Hi,

I am new to this website but I stumbled upon it and thought this might be the perfect place to meet other step parents and vent. I am new to being a step parent so this process is really hard for me. I guess I should start with a little back ground. When I was really young I got married and had my son. We got divorced shortly after my son was born because his father wanted to have affairs and go out every night. I tired very hard to make things work but when it came down to it I just could not let our son see us and think that was what a marriage was. I'm not going to lie it was about 2 years of hell between his father once we filed for divorce but we are both remarried and for the most part we get along. We do family holidays and special occasions together and his wife calls me all the time just to talk. Its really nice to not have to be at "war" with them.

Now for the reason I joined this website. My husband and I are newlyweds we have know each other for over a decade and has been in my son's life for over 4 years since we started dating. Anyways, my husband has a daughter that is a few years older then my son and unfortunately we do not have the same relationship with her due to the mother. My husband was seeing his daughter a few times a month and giving the mother money to help with daycare and clothing etc. One day the mother took off. She said she was going to move out of state to be closer with her parents and that she would provided the info for them as soon as she had it. My husband and his whole family tried to contact them with no success. She canceled her FB,Myspace and changed her phone number. It took my husband 3 years to find them and we finally got to take her to court to get some sort of visitation agreement. Apparently she got a new boyfriend so she skipped town to be with him and told their little girl that her dad abandoned her. Needless to say once we went to court we all agreed that therapy was a good idea since his daughter doesn't have any memory of him or his family only things that the mother has told her. We are now in a bitter custody even though we are trying our best to make things fair for everyone. We pay for therapy and child support and have offered to pick up his daughter from school even so she does not have to go to daycare everyday. The mother shot down that idea and then decided that the little girl needs to be in daycare more. We are paying a 1000.00 a month between therapy and child support and now she is demanding we pay more for daycare. Some how her daycare bill will triple this year even though she is 9 years old and the mom's work schedule hasn't changed and only works about 25 hours a week. Oh and we have it court ordered to meet once a week for therapy but now she is saying she is not obligated to do that.

I just feel so helpless. I understand that everyone especially moms are protective of their kids but sometimes I feel some women take it to far.