First let me say that the age of 5 is just so precious, and do whatever you can to cherish every second you have with this little girl. You won't regret it, even when this situation turns uglier...

You are not being selfish by just wishing that he knew earlier that this little girl wasn't his, and he just walked away, you are just not wanting to deal with the total insanity. I have wished on many occasions that my dh never had children before me because of all the horrible events that have taken place.

You want a peaceful tranquil life that doesn't involve large scale eruptions of craziness compounded by pure idiocy...well to put it bluntly, you don't get to have that life with your bf, because of his past. It is totally frustrating that someone can enter your life, abuse you, and continuously punish you and your babies because they are complete idiots and have no regard for others.

This little girl will end up being a lot like her mother, and she will give you plenty of days where you just want to pull your hair out. Children eventually do grow up, and by you being in her life, you are giving her possibly the only inspiration to be different from her mother. With that said..that is how you give up the resentment...you look at her, realize this poor child doesn't stand a chance of becoming a functioning adult without your patient, loving, compassionate attention.

I am an exceptionally bitter person over my ss, he is 12, and is highly manipulative, is a compulsive liar, unstrustworthy, lazy, and probably a future burden to society. My ss is extremely disrespectful, and I don't even want to be around him for more than a couple of hours. I myself am working on getting over the resentment. I personally have poured countless hours in reading, working on homework assignments, bathing, feeding, comforting, running to/from sports/school/award assemblies (while his mother was either at a bar or on a bf couch in her drunk and stuper) and what do I get? A child that hates me for loving him more than his own mother. One day I will get over my resentment towards him and his mother, but it will be because he needs me to get over it...it just takes time, it isn't easy. I just hope that one day the light bulb goes off in his head and he finally reads the handwriting on the wall..I can only hope!

Keep this site bookmarked..there are a lot of ladies here with infinite amount of wisedom that have already walked in your shoes and fully understand your feelings. I wished I had this site 6 years ago...

I have a stepson that my husband's ex has custody of (we have custody of their other). He looks, acts, walks, talks exactly like his doofus mamma. He is sooooo loud that if there were 200 kids on a playground you would hear him above all of them-like mom. He has an eating disorder from her laziness of only cooking him convenience foods, now he won't eat but only a few items and when he comes over it is pure hell on my nerves and after 3 years I still can't stand him. He is only 7. I know it is terrible but when he is here I feel like his bio doofus mom might as well be here. He turns my life and house up side down when he is here and my son that I have shared custody with my ex comes the same weekend he does so I am always Xanax popping (legally) and wishing for my sentence to be over. I totally resent my husband for ever having sex with such an idiot-shame on him. He wasn't even drunk! You should read my prev posts about her. Now I have to deal with her lack of parenting when her little boy version of herself comes over. I wish you luck. I don't know what to tell you but that you have company and I feel guilty about feeling this way but I would be lying if I said I didn't. I will be thinking about you.
Kendra

When I was a child my father used to beat my mom all the time.. The worst about it was he would do it in front of me and the siblings. I was the youngest of 4. My brother just a year and couple months older then I. My dad about 6'4" and my mom about 5'3".. she was probably 100# wet and him about 210#.. I was 6 when he left. I am 31 today I can tell you I still remembr the beatings and abuse and turmoil at 31, just like it was yesterday. If this husband of the ex is abusive to the mom you can bet this little girl has seen something. Because men like that do not care about the kids.. If I were your BF I would seriously talk to this woman and get this little girl full time. Because you see problems now it will get worse. I can tell you that my bio father who beat my mom also molested my two older sisters (not his bio's) which does not make it any better but I don't want anyone thinking incest.. yuck.. My oldest sister has always been very open with me and we can talk about things when I need to, the next sister totally blocks all that out you cannot speak to her about it at all. I am very open about it. But its still very hard. If I see a man and woman argue and its getting loud and I think something is going to happen I am the first one in the middle.. I actually think that I have so much rage in me about men being abusive I could literally beat the crap out of a man. A few years back I went with my mom for awhile to a bar in my hometown. Anyways my mom of course is still short but heavier. Well this guy who was tall like my dad pushed her and called her a bitch.. I am not sure what all transpired but needless to say calling her a bitch I can live with that but touching her. things calmed down and she was talking to me and he came up from behind and did it again and she turned around I grabbed the back of her jacket and she drug me out of the bar.. Yes we are hill billies LOL I am kiding sounds like it though. So we get out there and I am like standing in front of her because he is threatning to hit us both. Well imagine a scene like this is a parking lot before you knew it there were 30 woman out there and we were all going to kick the crap out of this guy. All the men stayed in the bar.. Wimps.. anyways the moral to my story is this little girl may be lashing out and behaving badly because of her enviroment. You have the means to protect her.
Understand that not all kids in the situation she is in turn out to be angry or distubed like that but in most cases they have issues. Relationships will be one of them..

... and totally agree. Even on the best of days, there is some resentment towards the SD/SS or even just the situation we find ourselves in. We are only human. There are many days I am so disappointed in myself for being upset with an 11 year old girl over stupid things. She said she didn't like my spaghetti one time, after I made it especially for her, and I left the table and cried in my bedroom like I was 5. I held on to that grudge for days. Being in a blended family is no picnic, that's for sure. The best we can do is arm ourselves with knowledge and keep the communication open with our spouse.

KY Wildcat, you're not alone... and I promise that it will all be OK.

All of you girls who've replied to poor KY Wildcat have written things that I could have written myself. Fortunately, I'm not experiencing any nasty resentment right now, but I've been there and have felt rotten for it because I love my husband so much... and chose to see a beautiful four year-old boy as an extension of his mother than of his wonderful daddy. I'm not sure exactly what opened my eyes, but I thank God it happened.

It can be so hard to have a miniature version of the child's mommy wandering around your house, especially when you don't have other kids. When I wanted to just be selfish with my husband (before and after our wedding), I sometimes hated having SS around every other weekend because our lives (OK, my life) had to revolve around his every whim. I just couldn't or wouldn't see how important it was for my husband and SS to have that time together. All I was letting myself do was harbor resentment about my husband's former life with "that woman" and see that little boy as her Mini Me. It came down to feeling like I wasn't first in my husband's life--I was at least second, if not third... behind the child and even his ex- because of the child. It's one thing to understand that someone's kids come first, but to feel like his ex-wife holds more water than you do because of the kid who looks just like her... well that's a formula for instant resentment!

"Teeth on edge" is the perfect way to describe how it felt when my SS would hit me with a barrage of "My mommy has those," or, "My mommy says that," or, "My mommy does this." Do you know what a monster I felt like wanting to yell, "Kid, I don't give a f*** about your mommy"? It was always worse when I'd get home from work and happily greet him, only to be told, "You leave me alone," or "Don't look at me," as he hid behind a pillow. Thankfully, my husband didn't put up with that and corrected it every time. It hasn't happened in a while and was probably some toddler "growing pains," but it broke my heart and made me angry and not happy about him being around. What are you supposed to do when you can't tell your husband what's wrong?! How could I have ever said that I was moody because of a four year-old?

I also had difficult feelings about DH and me choosing not to have a child together. As much as I didn't want to deal with what would happen to me physically by being pregnant and giving birth, and then all of the work that goes into raising a child... I hated it that his ex-wife would always share a bond with him that I never would. I hated HER for having that bond. I was excited about the material things we talked about having and the travel we'd do on our own and with SS... but there was always pain with the thought of missing out on the bond with my husband that we would only share as parents. My husband admitted that having a baby contributed to the breakup of his first marriage. Instead of seeing his reluctance to have one with me part of his strong desire to keep us together, I ended up feeling even more resentment toward the woman who got her claws into him when he was just 26 and making fat money (she was 34, divorced, bankrupt, and already had a kid), pushed him to date her, marry her with only her family present and not his, buy a big house, have a baby... and then told him a year and a half later that she wanted out.

ON A BETTER NOTE: I'm very happy to report that we've changed our minds and we're going to try to have a baby! Many, many things went into our decision but we've both realized that it is what we want and we're hoping and praying that it's meant to be.

I must also say that SS and I have really been having a blast together all summer. He and I have BOTH done some much-needed growing up--he at age four and me at age 32!

OK, I really oughtta wrap this up! The point is, we're all normal women who love our husbands and families and we just want the best for those we love. We're all OK to feel the way we do about the stepkids, the exes, and everything else. We'll all have our own special relationships with these kids that will be unlike those they have with their biomoms and the rewards will be HUGE.

Everybody, have a wonderful holiday weekend.

I have never told anyone what I posted earlier on this site. My feelings of resentment. They would think of me as a monster, you know as mothers, women and wives we aren't expected to have feelings like that. Well, tough shit-we do and they are real! So deal with it society! It just seems like people are too worried about portraying their little happy family image and really deep down inside, most of them are probably like us. That is why we feel guilty, because of them. We never expected to feel this way, because we never heard of anyone else feeling this way, it is the big secret you don't talk about I guess. You just put your little happy face on and pretend you have no problems! We are the normal ones-they are just fakers!

Wow, that must have been horrible for your husband to think that this child was his own. He must feel devastated and this child has no idea that it is not his dad? Or does she know? Since you guys are not married yet, I guess you have time to decide whether you want to prolong your relationship w/this man.... From my point of view, I've been a stepmom for 6 yrs now...I still feel hatred towards ex, we don't talk much but she communicates w/my husband all the time about their son. It bothers me til today, it is something I can't get rid off. I've gone through fights w/my husband regarding blended family issues and it's been very hard for me to deal with emotionally. I probably wouldn't have chosen my husband today if I knew what I was going to go through now. You have to have a strong person to take all the crap and adjust to a new life and accept a lot of things. Good luck in what ever it is you decide to do, we are here for support.

-happy mom