I am new here and have just come to terms with the fact that I don't like my stepkids. Realizing that I was not alone and allowing myself to accept that I don't love them was a great relief. It's like a big weight was removed when I admitted that I don't like them. For harmony's sake I would like to love them though and that's my problem as it is COMPLETELY UNNATURAL to love someone else's kids!

Let me back up though. I have a BS that is 6 mos and I have 2 year old daughter that I adopted before I met my current husband. I mean legally adopted as a newborn, know her bio parents, they were teenagers and gave her up so she is not my bio at all and yet I love her the same as my BS, so I am capable of loving a non-bio child and yet I can't stand my husband's kids.

The SD9, let's start with her. We have a 2 yr old and a 6 month old and yet SD9 is the highest maintenance child. She nags at her dad by knocking on our door (btw didn't knock before I moved in) and asking for the same thing 3 times even though we told her we would be down in a few mins. (We deserve a few precious minutes alone as we give our kids all our time and energy and can't leave his kids with a babysitter on the weekends bc he only has them 50% time Thu-Mon and feels guilty). Her mom over-sexualizes her so she thinks she's 20 and tries to dress sexy (showing more skin than I would), and tries to wear makeup, both of which I put a stop to. So she acts like a teenager by day and pees the bed or knocks on our bedroom door at night and wakes us up to "tell us she needs to go to the bathroom" What?!? Also wakes us up in the morning at 8 o'clock on the dot (when I first met my husband they were waking him up at 630 am on weekends!!!)so we can make breakfast for her even though A. she is able to make her own breakfast. B. She isn't going to starve if we sleep in and feed her a little after 9. C. Even if we do get up at 8, by the time we get AD2 and BS6mo up changed and fed she doesn't eat until 9 anyways! We have an issue with his kiddies walking all over my husband so I don't think a 9yr should be dictating when we get up or we only get to sleep in if she decides SHE wants to sleep in. Brat. She has a LOW social IQ. Cannot read non-verbal cues or understand verbal cues such as "why don't you go sit down until I finish cooking?" Which means get the F out of the kitchen you are in my way! She has no concept of a "personal bubble" and constantly invades everyone's space. She blurts out rude things like "your breath stinks!" or "you have a bald spot" or "you have a hole in your shirt" or "food in your teeth" or "you look tired" Thanks! She is wrecking the furniture. She splays all over our couches until they are bowing in the center. She fidgets and kicks at the coffee table until the legs are loose. She breaks my glass nicknacks. Shit you expect of a toddler and yet my toddler doesn't wreck my house! She spilled paint and glitter all over the seat of my brand new dining table and "accidentally" carved her name into the tabletop. The table is 2 weeks old and bought for my birthday! And OMG the constant fidgeting!!! Sit still!!! She throws temper tantrums and stomps up the stairs if she doesn't get her way. She is a pig and a compulsive over-eater. She thinks she is more beautiful than anyone, thinks she is perfect and better than everyone else and feels entitled to the best of everything. (She will knock the other kids over just to get inside the house first and does things like examining each and every cookie to make sure she gets the biggest and best). She has ZERO empathy and compassion for others. When we told her about the movie theatre shooting (so she wouldn't hear it somewhere else) the first thing she said was not "oh those poor people" but "Man, the movies aren't going to make much money now." When we told her about the 10 yr old girl who was kidnapped and killed walking to her busstop in broad daylight in CO (to keep her vigilant about strangers) her response was "you guys are never going to let me walk to school with my friends, are you?" Selfish. Self-centered. Narcissistic. Shallow. IDK how a child can have stellar straight A's and be so fucking socially stupid and selfish!

My SS11. Actually he is my favorite skid, not that the competition is paricularly fierce. He is easy-going, giving, has high social IQ, gets good grades, is funny, intelligent, polite...but I have to watch him bc he will try to manipulate his father by trying to make him feel sorry for him to get things. He will also sit silently or mope to get attention (as if a kid that gets to play video games all day, taken to Disneyland every year, Renaissance Fair, Circus, Zoo, Disney on Ice, after school activities, family activities, has own computer, 2 handheld videogame devices, an ipod, you get the picture) has something to mope about.

My husband is supportive (Thank you, God) and we are working on the issues, especially the SD. But I DREAD them coming over. IDK what kind of feel-sorry-for-me bullshit I'm going to have to deal with or what fits of illogic reasoning and precociousness I will have to listen to, and frankly, they aren't worth the effort. I want to spend my time and energy on children who love me and need me, not ones that I do everything that I do for my other kids but they don't appreciate it and who wish that I didn't exist so they could have their poor dad be single but have his undivided attention again at the expense of his happiness!

I feel like I'm fighting for a lost cause. Their mom remarried after cheating on my husband and they just think their step-dad is wonderful bc they are "used to him". Ya, no shit, that's bc your whore mother was fucking your now Step-dad behind your Bio-dad's back so you've known him since you were 1 and 3! The bottom line is they liked their dad better before I came along. He had nothing better to do (and they used to scream "I want mom" when he tried to put his foot down so I think he was feeling vulnerable) than devote his time and money on them and they are used to not having any rules, not being told no, and running the house until I came in and changed things. Also, their mom has 4 or 5 younger siblings at their house but the big difference is it was like an amusement park wih their dad with undivided attention but now their dad has 2 new small children so now it's more like their mom's house, except we have rules.

Oh my God, will I ever find it in my heart to love them truly? Will we ever get past this difficulty? I don't wish them any harm and would kick the ass of anyone who tried to hurt them (same as I would for the kid I don't know down the street) but the feelings just aren't there. Has anyone else felt this way? Does it get better? Will there always be this weird competition/tension that they feel with me? I'm so sick of it. I have to go pick them up in a few hrs. I'm tense and dreading it.