HI everyone....

I'm so glad I stumbled onto this forum. I though I was going absolutely insane and absolutely ALONE until I read ALOT of other posts. My husband and I have been married for almost 2 months. We dated for 18 months and didn't live together until the wedding. HIs marriage ended in divorce when she had an affair 4.5 years ago and my ended in divorce 2 years ago due to a violent husband. He has a 5yo boy and I have a 3yo girl. He has 50/50care of his son.

At first his ex and I got along OK but as soon as we got engaged in Feb this year she has turned into a monster. For example she and my ex had an (verbal)agreement that the 5yos would go to a kindy near him last year and then a preschool near her this year.Then choose a school in the middle of them (they live 40mins apart). As soon as she enrolled him in this school she then told him that she wasn't moving him and then tried to tell us that she wanted him to stay there all week with her permenantly and that we could have him on weekends and school holidays. This means that my 3yodaughter and I have to drive a 2 hour (due to traffic) round journey on Mondays and Tuesday to drop him off at school.My husband tried to organise mediation which she got to choose the date....2 days before our wedding...then she wouldn't budge..it was that solution ONLY and hubbie was being unreasonable wanting to pull him out of this school to a school in the middle..

She has accused me of abuse and threatened to call childrens services on me all over a lie the 5yo admitted to.
My relationship with the 5yo is complicated he has just been diagnosed with high functioning autism. Except she thinks that we bribed the paediatrician to find that and now she is going for a second opinion because he never shows any unusual behaviour with her or her friends.

Over the past few months....She has kicked up such a fuss about me that I now have no control over any decisions regarding this child. I'm hardly allowed to discipline him because it could all blow up in my face. And the man whom I married, who I thought was such a strong man. Doesn't seem to be able to stand up to her or defend me against her...She always seems to win her own way.

She says I have no idea how to parent and that I'm intimidating...I'm not sure how as I no longer speak to her after she accused me of abuse Now I am a stepparent to her 5 yo son but I also have a 3yo biological daughter with my ex husband who is remarried (and received counselling after his violence btw) so I have a step mum parenting my daughter too...and we get along fine.

I can't believe how much strain this is putting on my marriage. We were in counselling 3 weeks after the big day. I have serious issues bonding with this 5yo child too. It's not like we didin't prepare as well as we could. We read up on every resource we could find about step families and childrens adaptation and reactions etc etc etc. Seriously ALOT of work and it's all falling apart.

Another thing that drives me insane is the legal sytem. We went to get advice on getting custody as the 50/50 is no longer working with the schooling now....And my husband who went parttime at work to be home on the days he had his son while he was growing up...doesn't seem to have a case at all. Even thought they both now work fulltime and she puts him into daycare...apparantly she has a stronger claim because she is a biomum. Now my husband finishes work at 3pm and will be there every afternoon to be with his son after school instead of him going into care and it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MY LIFE!!!!
I feel so lost at the moment...like I want to crawl under the bed covers and never get out. I feel so powerless in my own life.

Sorry for the rant...Just venting to people who seem to understand

Thanks everyone.