Well, H & I have our second counseling session under our belt. H still dominated the convo but I did get a few words in edgewise this time - enough to make H actually threaten to walk out on counseling at that very moment (the TRUTH HURTS!), but he didn't. Then again, like after our first counseling session, we've been getting along GREAT as though we didn't just sit in a room saying we felt hopeless and gave our marriage a 1 in 10 chance of survival! :jawdrop:

SD's one month (1/2 the summer) visit is coming to a close this week. Hasn't been as "horrible" as it could've been I guess, but I am glad its over. Last thing H did is undermine me when I went to punish SD (no TV) after defying BOTH of my 2 simple house rules and he coddled her and basically encouraged her to take advantage of all of the other forms of entertainment available to her (unlimited, unsupervised internet access and her own personal cell phone usage, and of course her Nintendo DS) instead of backing me up and eliminating her use of those items too. On top of this, in our last counseling session H flat out defended his decision not to discipline SD11.8 when she with us, while on the other hand wanting to continue to discipline BS6 for every infraction because "BS6 has the 'benefit' of having Dad with him everyday and SD11.8 does not", so IMO H pretty much then continues to create a situation where I will never feel that SD is "welcome" in my home. Not sure what this means for the future, but at least we are done with the temporary long-term visits and I can go back to tolerating EOW.

Because H is bad with money and planning we've NEVER been on vacation as a "family". I have taken my children and gone to visit family and/or on vacation several times, and I even paid for H to go visit his family as an Xmas gift, and paid for SD and took her with me to visit him when he lived out of town for a while, but H never takes his kids anywhere. I am now planning another wonderful vacation with just me and my boys - the second this year (last was Spring Break.) Why should my BSs have to be stuck with no vacation just because H cannot get it together to afford to pay for himself and his child(ren) to go? That will NOT be another thing on the long list of things funded and/or subsidized by SM - the "buck" stops here (literally!) My BSs won't miss out. As their mother I will make sure that my BSs have the life they are entitled to that I work so hard for! Since H's kids seem to be on "vacation" everytime they are in my home, I guess that'll have to do for them until their parents figure out how to make something happen for them. As for me & my boys, we will be frolicking on a sandy beach in a fews weeks!