Ahh learning not to care, really just not care is lovely isn't it. I'm glad things have started to turn around for you. I think in cases like this, where the ANGELS can have all the toilet paper, or flush the last of your heart tablets down the toilet if that makes them happy, it does take getting to the leaving stage to turn them around. I believe they sense the change in you once you've reached that point,.

Hopefully it will be genuine and lasting change. Not just change for the sake of looking after himself, and keeping you, but changing his behaviour because he knows it wasn't right. I wish you all the very best.

How funny, as older women we find our soul mates, the man of our dreams, and we wake up in a freakin nightmare

Boundaries!! I wish I found this site 20 years ago. We SM's need to establish firm boundaries right away on what we will do and accept in a step situation. Putting your clothes in for donation is a huge overstep of boundaries. you should make it clear that your things and bedroom are off limits.

Good that your Dh finally realized some of what was happening. Keep communicating and step back a little bit. These grown steps do not need another parent.

Good luck.

I went through the same thing with DH's youngest son. I tried helping him enroll in college. His mother refused to give her info for FASFA and PELL. Because his dad didn't follow through on a deal he had made with her. The deal was if SS went to college DH would get him a car. He did in fact get him a car but DS dropped out in the first semester dad took car back. Which is only fair since SS didn't remain in school and decided staying home and playing Xbox and doing Facebook was more important. I ALMOST did a student loan for him.. Thank God I didn't and was snapped back to sanity. Not to long after the school ordeal he moved back in with mom cause he didn't like the fact of having to obey rules..

I learned not to care immediately. Read everything I could get my hands on when I started dating DH. My child was grown he has kids with an ex they is CRAZY.

I keep the skids at arms length. To protect myself and them. I do not forget my role in being married to DH. I am not their mom and do not assume any role associated with being their mom.

They are great kids, but I don't cross over the emotional edge. It is hard because I am all in kind of person, I have to fight my own inclinations.

Boundaries...ahhh, what a word! The trouble comes when we establish them, whether it's sooner or later. Funny how insisting to be treated as a valuable human being can cause such chaos!

We do deserve to be treated with respect. My DH's children treat me with respect but its in a forced atmosphere. Its funny that other people in DH's family see that his AC are jealous of my relationship with their father and even more jealous of our bio daughter. Its sad that he literally has to force them to pay attention to her. Example- when we are at family outings or get together s for birthdays. He picks our daughter up and hands her to them. That is the only way they even acknowledge her. My daughter on the other hand comes over all the time to visit with sister and my husband and I. I just don't understand how adults can act like that. She truly only knows my daughter well and runs to see her when she gets here. His kids she could careless. When his kids found out I was pregnant they weren't happy. There was a conversation on 21SS Facebook with his mom about not being happy that he was going to have a younger sibling. I brought this up to him and then I was blocked from seeing most of his page. Which honestly wasn't a big deal to me because what I don't know wont hurt me.. But I will be damned if they are going to treat our BIO daughter like she is invisible like they do me.

I thought the same thing when I married DH, oh SD is grown, we'll be friends, boy was I wrong. Sd is so jealous of me it has absolutely pushed her over the edge. I'm pretty lucky though, my DH won't tolerate her abusing me on that we stand together and thru that he has learned to not take her abuse of him as well. SD doesn't care for our boundaries, she has never had to face any before. As far as I'm concerned now, I'm just the woman that married her Father. It's sad though, I had high hopes of a friendship and a relationship with her only to have her try to destroy me. Never again, I have my boundaries firmly in place and I will never let my guard down to be hurt by her.

I thought the same thing about friendship and a relationship. I was certainly wrong. I wonder if the relationship would be different if BM was not in the picture. :?

BM is overweight and allows her S/O to put down SS who lives with them now. He is 22 and BM's S/O tells him if he does not lose 8 pounds a month he will have to pay rent. Now SS regrets moving back in with BM because I was so "tough" on him and he hinted the last time he was here that he needed to find a place of his own.. Damn Right cause he surely isn't moving back in here. I refuse to get into the same pissing match with DH over how I pick on him. Really if keeping the right healthy foods in the house and asking him if he wanted to go for walks or if he did his PT exercises due to back problems from being obese is picking on him then yup damn right I was. I could be like his BM when he lived with her the first time and force him to do an hour on the tread mill while I sat upstairs eating chicken wings. Ha. Funny thing is when she realized I was helping him lose weight which he lost almost 60 pounds with alot more to go. She decided to be mom of the year and come and start walking with him. Only to be able to post on facebook how proud she was of him and that she walks with him for support. Really Bitch you walked 3 days with him and then I didnt see you again until the day I walked into my house and you were standing in my living room helping him move his stuff out of our house while his dad and I were out to dinner. Then when I seen that he was taking some stuff like cologne and other things that I had bought his father and brought it to his attention. You decided to run your mouth to me aboout how his father owes you so much.. Really? Not my concern talk to him about it. AND get the hell out of my house.. Grrrr. the joys of being a step parent.

My husbands daughter was a nasty little bitch when her mother was alive. She turned into Satan's representative on earth when her mother died. A lot of people seem to blame the BM for the behaviour of the skids. The truth is it doesn't matter how bad the BM is it doesn't matter how much she encourages the kids to hate the parent or the sm. it us up to their father to not accept that kind of behaviour from his children, it is up to their father not to accept his children being disrespectful towards himself and especially towards his wife who has done nothing to hurt his kids, except of course marry him, and make him happier than he was with BM. That jealousy drives the BM and skids insane, and their father needs to refuse to accept it. Not tell his new wife, you need to understand, your the adult, etc., I think blaming the BM and the skids is a cop out, because the real root of the problem, I believe, is our husbands who accept this behaviour from their ex and their kids and expect the sm to just suck it up like he does. The ex and the kids are the symptom. DH is the cause, without his compliance and support, the BM and skids wouldn't get away with this crap.

Dr Phil quote

There is life after divorce, but you have to create it, and you have to be an example to your children.

The example the guilty dads are to their kids is destructive, and emotionally cripples their kids. The life they create, for themselves, their kids, and the new family they go on to establish, is hell on earth. It doesn't have to be that way dad, it doesn't have to be that way. You've left, you've remarried, you don't have the right or the time to self indulge yourself in guilt. You have a new life to create for yourself, for your kids, and with your new wife. It supposed to be a happy one, not a life of misery for everyone involved in it, including yourself.