Hello. I am mostly new to this step-parenting thing. I will give you a rundown of what is going on.

My husband I and I got married in November of 2011. At that time, he had been living with my son and I for almost 2 years. He has four children of his own by four different mothers (yes, my husband is a recovered man-whore), but we never saw them, as we lived 2 hours away and did not have a car. He talked to them on the phone, but not as often as he should. Now we live in the same town as three of them and the fourth talks to him over Skype occasionally. The oldest is 14, I believe, and I have never met him. He is friends with his father on Facebook, and they choose to communicate that way. The second is eight and is the one who talkes to his father over Skype. He has absolutely no interest in knowing my son or I, which I feel gives me grounds to dislike him. We basically have to hide in another room while they are talking so we do not upset the boy. I told my husband how much this make me feel like the other woman in our marriage, and he said that it irritates him too, but he doesn't know what to do. The youngest's mother hates my husband and will not allow him to see the child, mostly because she had hoped they would get back together. It has been over seven years since they hooked up, you would think she would move on.

This brings me to the child I spoke of in my subject. My husband's third child. I do not hate her. She is a sweet child who comes and spends every other weekend with us. She does, however, get on every nerve that I have in my body. Granted, most of what she does that irritates me is the fault of her mother. She was born with FAS, so she has some developmental disadvantages. That doesn't bother me. I was fully ready to bring this six-year-old child closer to her age level in behavior and education level, because she has the ability to learn, she just hasn't been given a fair chance. Her speech is about at the level of a three or four year old, but that is ok. I can work with her to help her form proper sentances and pronunciate correctly. She was sent to school with no education whatsoever, and the fact that they passed her from kindergarten was a disservice to her, but that is fine, I will work with her, after all, I have a six-year-old boy of my own who went into kindergaten reading and doing simple math, so I think I can get a first grader at least recognizing letters and simple words (cat, bat, dog, etc.) right?

Wrong. I try and get her to learn something, anything, and she doesn't even try. I have books of sight words and will go over the same one over and over again, but she will still given me fake, and I do mean fake, sad little girl eyes and say she doesn't know when I ask her what the word is. That is one thing her mother taught her: how to manipulate other people into doing everything for her. Her father even gets frustrated with her when it comes time for her to learn, but he won't try to teach her. She also does everything that she can to get out of having to do anything other than play. It is a rule in my house that periodically the room has to be cleaned. Before food is eaten and when new toys are played with, especially. She will either stand there and watch my son do all the work, or she will sit on the floor and slowly pick up one item at a time, stopping to play with them before they are put away. My son is a little OCD about where his toys belong, and she intentionally puts things in the wrong place, just to get him to yell. Of course, when he does, he gets in trouble by my husband, which brings me to the next issue.

My husband severly plays favorites between them. He treats her like the sun rises and sets in her backside, while treating my son poorly. My son gets blamed for things that she does pretty consistantly, and when I punish her for something I saw her do, he says I am being unfair. He yells at my son for not eating his dinner after 20 minutes, but gently encourages her to finish her lunch after an hour. It is so frustrating. When I say anything to him about it, he tries to turn it around on me, saying I play favorites too. I may, I guess. I try really hard not to. Before anyone gets blamed, I consider both sides of the story. I make sure to ask them to explain it more than once, so I can check for discrepencies. The only time I start off by scolding is when it is 7 in the morning and they are yelling (typically playing Transformers). I do not spank or threaten to spank, they get corner time. I am especially hard when it comes to lying, which I hate. She lies alot, and poorly.

I do love the girl, just not as much as my husband expects me to. I can't love her as much as my son, at least not yet. I have had my sone for more years then he has been alive, and I have only known her for eight months. I am not going to love them the same, but that does not mean I don't love her. I just get easily irritated by her. She is whiney, likes to play dumb, doesn't like to do anything for herself, and tries to lie to get what she wants. She portrays everything that I cannot stand in females. Any suggestions?