Hello. I'm new to Step Talk and need to vent... My boyfriend of almost two years and I got engaged this weekend. We have lived together for over a year now and we have also recently gotten 87% custody of his 3-year old daughter. I absolutely adore her and, in fact, never even wanted children of my own until I fell in love with her. I didn't know what it was like to feel that way towards another person that I wasn't romantically involved with. (if that makes sense).

Anyways, I have tried over and over to extend the olive branch to BM to help her feel more comfortable with my being a part of SD's life and she repeatedly smacks me in the face with it. To be honest, I don't blame her because since I have come into the picture, all of the manipulative crap she used to pull on BD doesn't fly anymore and she knows its because I won't stand for it. She used to have the 87% custody of SD until she up and left her with us to move into her new boyfriend's house 8 hrs away. Since then we have been thru a messy, messy custody battle and spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on lawyers fees and eventually came out on top with the custody arrangement. We got our butts handed to us in CS court due to her lack of work for the past year (which was a personal choice on her part- don't even get me started on that topic).

Ok, so here's where I get whiplash. BM is now trying to talk to me about EVERYTHING as though she wants to be my friend. I will do this face to face while exchanging my SD because I can see what a difference it makes in her attitude when she witnesses us getting along, but I am super uncomfortable with BM asking me personal questions about my health and life right now. I mean, its nice to feel like she is the one outstretching the olive branch this time, but its hard to say whether she is being genuine or not. If BD says ANYTHING to her, its WWIII. However, if I ask or say it, she fully complies.

To have walked thru all of the nasty comments and character assassinations that she has done to me in the last year and now everything is peaches and cream doesn't seem like reality. I don't want to be so judgmental that I don't see this for what it is if it is genuine, but I also don't want to allow her to pull the wool over my eyes while she's looking for a great spot to stab me in the back either...

Anyone feel this way? Or walked thru anything like this?

Another tid-bit of info is that she saw my engagement ring on Monday when picking up SD (We just got engaged on Friday) and this might also be her way of accepting that I'm not going anywhere anytime soon... Just confusing.