I have been badmouthed by my skids on FB too so I know the feeling!! My DH hates FB for this reason. You have to forget what others to say about you on FB cuz you can't stop it and you just drive yourself crazy worry about it. All you can do is be good to your skids and let them figure out who has their best interest at heart. My skids BM has always trashed their Dad to them and they always realize she was full of crap and bitter. They did not believe the crap she told them as they knew their Dad and/or they would ask their Dad about something she claimed from the past and he would tell them the truth. Some adults are so stupid and only want to feel better by causing conflict in others lives. That is what your BM must be like. She is not happy unless there is drama so she creates it by pitting kids against adults. It's rather sick but she doesn't care it its damaging to the kids!

Are all of your Skids adults now? I would personally stop worrying about the affect on them as they aren't impressionable children anymore but rather grown adults who can tell her to knock it off if they so chose to do so.

Wow on the 20 years!

A stepmom for 20 years! I feel like you're a guru! If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you some questions. I'm a new stepmom (1 year) and find it very overwhelming. Were there ever times that you wondered whether or not you could do it? Did you ever feel like you had been placed on the backburner? If so did these feeling pass? Finally, how did you keep you sanity through the tough times?!!!!

Welcome! I have been a stepmom for 22 years and understand the garbage you have dealing with. I too have asked the very question.....do these bio moms not get it? How do they think that bad mouthing us (stepmom) and bio dad to the children is a helpful scenario for the children? Actually it's not about what it right and best for the kids. It is about what bio mom is trying to create for herself....she wants that child, that child's attention, that child's time and I think most feel they are the only "right" mom for their child so they manipulate the child.....very very sad. It creates so much chaos, so much frustration on our part and tramendous amounts of hurt in the children. My husband's ex started this stuff from day 1 and never stopped.

I have 2 daughters from a previous marriage. Ex had asked me to stay with him until he was finsihed with his affair, RIGHT! So we divorced and you know I think he was serious and I think he was truely angered that I could not wait out his affair. he went into my home community which is very small and started spreading all kinds of terrible rumors about me, told my kids all kinds of lies. Tell me, what benefit was that? To no one but himself. These people have to control, they have to have what they want at any price to anyone.

However, I refused to play these games and I did try and I struggled emotionally to deal with the garbage. What my ex and what my husband's ex were doing/did went completely against the grain of what I felt was right. If I were told anything I made sure that I corrected the info but did not tear the boys' mom down and same so with the girls and their father.

I was able to create a good relationship with my husband's 2nd wife. I let my girls know that they had 2 moms and I gave husband's second wife authority, I expected my kids to respect her. If the girls came to me complaing about her, I never approached her about what was said. I tried to help the kids understand instead. I thanked her for helping mother my children on Mother's Days. Today my daughters are 25 and 30, both have good relationship with thier stepmom who eventually divorced my ex, she nad I are friends on Facebook. My daughters get along with their stepdad.....again, I expected them to respect him.

On the flip side of this, my stepsons do not have a thing to do with their father or I. Their hearts will filled with hatred. They are both very angry. I have heard nothing but lies come out of their mouths for years. This past year the younger boy (27) has written a string of very hurtful/harmful emails to his dad and I, and I finally had to disconnect.

I took all of my husband's family off my FaceBook acct. I knew they would support the boys' poor behavior because they have in the past and I no longer wanted to be a part of any of it. I have not had much to do with the family for years anyway, I was just making it more official. Talk about opening a bee's nest. You would have thought that I did the worst crime against the family. I was getting hate emails from two of my husband's neices who I have hardly had a thing to do with ever. It was insane.

Finally, and this was just months ago, I decided I had to get a handle on all of this and started seeing a counselor. I have been talking about my stepsons, my husband's ex, my husband's family. Counselor told me that I had to have nothing more to do with the boys. I had to let husband decide what he wanted to do and I had to stay out. She felt that the boys were angry and hurt from their mother leaving and I was the easy target for everything that went wrong.

Another powerful I have just learned is that when we engage with family we open ourselves up to them, want to speak freely with them and want their acceptance, and take them in without hesitation which is all good until you deal with these people who are throwing knives (the people who have to have control/manipulate). That's when we have to put on our armour. We don't have to be defensive but we do have to let them know that they are not welcome to be a part of us so we close our boundaries to these people. We can be pleasant but we don't let them "in." If you let them get to you and show it by becoming defensive they have just got what they wanted from you. So you have to view these poeple as having their own issues when they throw a dagger and we don't let our emotions accept their issues, we ignore their demands.

I have actually been completely snubbed by one of my sisters-in-law one time when I walked into her house. This was a room full of people too and the statement was very clear. Counselor told me that if I end up in a situation where we are invited again to her home that my husband should then ask his sister if I am invited too which puts it on her shoulders to be the hostess. If she snubs me again or starts making the usual snide remarks, counselor suggested that I very nicely tell my sister-in-law that I can see there is still hard feelings on her part and tell her that I will be leaving and get up and walk out.

Basically I am learning differnt ways to deal with all the years of accumilated frustration, and that's what I would suggest for you as well. It's not easy but learning news ways to deal with it makes it actually more managable.