Mmmmmm! Well I guess you won't be seeing the SD's then. You have made a list of demands that only normal people could adhere to, and even if by some miracle they complied, they would not be able to sustain it. Got one of these SD's of yours, she got banned from here by me last August, she initially kept contact with daddy via phone, but that seems to have stopped as well. This little piece of work tried for years to break daddy and I up, and when she failed, she resorted to getting pregnant, the smugness on her face once she became pregnant made me so much want to slap it off her it wasn't funny. She was totally confident that this baby would be the straw that broke the camel's back for daddy, she knew completely that daddy would now leave me, all she had to do was wait out the nine months and give birth. Baby arrived, we both saw it in hospital (same with son who had a baby one week earlier), and then due to her attitude towards me in the hospital we did not go back. At two weeks she phones daddy demanding he go around to see the baby, he wanted to and I said no way in hell was I going I was done, DH phones the girls boyfriend to say well Wife won't come because of the way she is treated (note how this is now all about me not liking the way I am treated, and not about telling boyfriend my daughter is a bitch and treats my wife like crap and I (her father) will not put up with it anymore nor will I expect my wife to do so therefore we are not coming), anyway conversation ended with DH being told, nothing is going to change, meaning SD will treat me how she damn well pleases, and if DH wants to see grandaughter (and sons daughter as well), then DH had better leave his wife.

If ever any of these spoilt, ignorant, NPD brats of his ever try to enter my life again, it will be a flat NO, if DH cannot take that then I have reached the point were I would prefer to live alone than with a husband who cannot stand up to his daughter, who is such a bully that she is the one who would not let her brother allow dad to see his child either, and if DH cannot see that daughter is emotionally blackmailing him into doing what she wants, well, quite frankly I am getting a bit too old to deal with all her drama and a husband who is so besotted by this little cow, that he is willing to sit back and be made to look a complete fool in front of his wife, family, friends and even work collegues by his Princess which she has done for years now and he never said one word to her, never pulled her into line once.

She has made it clear from day 1, she will never accept me as his wife, she will never accept me as part of their family, and she would rather stick forks in her eyes than be part of my family. She by her actions has been saying to dad for years now, there is no room for her in our lives, so it is either me your daughter or her, but she did not dare verbalise it. However once she give birth to her ultimate weapon, a child she had bred to get daddy back, then it was all said and done as far as she was concerned, she could get away with saying it, she was so sure of herself that she used this poor child who had been conceived (seems after 6 or 7 years of sleeping with boyfriend she sudddenly had an accident), for the dual purpose of getting daddy to leave his wife,and allowing her to give up working, then the words came out, not it is me or her, but it is your brand new grandaughter or her. Sorry, but this type of woman I do not want in my life. She is cruel, callous, cold hearted and wicked enough to conceive a child to get her own way. No thanks, getting through life with normal people and normal issues is hard enough without inviting pure evil back into my home.

I agree Sandye it is inevitable that you lose trust and respect for your husband when he has sat back for years and allowed his adult children to treat him like a fool, that alone causes you to lose respect for them, but when they have the nerve to allow there daughters to treat us with vile contempt, to act as if we don't exist, especially in our own homes, and worse still, defend the litte hells angels, how can you trust them to be there for you. I can honestly say my husband was my life, I loved him as I have loved no other man, so, I guess on the bright side at least I got to experience that, but today, if he walked out to live with Princess Evil yeah, I would be hurt, but I would get over it because he after allowing all of his children but especially the daughter to treat me the way they did for 8 years killed something stone dead inside of me. I no longer respect and admire him the way I once did. While he spent 8 years teaching them it was okay to treat me like dog poo on the soles of their feet, he was at the same time teaching me that he was not the man I thought he was, that I had better count on me, because for sure I could not count on him, and he did not love me the way I thought he did, he cannot, he has too much love for himself, there isn't much left over for anyone else, including the daughter who's life he has ruined because that girl is heading for a huge fall and daddy has set it up to happen.

I'll check out that FB page, and as you said StepAside I too given my time over again would do what my gut instinct told me to do the very first day that woman stepped into my house and the first time she gave me that "look" I would ask "What's that look for" she would deny there was a look, and I would say, well there was a look I saw it, and if you ever look at me like that again I will throw you out of my home and you will not be welcome back.

Ahh! the gift of hindsight.

Like Mominator, Sandye21 yourself SA, and so many others here, whose husbands were stupid enough to let this happen, while we appear to be the victims of it, and we have suffered immensely because of it, the reality is the real victims are the SD's and our DH's.

Our SD's will have so many relationship problems and unhappiness in their lives until the end I suspect, as in your SD's case StepAside she has already lost 1 fiance', The hatred they feel will burn in their hearts forever now because it has been left and encouraged to grow fostered by their daddies, so as I said they are going to be the ultimate victims of lifelong unhappiness, while most of us are just getting over it and on with it, thanks to our DH's, because they taught us, look after yourself sweetheart, because I'm not going to. They taught us make a life for yourself my love, because my heart and loyalty is totally with my daughter and if you cannot accept a life as second, third or 23rd in my life, depending on who wants what, then you had better start planning one of your own. So now they too are victims, they have lost a lot of the love, women who put up with this for years gave them, and they have lost all trust and respect from these women, US. They are also going to be lifelong victims, they will if the marriages stay together, never have our full respect and trust again, and the love we once had has diminished, obvioulsy we still have feelings or we would have been on the bus outta here a long time ago, but the unconditional love we once had for them is gone, and when they find that out, and I suspect they all have some inkling already, they will realise too late what they have lost and they may try till the end of their days now,to get it back, but when you have killed something so brutally you will never get it all back, so they are victims of their own selfishness and stupidity forever.

We are all going to be okay. We know what is going on, we get that this is not our fault and none of it is our doing, and we ultimately have a choice, if it gets too much we get to leave and they have to stay with the monsters they have created in their lives FOREVER because they are blood, we thankfully are not, thanks to the support of others on this site, I think we are all gaining a little strengh and we will either be strong enough to go, or strong enough to stand up for ourselves and change what these selfish men are doing.

One day we will be fine, we will be happy again, and though we may never love or see our DH's the way we once did we will be so happy with ourselves that won't really matter. Our SD's even if they think they won because the marriage broke down will find themselves having to put up with one very angry and resentful father who will finally not like them very much anymore. Yep, the real victims in this are the DH's and the SD's.

We need to chuck ourselves an online party I think, well done to the survivors, we might come out of this a little bruised but that will go away, the DH's and SD's are going to be scarred for life.

I used to think there were no winners in this situation too Sandye only losers. But you know what, as I said above I have learnt so, so much from the last 8 years, and the level of personal growth has been phenomenal. Sure as you say a bit of the spark has diminished and that could be considered a loss, however I think that spark, that special spark that made us love them so much, was the same spark that allowed us to let them get away with treating us so badly for so long. Because we loved them, we put their interests, needs, (I need my baby Princess doll in my life needs), and wants ahead of our own. That spark allowed them to almost drive us insane. Yes, we have lost the spark but that was a healthy thing, because in it's place we found self esteem, we started to have enough respect for ourselves to say, party's over. We could never have done this while the spark was still burning strong. Sure the spark is wonderful, but in our cases our DH's took advantage of it. That kind of spark deserves to be treated with love and respect, not used and abused.

So, what did we really lose, our fear of upseting our husbands, our pain at being treated as nothing while our husbands sat back and encouraged their kids by their silence to do that to us. Glad the spark is gone, because in it's place, is self esteem, self respect, no SD treating me like crap, and a husband who now knows he has pushed me too far, who knows do it one more time and it is over, I will not tolerate being treated that way, by him, his kids, or his father. I don't see it as a loss at all really because in my post above I said that by the time this journey is over I think we will be so happy and comfortable in our own skins, we will not miss the spark. I said above and say again, the only losers here are DH & SD, too bad, so sad. I have gained an inner strength that I have never had before, I am starting to feel I do not deserve this, and I have only begun to recover. You cannot have everything by yourself, and if I have to leave the spark behind, the spark that got me into all this trouble in the first place so I can have inner peace, trust me, I am glad the spark has gone. Don't get me wrong, I still think it is an awful shame because we could have had it all if had we worked together, but if you ask me that's DH's & SD's fault, now trust me if you ask them they will tell you as DH has told me. If I had just put up with all her crap and said nothing this would not have happend, I am sure SD feels the same way as herdaddy, so they would say it's my fault - don't care, I know better.

I posted on this site months ago and a lady messaged me as she did not want her response to my post made public. That lady and (I am sure she knows who she is), continued privately corresponding with me and I swear she was clairvoyant. She was the first person in my life to make me start looking at ME to reassure me I was okay.She told me things about my DH that I didnt' know ie: he was controlling, geez, I never knew that, I thought I was stronger that that, but when I started to look at if from her perspective, she was right, he was controllling alright, but he was so manipulative that he had me fooled,just one example, I took what appeared to be caring on his part ie; don't go for a walk now it's too cold, he would say it in a way that I would not go for a walk as he appeared to be anxious about it, I might get sick, or you have just had a cold etc., stupid things like that. well it wasn't caring at all, he was just stopping me from doing something I enjoyed, if he controlled this then he controlled all. My first step out of this and into freedom, was to say, don't care if it's raining I will dry off when I get home and I would go for a walk. When I got away with that, well it was on. Taking control back of all the little things I hadn't noticed before was the first step. Now he cannot make me like his daughter or let her in my home, he has no control over me, this little worm has turned. Just took one poster to open my eyes and set me on the path to self respect. THANKS P.

"---in it's place we found self esteem." Point taken, EBU! This is why I am SO glad I joined this site! Yes, I have gained self-esteem and, even though the spark in the marriage has somewhat diminished, the situation has sparked my personal growth - which was really needed. We never know what tomorrow can bring. But isn't it wonderful to have self respect and the confidence to know we could do it on our own if we had to? Isn't it great to say, "I am strong" and be proud of it? Thank you for pointing out something that I had not realized.

You are more than welcome Sandye21. I understood exactly what you were feeling in your post though, because missing the "spark" and grieving for it was the last stage of recovering from this drama. Once I came to ACCEPT the special spark was gone, it was then I first realised hang on a minute, the spark is gone, but so has the drama, that is when I twigged that that bloody spark had been the root of all my self esteem issues, that spark was the reason I let DH do what he did for so long. I love him, I didn't want to hurt him, I wanted him to have a relationship with his precious children, I wanted that FOR him, and I paid the price for his happiness. The spark died and I told Princess Evil Wicked Self Centered Litte Cow - walk away and don't come back and I had my facts together because when the spark died I picked up the phone and called the police to find out what my rights were. So when I said bug off, I also added and do not come back you are not welcome here, if you do come back I will call the police and have your charged with trespass. Never would have done that with a burning spark inside. Would have loved DH too much, I gave him all my love and didn't save any for myself.

I agree, to know you are strong, to know that if I find myself alone, who cares, I will be more than okay, and to be honest I had planned Christmas as being the dedciding factor in my marriage, I was so sure he would contact her which would confirm to her that she was right, and daddy thought so to because he was running after her again. When he had no contact with the dark side, I was kinda dissapointed, because I though for Christmas I was going to get my freedom, and I was looking forward to it.

Things are different here now, when he opens his mouth and I don't like what he says, I tell him so. When he tries to put down my family I jump in boots and all, but, I NEVER say well what about yours, I just point out the flaw in what he has said and tell him, next time you want to say something like that about x y or z, get your facts straight. I have no hesitation in standing up for myself, my children and my family if he is being unfair to or about them, I'm not scared of upsetting him anymore. I am so detached from his ferral white trash kids, that I don't even think to mention them anymore..........All thanks to the spark going out.

Shame we couldn't have the spark, the respect and the self esteem, but now if I had to choose between the having the spark back or keeping the self esteem, self esteem wins hands down , let's be honest sure we spend a lot of hours a day with our DH, but we spend 24 hours a day with ouselves, so we had better damn well like ourelves, and that is easy to do now because these guys no longer get to put us down or let their kids do it for them and our self confidence has returned, Sandye21 I am not saying it is all in the past I am over it, but I have happy days now, and I had forgotten what it felt like to be happy.

I know that I will be completely over it very soon, I know that the wounds will heal, and I know when I am over it, the number 1 person in my life will be me, because if I go down then I have 3 children and 3 and a bit grandchildren that will definately come down with e and suffer for me, I will not let that happen, I will look after me now, physically, mentally and emotionally. Come on life, bring it on. I also agree with you this site is a Godsend.

When I made the switch, they never even knew it. But my DH started acting differently and they could tell. He knew I had my fill. Not long after, his mother was screaming at him over the phone that I had "won the war". So descriptive of the relations. Thank you MIL, for summing up what my denial had kept me from believing.

None of them have ever take responsibility at all. They are always the victims. They always have excuses for their behaviors. They always justify their bullshit. I don't care about that either.

But it's those same mentalities that I bet are like the ones you've dealt with, and are probably thinking and telling everyone else that we evil stepmothers drove them away from their fathers. More Boo Hoo.

I don't care about that either.

I'm no longer the caboose on the train that my husband drives. I drive my own train.

Substitute MIL with FIL and it's all me.

Yes the SK's are telling all who will listen how I took their daddy away. But again as I have said before they are the losers, because as long as they think like this they will be miserable, and I suspect they will think like this their entire lives = miserable life. Me, I'm on the road to happiness with or without DH, it will all be okay

�