My husband and I found out last summer that he has another daughter from his relationship just before ours, 6 years ago. She is five years old now, and we have been spending time with her frequently since last June. Quick background story: Her mother was married to the man my SD calls "Dad" at the time she was dating my husband. She gave him the story of they were seperated and getting divorced (neither of us know whether to actually believe that now or not). They found out she was pregnant about 5 months into their relationship. Soon after, the relationship started to fall apart. She started to avoid him, and when he finally was able to find her, she told him she had been raped and had a miscarriage. (Neither true.) She then left town, changed her phone number, and he never heard from her again. No one seemed to know where to find her. Or they weren't telling my husband at least. He dealt with the miscarriage news, worked through it, and moved on. Then last summer, a friend brought our attention to her FB page where she had pictures of her kids. And there she was, a little 5 year old girl that was like a mirror image of my husband. It's been a rough road, although I can't complain a whole lot. We don't have a ton of crazy drama, but we ARE only a year into it. It's been very hard for me to deal with the fact that I don't have my husband's only child. I feel like that makes me selfish, but when I got married and had my daughter (she's 2), I had absolutely no idea that I would become a step mom, acquiring a 5 year old SD. My biggest issue with the BM is that she won't take responsibilty for what she put my husband through. She has made a bunch of excuses for why she did what she did, but in my opinion, there's no excuse to not tell a father about his child! (Especially when said father is employed, not a drug addict, not an abuser, etc...) He also went through the same situation as a kid. But he didn't find out that his "dad" wasn't his real dad until he was 15. And, since they dated, of course BM knew about this beforehand and STILL kept his child a secret from him. BM had a very bad childhood, poor parenting, etc... and now she seems she is trying to overcompensate that with her kids. While I completely understand that, it makes it hard for us, because she coddles her kids, tries to give them everything they want. None of her kids are brats, including my SD, but it makes it hard for us during visit time since we are always trying to work around EXACTLY what SD wants. I know we're just at the beginning of this, and there are going to much bigger issues that arise. I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for that. Any other step parents out there in a similar situation? Where you didn't know about the step child until years after he/she was born? I'd love to hear some input! Thanks!