much in common with a 10 yr and 7 yr boy.

I will watch "family" movies togeather, "family" dinner, ect. but I'm not seeking out nor currently providing quality one on one time. I've just decided that's never going to be our relationship unless there are major changes all around.

I try to involve myself with them but have been told they don't want to hang with me - they are there to visit with DH. So I keep my distance which is easy since they all don't come out of their bedroom when they visit and SD has never spoken to be yet (almost 2 yrs). Its fine - I will continue to be nice and respectful to her. I have been considering leaving for sometime now. I didn't move 2,000 miles to be with him for this shit.

I do and I don't. FDH knows I volunteer on Saturdays, so for that time I'm away from the kids. I don't do it to avoid them though. When we have the kids I pretty much just do what I would normally do, and if they want to participate then great. If I see something they are doing that looks like fun, I will join in. We clean a lot on the weekends, and the kids like to help. I'm also in the garden quite a bit, and the kids like to be there too. Sometimes if they're watching kid cartoons in the living room I will go in the bedroom and turn on a movie, and on occasion FSD9 will come in there with me (at which point I usually switch to House Hunters or some home improvement show, which we both like).

If the kids are doing a crafts project then we usually leave them to it unless they ask for help or appear to be making a mess. FSS4stb5 likes to build cardboard boats, but FDH helps him with that. FSD is writing an ongoing book about the neighborhood cats, which she asks us to proofread after every page (1 page per cat--it's a half page with a picture on top). Sometimes FSS asks me to read him a book, and I will. If they have homework usually FDH helps them, but sometimes we'll all be in the same room and it's kind of a group effort. I dunno. I don't hide out from the kids or anything like that. I know FDH has said sometimes I seem withdrawn, but I'm usually just tired and I don't even realize it until he points it out.

I do hang out with my SS. I am actually really close with him. I take him to Dodger games just him and I, I help him with homework, take him to batting cages. I even go to his baseball practices when it isn't our week, and DH is out of town. Because he wants me there. I do for him, as much as I do my own girls. I have been in his life since he was 1, and he is a really good kid.

I spend a lot of time with SS9 he's a sweetheart and I just love him to pieces. He thinks Im cool we sometimes sneak away and eat lunch at our fave Mexican place(DH doesn't care for Mexican food)or fight to the death on mortal kombat v dc marvel. We wrestle or do artsy stuff. DH has his own 1:1 time with him. We treat them equally. I had a hard time with that at first a lot of my husbands family would treat him different because poor pitiful SS comes from a broken home Gah I hate that! We don't want him to use having a crappy mom as an excuse to misbehave and I didnt want my son to grow up thinking grandma and grandpa dont love him as much. Anyway I think its whatever you both are comfortable with.

It's about 50-50 for me. I rarely do anything alone with my SD9 because I don't really like her that much, but we have dinner together (me, DH, SD9) and occasionally do kid activity things together. But I need to disengage to a point because having her around can really wear me out.

It's his daughter, not mine, so I feel very free to go shopping with my mom or have a girl's night out or do a l o n g Sunday brunch when she's over on the weekends. Let DH spend some quality 1-on-1 time with his daughter.

At first it was the opposite. They craved time with me, and they were so needy and had Endless Needs, I wore myself out giving to them. I had a burnout, and that's when I decided to disengage. Ever since then, I have never wanted to re-engage, as it sucked my soul dry the last time, and now I watch them doing it to their dad, but it seems he has a larger capacity for it. I guess I saved myself, but somehow, I'm still not satisfied, because I'm angry with the way they act. I hate living with them. My husband starts parenting classes this Tuesday , I'm afraid to hope.......

For the first time last night my ss18's bm was at his football game. In the 2 1/2 years I have been with so and gone to almost all the games for both boys, this was the first time I saw her there. SAD. I kept on screaming and clapping, but I saw a difference in ss and in so with her there. so was very restless and ss played differently (more show-offish) like he was trying to impress her. SAD. But afterward it was our door he knocked on as usual for painkillers and encouragement from dad! he's a good kid with tons of issues b/c of bm
I'm gonna keep right on screaming and cheering!! Maybe it'll pay off or maybe not. Maybe it's something I don't want a pay-off for.