I totally know how you feel. My relationship with my bf is amazing - it's just all the other rubbish and heartache it comes with......

Sending hugs xx

I honestly don't know some days. Bottomline, the main reason really has to be how difficult it will be to leave. I sldo love my dh, but most days I couldn't really tell you why. I care for my ss, but he drives me crazy... So I would feel guilty leaving him. SD is really dislike, so there would he no guilt there.

Some days I think moving on would he better for my BIOS, but other days I think living as an intact family is what's best for them.

I guess the hope that it will get better is why I stay.

Mainly we stay out of love. Like others have said, our relationship is fantastic and the only "stumbling block" is the SKIDS and how they are enabled.

Because every night, when my FDH goes to bed, if I say the magic word "asdfghjkl" (I assure you, it's harder to pronounce than you think), he lays a golden egg that I take to the market and sell it for a pretty penny.

You guys are really killing me with the trick questions these days.

I ask myself a lot if the good outweighs the bad. As soon as the answer is no, then my time to stay will be over. I don't feel anger about this, I made that decision coming in. When I divorced my XH, I decided I would never stay where the good doesn't outweigh the bad.

I come here and vent my frustrations, I don't come here to post the positive, maybe I should. So when you only read someones negativity you assume there is no good, I think that is a wrong assumption in most cases here.

If good is more than bad, then its worth it, otherwise its not. I am hopeful it will remain in the good. if not, I will move on to yet another phase of my life and enjoy that too.

What's funny is even my MIL told DW that if she had been honest about how her kids really were, I might not have married her.

I ask myself this question a lot. I have been through some crappy relationships. Been abused, been hurt and certainly been cheated on. My SO is the first man I have ever met who takes a relationship serious. Absolutely no cheating. He never raises his voice and when we talk (excluding talk of skids) there is always resolve and never yelling. He is AMAZING to my children. My children love him. I honestly feel like I have waited my whole life for a good man and he is finally here. But with all good things usually there is some baggage. I try very hard to stay positive but some days the anger just gets the best of me.

I stay because my DH have been really caring and attentive. More attentive then any man I know. We like a lot of the same things. Horses, watching westerns, shooting guns, riding motorcycles. We horse play a lot. We cook together, we pick out a movie and watch it together. He surprises me with gift, fixes things when something breaks. We check in with one another if we are buying something major or selling something major.

I think I have stayed because I love my boyfriend and it's the best relationship i've been in. I've also had an ideal in my mind of what things can be like or who i can be within the family unit. But the more the reality doesn't match the idea in my fantasy and the more I heal my own trauma, the more I think it's time to go. I wish I had the comitment and love to stick it out, but I think I need to feel more prioritized and have both more calm and space for personal passion in my home life. I think I've decided to go, just waiting for how to execute it. And it's so hard because he's a good man and they are wonderful girls in so many ways.