So my manager at work and I have something in common: we are both part of stepfamilies. My manager has 2 daughters, 12 & 13yo, who he shares 50/50 custody of with BM in a half-week split + EOW type situation and pays CS for. My manager is also remarried and has a stb 3yo "ours" child with his current wife.

My manager and I have had a few very personal (but not too detailed) discussions lately about our situations, mainly because I first needed to notify him that I would be missing a few hours of the workday every week to attend marital counseling with H, but also because I wanted to see if my manager would be willing to give me his take on how his wife handles her role as a SM. To my surprise, my manager was very open about the fact that his wife "has not reached the LOVE stage with his daughters yet" and that even after 5 years of marriage, he and his wife do still have some on-going issues regarding his parenting of his daughters when they are in his home (and from the way he described how they are coping it sounded like his wife has at least partially disengaged.)

Well, this past weekend my manager's daughters expressed that they no longer want to live with BM because they are "scared of BM's boyfriend" as my manager put it, so now both girls want to stay with Dad full-time. Manager acknowledges this will probably be a court battle with BM but has decided to pursue his daughters' wishes.

Okay, so as an outsider looking in (withOUT ALL of the details and only Dad's abbreviated side of the story) I think I can feel some of the pain from two sides of this. As a BP, I, like my manager, could not just stand idly by and not at least TRY to honor my children's requests - afterall, they are my children and I love them and want to protect them from the other parent's poor parenting decisions as well as maybe I think I can do a better job of parenting and since the children are both 12 and older now their own testimony will carry more weight with the judge. As a SM - HOLY COW! I just went from part-time to FULL-TIME SM - what some of us SMs here at ST DREAD! While I would support my H in protecting his children and their safety, I think I would have to take a long, hard look at my situation and re-evaluate whether or not this is something I could live with given the challenges that still exist with "no LOVE" after 5 years of marriage - YIKES!