latency -- recurrence -- latency -- recurrence. Forever.

Just when everything seems to be going smoothly and you are floating along, really starting to enjoy your life, you catch a glimpse of it in the mirror: Uh oh. Just a little red blister this time, not really a big deal, but still a reminder that this herpes skidplex virus is always going to be there. You can forget about it, sometimes for very long periods of time, but it will always come back and it will always bring a bit of discomfort into your life.

Hi everyone!

I don't have a lot to complain about these days. DH and I were both naive going into this and neither of us have handled skid/bm situations perfectly but we seem to have established some sort of "normalcy" in our household and have learned how to work through some of our biggest problems without turning in on each other. Most of the time. Because even when things are relatively good, it's really just surface level good. There is still a lot of ugliness if you look deep enough.

Last night DH said the saddest thing I've ever heard him say.

Background: His 11stb12 year old son visits every other weekend. In between weekends this kid texts back and forth with DH pretty regularly. I was thrilled at first. One my biggest hangups in the beginning was getting DH to take more control of his relationship with his children so that the relationship could exist independently of BM. These direct communications with the skids (instead of BM) were exactly what I hoped for. Well, even that has soured now. 90% of this kid's texts are him attempting to work DH over in some way. He is constantly hinting around about all the things he wants. Expensive things. DH isn't made of money and so much of it goes to BM anyway, I'm not worried about him caving in on the really big things. It just isn't going to happen. It still irks me to no end that this kid has no shame, a huge sense of entitlement, and a BM who is probably sitting in the background nodding and encouraging all of it.

Last night was the breaking point for me. After 2 years of watching this kid ask for very expensive things and after 2 straight weeks of seeing this kid try to get DH to buy him equipment for one sport immediately after the last visit where DH got him gear for a DIFFERENT sport, I couldn't take it anymore. I probably didn't present it in the best way (ok, there is no "probably" about it). After some critical words about his son's character, I said "Wow DH. Is THIS the kind of "relationship" you want with your kids? When I encouraged you to build a relationship with them that was independent of BM, I had no idea it was going to be like this. Do you want to become nothing more than a walking ATM to them? How do you feel about the fact that the only interaction you get from SS are texts asking you to buy him things? Some relationship."

And here is his sad, pathetic, defeated response: "Well, if that's all I can get from him then that's what I'll take. At least it's something resembling a relationship."

:sick: :sick: :sick:

And it totally went downhill from there. And now any progress we have made as a couple seems to have come undone. In one night. I know, I know, I'm just feeling sorry for myself right now. This will blow over and we will get back to some sort of steady state again but I'm done thinking that we will ever see eye to eye regarding skid issues. I read blogs and forum topics on Step Talk about adult skids and how the step parent ALWAYS has that feeling of dread whenever the phone rings and they hear "Oh hi, skid!" from their spouse. I'm going to end up like that too someday. I argued with some of you over it. "Whatevs, you experienced SMs out there, the skids DO grow up and then they won't be our problem anymore". Hahahaha. I have finally let go of my delusion. I have finally accepted the ugly truth. It really won't ever go away.