I wouldn't be surprised if something like that ruined a marriage. DH and I initially had SD 5 days a week with BM taking her on the weekends. When we had to relocate for work, BM stopped taking her at all aside from a visit in the summer and the first year or so was hell. It was SO hard for me to adjust. It was hard adjusting to a stepkid living with me to begin with, let alone having her ALL THE TIME with no weekend breaks for couple time. I hated it.

We're much better now, but that initial change was difficult. I can't imagine going from visitation to full custody.

DH has twice a week visitation now. If he got SD full time, I can see one of two things happening:

I'm a stay at home mom right now. At least for a few more years. If DH got full custody, he would have to actually let me parent SD8. HE would have to step up and parent differently too. Without BM psychotically looming, he would be able to do it. No more special treatment because "I don't get to see her all the tiiiime." Etc. If he was able to do that, we could make it work. SD is very capable, but one of her many problems is that BM infantilizes her and DH Disney dads/uses the part-time position excuse. Thus, she is extremely dependant and feels like she can't do anything by herself. Yeah, good luck raising her like that.

OR. DH could completely disrespect me, demand that I treat SD like a little princess and cater to her wants over everyone else. He would do the same. I'd be in a babysitter role: just care for her but don't you dare parent her in any way. And don't expect any respect or thanks. SD rules the house. Turns into an entitled teen. Turns into an entitled, failure to launch adult. Lives under daddy's wing until the end of time.

Nope. My marriage would end.

I was married to DH for a year and an half before he got full custody almost 6 years ago. The skids have been with us ever since - Medusa has no parenting time.

It almost cost me my marriage, until I fully disengaged.

I am not a stepmother, I am simply my husband's wife.

I think it would ruin my marriage, especially if it was the older SD. She has mental health issues, and is so scatterbrained, she never picks up after herself, turns off lights etc. I would be on edge constantly and that wouldn't be good for our marriage.

I wouldn't say it ruined it, but I definitely made it less enjoyable. We went from standard visitation to sole custody about 2 and a half years ago. It changed EVERYTHING. We had been together for 4 years and married for almost 2. DD had recently been born. I think she was about 8 months old.

I think DS took it the hardest. He was an only child for 5 years. Then skids came along EOWE. He was 8 when DD was born and was still adjusting to having a full time sibling. Then BAM here are skids and they never leave. No visits with BM or anything. He withdrew from us a lot at first.

Our life was gone and a new version started. We didn't realize how great our life was until after the skids were dropped off on our porch by CPS with nothing but the clothes on their backs and SS's backpack.

We found that the skids we were seeing EOWE and summer vacations were not the real skids. It only took them about a month of living with us full time for their true selves to come out. We had heard stories about how awful other people thought they were. We didn't believe them because they had never acted like that with us. They were truly terrible children because they were raised to think they were special and were in charge of adults.

It took a year and a half to straighten put SS and get him to behave. We're still having trouble with SD. She truly thinks she can do no wrong and is the best and prettiest girl in the entire world at 7 years old. She has a nasty personality and doesn't have any attractive physical features. I truly hope she ends up being and "ugly duckling" case and grows into her features well.

ETA: Had I not disengaged it probably would have ended my marriage.

It would make our marriage very challenging, but I don't think it would end it--as long as BM wasn't in the picture at all. If she remained, there's no question but that it would end our marriage. She is so toxic and all she does is fill their puny little minds with her evil spew.

If they were 100% away from her and her clan, there might be hope for the skids.

I live with my hubbys daughter full time...for the past 7 years....yes, it has almost ruined my marriage many a time.

Simply put....if the dad is not a strong dad...it's hard.

We are not married yet but no.

I know full well that my partner want a his kids full time. I'm supportive of it.

I also have a decent relationship with the kids so that helps.

No.

SS has always pretty much been with DH except for actually sleeping on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.

We've had SS full time since the beginning of August other than a few hours on one day, and last Sunday night/Monday morning 7pm-10am.

We're pretty family oriented, and DH and I are pretty much on the same page about most things, so it works out - DH knows that if I say/do something to/about SS, it's because I have his best interests at heart and that I'm not picking on him. DH is also free to tell my kids to do/not do something, and my kids know better than to show attitude to either of us. SS is still learning that one, but DH is on it like a fly on dookie.

OTOH - I've been through visitation with my own kids - and though now they're ok about it, the first few years were hell... it took 3 or 4 days out of 7 to get them re-accustomed to routines etc... because it's a free for all at their dad's house. Even now, occasionally, I have to remind them that they're not at their dad's house, and that if they think they're going to get away with that crap with me, they're sorely mistaken... I was with someone for about 6 years after ex-h and before DH, and he felt it was really difficult. Not because I was disney parenting - but because I had to get the kids out of Disney parented mode every single time they were over. It got old for him. We didn't really fight about it or anything, but he found himself dreading when the kids would come over, and started making a lot of plans out of the house with his friends etc... which was fine... but he started drinking more, and THAT became the problem. Though we ended civilly, it took me a while to kick him to the curb, mostly because I was saving up to buy him out of the house.

Something similar to me, still happily married. It was hard and it was an adjustment but we worked it out. My husband works hard to listen to me and my concerns and always supported me 100% in front of sd so that she knew I needed to be respected and so that I had authority in our home. He is always open to listening to me and my ideas even if I have no children of my own.

For me, it might. When my SSs are around I get stuck doing all the cleaning, managing schedules, washing clothes, making sure there is real food to eat, etc. They also never pick up after themselves and expect to be catered to. I've talked to DH about all of this and started to disengage, but I think it would be difficult to disengage or ignore the chaos if they were here more than EOWE. Of course, if we had full custody, maybe I'd be able to lay down a few more ground rules. Right now, they give their mother a complete run-down of *everything* that happens at our house, so I have to tread lightly or DH will hear about it. If we had them all the time, I wouldn't have to try to placate the beast.

Few people react well to change. This is a change that even fewer would react well to. I would guess that it would be survivable for a very few marriages.

It might depend on the age of the kid? I know for sure that if my SO had full custody of his 13 year old daughter, it would be the end of us unless by some miracle he could totally turn her around. As long as BM is in the picture, no way - she is hell bent on alienating the kids against him (he also has 2 boys 19 and 21). We've been together over 3 years, and I've been disengaged for about a year - it was probably the best thing I could have done for our relationship. We don't live together and he knows she is not welcome in my home. We have tabled even talking about moving in together until she's 18 - I don't want BM to get some wild hair again and decide to kick the 13 year old out of the house (yes, she's done that) and be stuck with her full time. I work from home full time and there is no way I could do that with her around.

100% it would have. I barely tolerated skid visits and am looking forward to them ending.

After being here I can tell you statistically it almost always does ruin a marriage. Be prepared for the worst, be pleasantly surprised when it turns out okay.

Why? Simple, because most women (steps) only have get a glimpse of their husbands's parenting or a small bit of exposure to the skids then have recovery time to forget about it. The things we see wrong don't fester because we use our break to put them on the back burner. But during full time parenting....there is no back burner. Everything comes to a head and boils over. Typically it brings out the flight or fight response in us (or even both, fight first then flight) but regardless no amount of running away or fighting for/with your spouse will make you unsee the way he parents or lack thereof or the way the kids enteract with you or lack thereof.

No, but DH has the kids 55% of the time already. Even so there are certain things I am accustomed to doing on our 'days off' when I only have my BSs to worry about. There would likely be a lot of stress, some bad days, some good days, and we'd work it out. But I also have a DH who is an involved parent - not a Disney parent. And if I say I can't do x for the kids - DH takes care of it. While I think he does see me as a mom to all the kids and doesn't quite understand why it's different, he does understand that it is and handles it appropriately.

I don't think our marriage would end immediately. I already told DH if something happened to the crazy and he was forced to have full custody of skids, he would be moving out or I would be moving out. He already knows I won't live with his monsters. I need my home to be a sanctuary and a place to destress. I just won't even entertain the idea of a home I pay the majority of the bills on being another source of stress for me. This has to do with my upbringing, absolutely. I lived with an unmedicated bipolar mother (she wouldn't keep going to therapy after that diagnosis- everyone else had the problem, not her). I am completely sure my egg donor would have had a hell of a lot of diagnosis if she kept going to therapy. We were physically and constantly mentally abused as children. Even Asking for food (the witch never had food in the house) could send the woman on a screaming fit that possibly would end in being hit, chased with a knife, she also liked to pull guns out on us and threaten to blow our brains out- until the guns were removed from the home. Wonderful CPS did nothing for us and of course she was granted full custody in the divorce.

Anyway, I worked my butt off, started off homeless and had zero help to get where I am today. My only goal was to have a nice, calm, home to come home to and not stress on just surviving for once in my life. Well, now I finally achieved comfort and I will be damned if I turn my home into the battle zone I grew up in. I don't give a crap what bleeding heart screams that I should love my DH's unwanted children like my own. Whoever thinks that can take the two brats in and treat them like their own, I am just as related to them as any other stranger. I should also mention the BM is on disability for mental illness which all closely related females in her family have. Skids are already in therapy- so yeah, I am sure they will be nuts like their mom. Hell no, I am not dealing with that. Again, my hard stance is probably directly related to my miserable childhood. I have a zero tolerance for crazies in my life and that includes the poor CODs/skids.

This would be definite deal breaker for me.

My boyfriend knows this, though. We discussed it before he moved in the house with me (& my son).

I absolutely live for our kid-free nights and weekends so I fear it would be the end for DH and me if we got the skids full-time – especially since we are coming into the teenage years!
We’ve had equal custody for 10 years now and I find that hard enough to take. I could probably handle SS11 full-time if I had to but I absolutely and categorically need the 50% of time we get kid-free to recharge from my SD12 and prepare for the next onslaught. SD is a very difficult kid that requires a lot of patience (something I don’t have) so the longer I have to put up with her in a block of time the more irritable I get. I usually always find myself barely able to stand being around her at all towards the end of every block of time we have with the skids her so that irritation would just bottle up and explode if there was no reprieve.
My biggest fear now the skids are both almost teenagers is if either wants to live with us full-time as they get older as I know it will start a fight between DH and me. Not because DH is unreasonable – he’s not. DH would never agree to a custody change without my agreement. However, he would probably want to say yes (if nothing else just because it would reduce BM’s influence) and would probably resent me somewhat if I prevented that. Then again DH loves his kid-free time too so maybe not. At least we are on the same page on boundaries and no unannounced visits!

I told DH I would support him if he wanted 50/50, but I was not interested in taking more weekends with SSs (which was what BM wanted DH to take because she wants more weekends without the kids). I consider the weekends our free time and I like to have some free time alone with DH. Also, DH has a tendency to drop everything and cater to his kids when they are with us, so I can only handle that about twice a month. If we had them for more regular parenting time, we'd all be doing what we needed to do, so we wouldn't have to entertain like we do on weekends. Yes, my DH is a bit of a disney dad.

Yes! My DH is a Disneyland Dad. In his mind now that his sons are in JH and HS he feels his job is done and they turned out wonderful. They are socially awkward and can't do simple tasks. But they play those video games and stay on YouTube. I digressed. If full custody becomes a thing, I guess I will be divorced. That would definitely present a challenge for my disengagement process/plan.