I first posted on here as "tog", starting around 2012, maybe, and deleted that account when my SS (now 20) was totally alienated at 15. Also, I was fed up with the mean girls bullying everyone on here.  I came back under this user name about 1.5 years ago, when my SS returned from alienation.

My life has changed all mostly for the better since my first post. BM has been neutralized, she no longer harasses DH or has any power in our home.  SS is back from alienation, though he's damaged and DH will probably never have a meaningful relationship with him - thanks, BM, so that's the bad part.  But we have peace in our home and are close to being done with child support.

I have been a  member here for nearly 9 yrs, which must mean I joined in April 2011, I think!   Things were really bad with the SDs and NPD BM in those days, and continued to be until 2013/14 when the EOW visits petered out, following a massive bust up DH had with his daughters when he finally established sensible boundaries and insisted these be observed.

Since then, things have been so much better.   DH sees his daughters every few weeks except when SD nearly 25 has been away at 3 different colleges, doing 3 different courses, one after the other, since she was 18.  As per my blog entry yesterday, DH and I are in the process of selling our house and buying a bigger one that is an hour's drive away from here.  ie Far enough away to not get dragged into the frequent dramas with NPD, SD25 and the Walking Wallet.  

I had "Spongebob" (DS), "Star" (DD), "Sheldon" (SS), and "Kitty Cat" (SD).   We were a somewhat new blended family.  We had some ups and downs, mainly due to different views in raising our kids.  Nothing was really bad, just annoying at times.  BM was "Wookie."  She was pretty hostile years ago, but now we get along fine when we have to.  

We now have an empty nest.  Sheldon and Kitty Cat live with Wookie, but both have full time jobs and are doing well.  Sheldon is still "married" to his laptop, never had a girlfriend, but has come out of his shell more over the years.  Kitty Cat is dating a somewhat decent guy.  

We lost our Spongebob on September 28, 2018.  He took his life.  I guess life just got to be too much.  He was such a generous soul, always helping someone, always making people laugh.  He was no angel, but he had a huge heart.  I miss him every single moment of every day, but I'm better than I was.  I can think of him now and smile.  I am truly blessed that I was chosen to be his momma.  

Star and her fiancee live with his parents and both are department managers at the same store.  Star had a hard time after losing her brother (her best friend), but she's doing better now.  She is expecting a baby and is determined to make Septembers wonderful again.  She has always been a momma's girl, so a day doesn't go by when I don't talk to her at some point, even if it's just facebook chat.  We have become very good friends with her fiancee's parents, so we are all together a few times a month.  

The relationship I have with our family has deepened since we lost Spongebob.  I realize that all that petty stuff just doesn't matter.  I thought I would grow to resent my Skids because of my own lost boy, but I don't.  They have become so much more precious to me now.  

My DH is my rock.  He has been my strength when I didn't have my own.  He has cried with me, held me, and knows what I need before I do.  He knows when to hold me close and when to give me some space.  He knows there are still bad days when I just want to curl up and die, but he is always there to hold my head above the water.  Thankfully, there are more good days than bad now.  

I think I first came here because I was searching for information on how to deal with histrionic stepchildren and a link for this site came up. 
 

Since then, my histrionic stepson is still histrionic, but DH has gotten better about telling him to knock it off. DH has also told him that if he doesn't want to come to our home he doesn't have to and regularly lets him skip weekends to do things with friends. DH also went to counseling with him and DH cried and told him SS he didn't want to lose touch with him, so at least now SS can't question that DH loves him. When SS tries to talk about BM with DH, DH shuts it down and tells SS those are adult issues. That doesn't mean that SS still doesn't cause drama in our home, he does. I suspect (or maybe I hope) that he'll stop coming around as much. Maybe we'll move into a situation where DH takes him out once or twice a month, but he doesn't actually come to stay.

BM is still terrible, still very mean, vindictive, and histrionic. Still playing the victim. DH has gotten better with boundaries and I'm also getting a little better at not reacting. DH still needs to work at totally ignoring her. This will become easier once SKids are both able to drive and not have to rely on BM to get them places. I know DH will still have contact, but he can limit it and keep it purely transactional. 
 

In other ways, life has been pretty tumultuous. I've changed my job, we've lost people very dear to us, DH's family showed their true colors (which was pretty hurtful). I've been going to counseling...not sure if it's really helped, but I guess it's nice to be validated that BM and DH's family are pretty toxic. 2019 was pretty tumultuous with months of drama from BM, meddling and accusations from DH's family, and a sham mediation - that BM has refused to follow even though she agreed to the terms. I suspect we'll be in the same place in 2 years because right now, BM has a 2 year cycle for demanding mediation / threatening to take DH to court. 2020 is quieter on the BM front. DH had angry words with his family and we're more distant from them (DH's family is pretty distant from one another when things are good, so unsure if they even realize). I'm still feeling a bit stuck in steptown, but have some things in the works that will at least enable personal development for me. 
 

Are things better? Probably not really. Am I better at managing / neutralizing the external toxicity that BM generates in our lives? Yes, I think I am, but there is still work to do.

2005 so almost 15 years.  Thought I was losing my sanity because Chef was gaslighting me into thinking that everybody raises their children as ferals; especially in the case of CODs.  He thought that his case was special; he was the good, "fun" dad and overpaying CS was a sign of great fatherhood.  Meanwhile the BM (Girhippo) was competing with Chef to be the "fun" BFF mom with no rules.  She completely wanted to control us from afar.  The unbelievably massive CS , the calls to CPS, the expectation that I would foot their bills as the Gir never worked outside the home and expected to be kept in that manner despite the fact that she has a higher level of education than Chef and the fact that the older two were actually in school when their marriage collapsed.

She and her family were on a complete scorched-earth PAS policy; even back when she was still married to Chef.

Now my grown kids were CODs too, but I never let them run feral with no rules or tried to befriend them; completely foreign to me due to the way I was raised.  I will admit that with my first kid and me being 20 years old at the time I did start to do a bit of PAS in the form of being resentful left on my own in providing without CS but then I caught myself and realized this wasn't good for my DD.  And although my second husband, who was my son's father and is now deceased, was a physically abusive alcoholic, I never PASed my DS against him.

My 3 skids PASed out over a decade ago.  I came here back then to cope.  The negative experiences of the HCGUBM, the feral kids and the Disney/guilty parenting has completely killed 99% of the relationship so Chef and I are basically roommates and business partners.. if that was what the Girhippo was driving for then mission accomplished.

I'm mostly here to warn others about going down the same road.

I first came here just as step hell was winding down, that was about five years ago.   I miss some of the old posters whi had amazing stories and advice.  I don't feel like I have really bonded with anybody on here but that's more because when I was first on here there was a fakebook group and they would make fun of new posters and it was a very mean girls vibe.  Plus there was a poster who wanted to find out who people are and out them to their spouse.

Unfortunately after moving away 2 years ago Spawn has moved back to our town and we found out this week she has been in touch with some family members she had cut off, so that's given me anxiety but I figured this could happen in the future. I just didn't think it would be so soon. 

and have figured out DH is the root cause of the bumps along the way, not BM or the skids.

But that's about it. If I had gotten wiser, perhaps I would have figured out what to do about it already.