I'm new to the site also & I'm supposed to be a Christian. I say, supposed to be, because I am a person who loves God with all of my heart & yet I find myself DAILY feeling feelings of hatred toward my SD. I'm active in ministry work, I pray to the Lord daily, all day long, worship, in Church every Saturday night and Sunday morning. My children are active in church. I talk to God constantly, i keep a prayer journal, I'm in God's word and yet I feel deep feelings of hatred & animosity toward my SD. I know that it's not of God & so I come here to this site, and I express my feelings however I choose to express them, often times using words that are critical, judgemental and down right mean, but this is the ONE place that I can come to and just be honest about those feelings, I can confess them, just like I confess them to God, only to people who have compassion for how I feel, because they too are going through the same thing. I'm sure many of the people on this site have the same struggles that I do and ask themselves the question, "Lord, how can I say that I love you, but at the same time, have so much hatred towards my DH's child?" I know this is wrong Lord, but this is how I feel." I think that God already knows how i feel, & I think that he likes the fact that I come to Him in honesty & I talk about it with Him & all you other people on this site and I know that He understands. i also know that everyday, he gives me just a little more grace to be able to endure. Often times, we go home after work, and we dread going home because we know that we have to put on our BEST FAKE smile & be cordial to our SChildren, not only cordial but even try to engage in a relationship with them because we feel as the adult, we should be the one to initiate the relationship. I think that God understands that it's not humanly possible for us, in and of ourselves to love someone else's child. I'll be honest, I can't do it and so I pray for God to extend to me the grace to be able to do it for HIM (God) and because of Him. Even though I have these dark feelings, in spite of these dark feelings, God, give me the grace to be able to do it! I ask this question, what is love? Is love being someone's bio mom or dad & not anchoring the child in discipline, allowing a child to do whatever he or she wants to do, without any consequences or ramifications? Or is love someone seeing a child going down the path of destruction and yelling at the top of their lungs STOP! while bio mom & dad just sit back & do nothing? Hebrews 12 tells us about discipline and that God disciplines those that HE LOVES and CONSIDERS to be TRUE SONS & DAUGHTERS. If you are not disciplined, you are not considered to be true sons or daughters, but are considered BASTARDS. READ ALL OF HEBREWS 12. I believe that I love my SD EVEN MORE than DH does, because I care for her life, her soul... Hebrews 12 also goes on to say that discipline produces a harvest of peace and righteousness for THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN TRAINED BY IT! I have really been focusing on Hebrews 12 the past 2 weeks. It's in the New Testament of the Bible, I think that many of us will find confirmation and peace in reading these scriptures. I hope & pray today that you will all read this passage today, it comforts me and shows me that what I am wanting for my SD is what God wants, but there is an obstacle in God's way right now, that being my DH.I am afraid that because parents are afraid to discipline their children, that we are raising an entire "jerry Springer generation", a generation of kids who never learned discipline & are easy targets for someone like Jerry Springer to exploit & make money off of their pain. I see my SD's life unfold in front of me if DH doesn't step in. I see her pregnant at an early age, with a man who is abusive, living in a run-down trailer, un-educated, with maybe 4 other little ones, dirty faces, smelly diapers with a hound dog on the porch, calling my DH, if we're still together, complaining about her husband. She's already dating someone who is heavily into pornography & forces her to have sex with him even if she doesn't want to, even if it hurts. How do I know these things? Thank God I have a relationship with my daughters! And any kind of good mother knows how to play private detective and ask their kids the right questions & get the kids to rat out their siblings. A good detective (mother) also somehow gets her children to give her their user names & passwords to their AOL accounts,msn messenger, my space, face book, etc. That's what a mother does! My DH says that I'm too controlling. I'm fighting for my children's salvation & when I get to heaven and God asks me "what did you do with my children I entrusted you with? Did you tell them about me? Did you point them in my direction? Did you tell them about Jesus, did you show them the proper way? Did you discipline them, as I have disciplined you? I will be able to answer the Lord with a clear conscience, standing in front of him and say "Yes, Lord, I did all that you commanded me to do!"