You don't sound confused to me. You actually sound as if you have your head screwed on the right way.

You say her father says he is going to implement some rules. Why is he saying that. Why didn't he just do it. Then his comment to you would have and should have been I HAVE IMPLEMENTED some rules. Talk is cheap. I think you are very strong and wise to see this situation so clearly for what it is.

Good luck.

Under the circumstances your resentment is normal. I guess we love the man so we try to blame or somehow make the child responsible. She's not. Sure she may be the mist demanding, manipulative , sneaky, rude little bitch God ever breathed life into, but even you know her mum and dad did that too her. They clearly still are. And if she has some sort if disorder, then it seems like these two are going to be the type of parents who over compensate for that.

Just as you cannot change the child, you cannot change the parents. If he were going to set boundaries and chores for her, he would have made some attempt at that by now. I'm guessing he's using the excuse he wants to wait for a diagnosis before he sets that in place. If that's the case, well I don't hold out much hope for you, sorry. But if he is making excuses for her like this, he's not likely to be able to affect the necessary changes the child needs to live some sort of normal life, and you need to stay in the relationship.

I get the you love him. I adored my husband, he was my soulmate. He was estranged from his kids when we married and I never got the opportunity you have now. I never got to see him as a parent. His kids were all adults and his daughter is pure evil. Not that he would agree with that. She's coming up for 31 and he still finds excuses for her. Nothing she does is wrong.

We are still together, but the spark is gone. I used to look at the clock and long for him to come home. Now I look at the clock and think, shit no, is it that time already.

This situation will damage your relationship. But I left it for 8 years before I banned her from my life and my home. When you leave it too long the stress makes you anxious, and the anxiety makes you physically ill.

In the end your mental and physical health takes a serious beating. That's not fair to you or your kids.

I had no idea how aware my adult children were and how worried about me they were until I got really sick and had to ban his daughter. I then had to open up to my kids and tell then a little about it and assure them I would not put myself in this abusive situation again. I would leave if DH didn't support me. My kids then opened up to me about their concerns and fears they had for me.

What I inadvertently put then through was cruel and unfair. They are young women with husbands and babies of there own. They didn't need the stress.

Things are better now because in banning Sd she banned her brothers, then involved my FIL. End result I have nothing whatsoever to do with DH's family and he barely speaks to them either. It makes for a peaceful life for both of us.

Your Sd is very young, you do not have the option of banning her. If this continues and I Susoect it will, can you imagine her in her teenage years. Do you really want to bring that on yourself.

Both her parents happily created this. They see nothing wrong with their parenting. You will ultimately be seen as the problem. You will be expected to be the adult. You will be accused of just not liking her, or looking for trouble because you don't want him to see his daughter, because no matter how hard you may try to help this girl. She and her parents will make you the bad guy before they will acknowledge they are bad parents.

I am very sorry I know you love him and it hurts. But I think you're eyes are open and you will not allow yourself to romanticize this. I think you will not only know what you have to do, I think you will do it.

I sincerely wish you all the very best. I understand how difficult this is for you.

Listen to your mum.

But more importantly listen to your gut. Maybe your Mr Right is not quite right for the long term and all this baggage us a gift for you so you can see more clearly.

I have been to hell and back. HATED the SD with a passion. The penny eventually dropped and I realise s my husband was a bigger problem. She could say and do what she pleased. HE needed to pull her into line. Not by his silence encourage and support her. Realizing that he was alliowing this gutted me. I saw my husband in a whole new light.

But ultimately I understood I did it to myself. I allowed it to continue. I went against my gut and everything I knew was right because I loved him. I wanted him to be happy. Guess that by then was the only thing we had in common. He wanted to be happy to and if that meant allowing me to be abused by his family well shit happens

It has been very tough, but I am at a point where I am grateful for the experience. I learnt a lot from it. I looking back had no self esteem or confidence going into the marriage. I was raised by alcoholics and the uncertainty that life brings does not make for happy healthy well adjusted children. So I was a good target for a bully and that was really what my husband and his daughters were. Bullies.

For the first time in my life I have some pride and some self respect. I have developed enough confidence to say NO. I have learned the lesson. In trying to run over the top of me, bring me down and break me. DH and Sd made me a stronger, happier, more confident woman. So I am thankful for that.

In reading your posts I think you are far from being me. You also seem to have a supportive mother. You will never allow yourself to be destroyed by any man, and if you try. Your mum is gonna whack you one.

No doubt step kids can be spoiled mean in control brats. But almost everything you describe is my 9 yr olds.they would do nothing but play, watch spongebob,etc if I didn't get on them, I have to stay on them, reminders all the time to put away their toys and do chores. They think it's funny to quietly sneak up on me and surprise me, especially using "stealth" moves as they call them like a low to the ground army crawl. They do it to the baby too. If i didn't require them to do things for themselves, I know without a doubt they would be perfectly content to have me wait on them completely. They also do the so called stealth moves to the baby, 8 months old. He laughs and laughs when he finally sees them, he loves being surprised. Schizophrenic is a strong diagnosis, I have briefly worked with them in a mental institution, locked up against their will. The little girl you describe is absolutely nothing like that. This is really all your boyfriends fault for allowing it,children are naturally misbehaved, selfish, mean, and self centered and will act this way unless corrected numerous times, otherwise known as parenting. People get fooled-like Disney dads and other permissive parents-because they are so cute on the outside. The truth inside is ugly. All kids.

My therapist has told me two things I guess I will never forget. A. just because the husband does not implement rules or set boundaries with his kid, it does not mean he doesn't love the woman in his life. He is just a guilty father. B. You cannot change anybody in your life, you can only learn coping skills in order to coexist with them.

I have tried to teach my husband how to set boundaries and how to balance his mother, his daughter, and our kid and I. It works for two weeks at most, then he goes back to his own rules. I realized that he is still the man in my dream, but unfortunately, the situation will never change because he will never change.

There is a common belief that as long as we have supportive husband, our life will be good. I DO have supportive husband, but my life is still miserable. I realized that maybe I am not suitable to be a stepmom or share my husband with anybody.

Step duaghter comes to our house every other week. Overall, she is a good kid, but she has her moments. When she throws a tantrum, I get very irritated. When husband pays too much attention to her and neglect our child (believe me, he tried very hard not to), I became very irritated. Life is a constant struggle.

Well, you haven't married this man yet. and I am sure you want to. But read stories on this board, and make a wise decision. I know couples who live separate lives. They meet up every week when the kid is not around, they are faithful to each other, but they are not going to sacrifice their own lives for the other person's kid. Well, their relationship is still going strong, a lot of my other friends' marriages falling apart. It makes me think that maybe some of us are just not meant to be step parent. I know I shouldn't have been one myself.

Good luck to you.

Tmr43.

I am not settling here. I am not afraid to be on my own. I was on my own for I dunno, maybe 18 years or so. I raised my kids and was happy doing it. I met and married "Mr Right" about 18 months after my youngest left home. I was not looking for a husband or support I was fine.

Fast forward to now. I have never been put through such hell. I did a few months when SD's boyfriend decided to tell me some things that my FIL had supposedly told him, see a solicitor to find out where I stood financially. I am 60 years of age and not employed so I needed to be very clear on what I was doing.

I have not seen SD or her boyfriend for a year. Last August the boyfriend made a point of bailing me up and telling me some stuff he should never have told me. Now I thank God he did. But after that encounter I was physically ill, and the marriage as far as I was concerned over, I was done. I was absolutely gutted by what the boyfriend said and I had had enough. I have never seen DH so shit scared. I rang him at work to tell him what BF had said and to tell DH never to come back here again. I told him when he finished work he was to go to SD house and stay there. Within 40 minutes he was home. I was angry for weeks over that, and over the way DH once again didn't handle it.

That incident began the biggest change in me ever. Am I happy, damn straight I am. Do I feel in control of my life. Bloody Oath I do. Would I like things to have been different and had a marriage where both of us were on an equal footing, absolutely. But just as my SD has a personality disorder, so to does my husband. He is not as bad as her, but he has his issues. This little worm turned last August. My husband treats me like he did when we first met. We have not argued since August about anything. He is more settled when he does not speak to his family and things are good. But in saying that, things are good because I have taken control. I am no longer the underdog in this marriage. Now I hate that because as I said before I think a marriage should be about both partners being equal. My husband does not understand that. I hope in time he will come to work it out and we can have what I think is a normal relationship. But he has a lot to learn.

My goal would be to aim for equality in the marriage. But in order to get that, I have to work very slowly towards it. I was a complete and willing slave to my husband. I wanted to make his life easy. I got his clothes out in the morning, right down to the socks and undies. I would bake fresh biscuits for his breakfast (he's italian and they eat biscuits for breakfast), drives me nuts being Scottish, we have a massive cooked breakfast, but anyway he doesn't and what he wanted was what went. My husband never left this house for work without me being up making the coffee and his fresh lunch and of course his biscuits. Well now, I no longer get up. Instead he brings me a cup of tea in bed (I never asked for that). He helps out around the house, again something I never asked for or expected as he worked and I was home. But now when he does this, I do not insist he doesn't, I simply say thank you.

I have had to take a step back, I have had to change myself, I have had to stop doing everything for him and acting like his slave, because after years and years of doing that, that is how he treated me. He certainly doesn't now.

I am happy because I have found my inner strength again. I am happy because I am no longer afraid of him leaving if I said too much about his precious daughter. I am happy because I have found self esteem and confidence. Traits I did not have even before the marriage really. Being humilated by his daughter and him allowing it, really knocked me around. That I know will never happen again because I actually like me and I see that despite him telling me for years that I was wrong, I actually wasn't I was right all along.

I am happy because I respect myself. Looking back at how I put up with and allowed DH and his family to treat me, it was little wonder I felt like nothing, it was little wonder I had such low regard for myself that I had no self respect. No self respecting person would have accepted that. I now have self respect, and yes I really am happy.

It has taken years to reach this point. But today I can honestly say to you, if the marriage works, wonderful. If for whatever reason it fails. I will have no regrets, I will know I tried and I gave it my best. However, I am very happy with the way I feel about myself, and that for me is a major turnaround. I was brought up to serve. I guess I was born a slave and lived my life as one, till now.

I have let go of the hate and the anger. I have nothing to do with DH's family sure, but there is no hatred in my heart for any of them. I truly do laugh at the stupididy of it all. To me now, they are just other people on the planet. I would not cross the street to avoid them, nor would I invite them round for coffee.

Yes I am happy. I have re established an honest relationship with my adult children. I have 4 healthy grandsons whom I love dearly and they love me for no other reason than I am Nana. I used to hide that from my husband, I felt sorry that he did not have this relationship with his kids and grandkids. not anymore. I have the kids here whenever they want to be here and I do not keep them at arms distance for fear of upsetting DH. I have gone back to having a normal life. DH can be a part of that life, or he can leave and go back to the misery he lived before. Whatever he chooses for himself is okay.

I do love him, clearly I would not have put up with the things I put up with if I didn't. But I learnt a lot of things through this. Love is a two way street. I loved him above all others, I wanted him to be happy and bent over backwards to make that happen. He on the other hand was so busy bending over backwards to make his daughter happy that he was making me miserable. That is not love. When you love someone you want the best for them. You want them to be the best person they possibly can be. He did not want that for me. He was too busy trying to apease his 30 year old daughter and if that meant making me a scapegoat, then so be it. That is not love.

I think given time he will get it. I know he saw the change in me last August. I know it scared him. I know he loves me, but I also know that his fear of his daughter was stronger than his love for me, certainly before last August. Time will tell if he can change with me. But whatever happens I am happy with the woman I am. I am not bitter, I am not angry. I am actually grateful for the experience, and feel blessed that it turned me into a person who now has self respect. This I guess was sent to me because I need to learn a lesson. I feel a peace within me and am happy knowing that, I did learn the lesson and I came out of this still a caring and compassionate person, comfortable in the knowledge that I can care about me too. I know that self love does not have to mean selfish. I truly am doing okay. I say my prayers every night, always have. The last few months I finish my prayers by thanking God that this is over and that I not only survived but came out better for the experience.

When you completely trust a person you'll finally get one of two results.............A person for life, or a lesson for life.

I do not know what I will end up with, the person or the lesson. Currently I have the lesson. But that lesson may very well be the thing that helps my husband and myself to rebuild the marriage. But no matter the outcome, I am happy. It is nice to feel comfortable in my own skin, and it is nice not to be surrounded by hate, vindictivness, anger and jealousy. I am sorry my husband and his family live like that, but that is their choice. Mine is to be happy, life is far to short to be involved with people who hate. Yes Tmr43 I can honestly say I am happy. It has been a long time coming, a lifetime actually, but it is here now and I thank God everyday for it.