Hello fellow step parents,

I suppose the purpose of this post is to just vent or maybe hear from some parents who have gone through similar situation to provide some encouragement. I have been in my SKs life for 8 years and I must say I am truly lucky because I have good kids. I have always been the more stable parent in their lives. Their bio mom is probably the worst example of a SAHM I have ever seen, just the things you would imagine they would be good at...she just sucks at it. She is highly religious and her belief is that is what a woman should do...even though as I mentioned she sucks at it. She remarried and her husband for lack of a better phrase is a dick and never treated my SKs like his own. My husband is in the military, so out of the 4 parental figures I was always the one the kids came to when they needed something. I would share custody with the BM and have the kids by myself while my DH was deployed for months. When we met I was a single mother of one child, whose father was fading out of the picture. I am educated, held a great paying job, and was actually told during my divorce proceedings that trying to get child support from my ex was wasted effort and if I could manage I should just move on as it wasn't worth it...my ex is mentally ill. I did just that and when I met my now DH, my child and I were doing just fine...in fact since my ex wasn't squandering my money on drugs, we were doing better than I was when I was married.

On the surface, it didn't seem like much more work when I met my DH. I would just play back up essentially, as there were already 3 parents in place, by the time I showed up. Slowly over the years my role has evolved to me being the star player when I was just supposed to be the "water girl". We recently moved and the kids chose to move with us, a custody battle ensued, I wiped always many of tears, had the whole "hurt people, hurt people" talk with my SKs time and time again to help with the pain their bio mom kept inflicting. In the end, my husband agreed to continue to pay the same child support we did when they shared custody (over 1200) per month even though we would have the kids as money seemed to be a sticking point and he was desperate for her to agree to a custody agreement. Due to our assignment location, working full time like I had would be challenging with three kids full time now. I agreed to put my career on hold to help the kids transition and support the family. When I inquired with the biomom and her husband in which she now has 2 additional kids with, how it was fair we should continue to pay CS to support their family while we had the kids, the step father said I was "industrious" and I would figure it out and the BM said I was a non factor and it wasn't my responsibility to support the kids just hers and my DH. She claimed she would send packages, school lunches and pay some of their allowances with the CS. I was always skeptical because of her previous performance as a mother and my husband was so desperate and agreed. He has even mentioned that he knew I would be strong enough to handle this situation. 

Now here we are almost 8 months since we moved, we still pay CS, and this heffa has not paid a dime for these kids. The monthly packages never came, she was suppose to give 25 a month per kid for allowance... Never has, she doesn't help play for anything for the kids, hell we still pay half the plane tickets price for their visits. My husband gives me a little stipend, not nearly what I was being paid, but a large chunk goes to feeding, clothing, and caring for the kids. To me it's one thing to be a deadbeat parent, but it's a whole other thing to insist on the people who are raising your children to continue to pay money to you, literally taking from the very pot that provides for your children.. it's just so distasteful to me and it's getting hard to hide my resentment for her. I love my SKs and I know they love her, even though they are old enough to see the hypocrisy, it's their mama and I have always respected that. I know the kids are better off with us and happy, but this whole CS thing is just stuck in my craw and I don't know how to keep it from festering into something ugly. My husband is amazing and is aware of my feelings, but all we can do now is try to go back to court again at some point...but for now I just periodically seethe...