Please help me! I'm on the verge of packing my bags and leaving. I cannot continue to live like this.

I have now a new account in which I don't use my real name, so you won't be able to find my older blogs, but I will explain:

I moved across the world to be with my husband. I left my family, my friends and my career. For about a year and a half, I have been struggling with getting a job related to my education, learning a new language, surviving the coldest and most cruel winters and being a stepmother. I have three stepsons. SS15 lives with us. SS8 and SS4 live with their mother and come to visit every other weekend and one day during the week.

These kids are totally misbehaved. They're parents' feeling of guilt allowed them to do anything they wanted and be as they wanted without any rules or knowledge between right or wrong or manners. I had it pretty difficult when I first came because in my culture, parents are pretty strict. I implemented some rules in the house (because this was now my house), which made the kids "not like me" (to take it lightly), which I had to do since my husband didn't.

After a long year, sometime this summer I had a breakdown about the kids and started going to family counseling. The counselor suggested that my husband came along so that we could deal with the issues together. We have been going ever since and things were going fantastic until...

About two and a half weeks ago, SS8 (who has had a lot of problems at school because of what I will explain later), told the school nurse that his stepmother had hit him (which isn't true). She immediately called child services and we're now being investigated. We haven't been able to see the kids since then, until my husband saw them today (to which I will come back later).

Last night he asked his ex if he could take the kids for the day and bring them to his parents' house, since I'm not allowed to see him. She said yes, but that he would have to be careful that he didn't get a "bad conscience" about what he had been saying. So basically he gets to lie out of his *** but doesn't get to know that he has done something wrong. This only proves my point: She lets them do as they wish and there are no consequences to their actions.

Anyway, this same woman has been my friend. When DH and I got married and I moved here, she was super nice. She even gave me a job at the kindergarten that she works at (not related to my career) so that I would get out of the house. It helped a lot because I learned a lot and we became good friends. Needless to say, now I'm out of a job and my "friend" who has known me for over a year, whom I have worked with, to whom I have been 100% true and honest and very very open, is now using EVERYTHING I ever told her, against me because she believes her 8-year-old son (who is known for lying), that I have hit him.

What's the kid's deal? Well, he's difficult. He used to be the kind of kid that would throw temper-tantrums about everything and even hit his father or me or his mother if he didn't get what he wanted. He's had a difficult couple of years with his parents splitting up and him getting a new stepmother who made a lot of rules. Aside from that, his mother moved in with her boyfriend who also has two kids, so now he has to share his mother's attention with the boyfriend and two new kids. He also had to change schools because of the move, which means that now he has no friends. And even more, after the first week of school, his mother took him on a two-week vacation. Isn't that too much for an 8-year-old?

Well, the rule that he hates most is the one that says that he has to eat what everyone else eats for dinner. He doesn't like food. He survives on french-fries and macaroni at his mother's and everywhere else. But here, he had to learn to eat. We don't make him eat big portions, but he has to at least try what we eat, which is nothing out of the ordinary. I don't make food from my country, but instead I have learned to cook theirs, so that they are comfortable eating it. Even so, he hates me for it. But does that give him a reason to lie? He has told all these people that he's afraid of coming to our house because I go crazy when he doesn't like my cooking and that I hit him every time he says he doesn't like the food. It really hurts.

But here's the kicker: For those of you who already knew the story and are waiting to hear what happened next; today, when my husband had the boys and went to his parents house, SS4 said that I had also hit him. Are you serious? Like, he can't be left out so needs to also lie about it? His dad asked when and he said: "when we were in Disneyland".

WHAT????? Are you telling me that I took them to Disneyland and spent ALL THAT MONEY, just so that I could go and hit them? You've got to be kidding me!!! But what is even worse, his fathers response was: "I don't remember that happening." WHAT???? You don't REMEMBER? I say. Where the f*** is your confidence? You were there with me 100% of the time and you KNOW that it didn't happen. What kind of answer is that? Where's your confidence? Aren't you supposed to protect me? Your children are lying as much as they can about me and your way to defend me is to say that you don't remember? Seriously??? I mean... seriously?

I'm infuriated, disappointed and absolutely devastated. I cannot understand that these cute little children can cause so much damage and that their father would take their side even though he KNOWS that what they're saying is a lie. He says he's on my side, but his actions show different. If he's not with me, he's against me, right?

SS8 had called him earlier today to ask if he and SS15 wanted to come to his birthday party on Sunday. They have never invited them to their birthday parties, why would they this year? But most importantly, is this what the rest of my life is going to be like? I'm being excluded from every family event? birthdays? weddings? birth of their children? How am I supposed to live like this?

I really don't deserve this. I have been a good person and I have been a good stepmother. I have every book ever made on step-parenting and gone to therapy, asked for advice and everything I've done is because I loved them and cared for them. I have treated them as I would treat my own. I really don't deserve this. What have I done so that they would be so evil towards me? And who do I turn to when the only person who knows the truth defends me by saying he "doesn't remember" ?

I'm desperate. I haven't left because the implications of leaving are pretty big. Financially it would be a disaster and I really don't have much to go back to. I gave up everything to be here, and if I went back, I'd have to start from zero. Not to mention that I don't have the money for the ticket home...

This is my life, I hate it and feel like I have no reason to live. There is no purpose in my life anymore and I just don't know what to do. I'm absolutely and utterly destroyed!

Please help!