First of all your dh needs to set them down and make it very clear the have absolutely NO power at all in hid relationship period. They are children and have no authority to tell him what to do or make him choose. He is their dad, parent period they can't change that no matter what they say or do.

Those kids have a lot of damn balls saying that crap. And your dh needs to take his balls from them and his ex and tell, them all he will not choose and they have no right to even suggest a thing.

Then your dh needs to not talk to bm except in email about the kids and no fluff just the facts pick up times and rules for her house is on her and rules for your house is on your dh.

This whole choose crap pisses me off b/c they are kids and have no right what so ever to even go there and your dh needs to them all straight. He shouldn't be a mess he should be pissed and tell them so and not let them get away with it.

Eta- your dh should also not let them talk to you the way they talked you either. He should have shut them down as soon as they started talking. That is being a parent.

My lovely SD30 gave DH an ultimatum too. She told him he will never see her again and she will never talk to him again unless he divorces me. Ha, ha, ha. Pigs will fly before this happens. So she's been out of our lives for almost a year and it's been fabulous. My DH is fine with it because she has done so many rotten things to us. I'm sorry for you and your DH. Your SS should be slapped across the face for talking to you like that (I don't condone violence but back in the old days a kid would get a good kick in the pants for being so disrespectful). I'm sure your DH is torn as it seems all of his kids have united against you while handing DH an ultimatum. Its sad but its their choice and I don't know how this can be resolved. By the way your SS spoke to you leads me to believe that he is sitting on a lot of anger and it has become undifferentiated. Hopefully in time these skids will come to their senses and realize that you make DH happy. If they love their father they will want him to be happy. I'm sorry for your pain. You and DH don't deserve to be treated this way.

I'm so sorry that happened to you. That is heartbreaking and I can just feel how upset you are. I've been in your position, only my skids alienated me passive-aggressively, never having the unmitigated gall to verbally abuse me like yours did. You deserve a medal for not blackening that punkass kid's eye.

But now what? If your relationship with DH is rock-solid and you have him wholly on your side, he needs to flip the situation around on them. A simple, "She is my wife. You are my child. Since you are the one who is unhappy with this situation, I think you are the one with the choice to make: this is our life and we are welcoming you to be a part of it. If you cannot lovingly respect the family we are offering you, you may choose not to be a part of it." Some reinforcement of "disrespect is grounds for removal from the house, an apology is mandatory, here are the parameters, etc." should also be thrown in.

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. As stepmoms, our good intentions never seem to take us very far. We're battling BMs with grudges and craziness, kids with unacknowledged pain and resentment, limited coping skills, and divided loyalties, parenting styles that pre-date us and often differ from our own, and DHs with insufficient understanding of their own role and power. It feels unwinnable sometimes. Be strong, stay true to yourself, and focus on the partnership you have with your DH. At the end of the day, it's the two of you who will be left alone together when these kids are grown and have lives of their own (hopefully). Hang in there!

Hi Pugmom,

Hello and welcome! I have a very similar situation going, give or take a few skids and a few other details.
The skids are entitled and ungrateful, and get full validation of their despicable actions from the BM, who tells them, "Your dad is being controlled by the vicious SM, he used to not be a vicious person ( of course, back in the day when he never stood up to the BM), but the SM is out to take away what is righfully yours
(what? his debts?) and both of them are bullies and do not care about you at all! I am the only one who cares, come to mama, come to mama" - and they lap it all up.

Their dysfunction predates our marriage by several decades, so do not expect any decency from them. As for your husband, he needs to put his foot down and read them the riot act - i agree totally. It is GOOD for the children to learn there are boundaries and they will not be given any more leeway. They need to scale WAY back. But be prepared for them to drop both of you as a hot potato - mine did. They have cut off all contact after being told, You need to treat us with respect. As any good narcissist, they cannot deal with people who do not think they hung the moon.

However, the only relationship with adults worth having is the one built on respect and reciprocity. In the absence of the two, you do not need to worry about doing for them. And they cannot reciprocate, they are being poisoned against you every day.

Try counseling with your DH, you need all the help you can get. It is promising to be a bumpy ride.

This forum will help you deal with what comes up. Feel free to blog and hang around. You came to the right place

It sounds like it went fairly 'ok' until they hacked your email and read your feelings about your skids and their mother. Now they're done pretending. I realize you never meant for them to see your frustrations in cold black and white...but they did. I do understand the need to vent and reach out to your family/friends for emotional support and of course you never intended to have your private emails violated in such a way. The youngest are what now, 15ish twins and 19yrs old? Those emails had to have cut and cut hard.

Certainly not excusing their invasion of privacy (there's no excuse to hack into your private mail)but whatever they read can't be unsaid. They're hurt and angry and when you came in and tried to coax them into visiting with their father they lashed out. Masks are off and truth on the table. There's no magical wand going to 'fix' the emails nor what the SS hurled in your face.

Of course your Dh isn't going to divorce you because the skids dislike you or feel he choice you or them. That childish ultimatum is their hurt and anger talking. But it is time for DH to have a long sit down heart to heart with these kids. For starters they need to understand and accept the affects alcohol plays in the dysfunctional ways of their mother. These kids have been raised by a raging drunk. The divorce and the long legal battle was all prolonged and these kids were torn between two battling parents (one under the crazy influence of alcohol and heightened rage). Something like AL-NON is what I would suggest. Once they accept the role of their mother and her drinking raging BS in all this the better they will be able to put into perspective the things they read about their dysfunctional BM and themselves in your emails.

As to how or what kind of relationship these skids and you/Dh will have in the future? I think it may depend on how well and/or if these skids get the counseling that they so need. DH can't make them go to counseling or something like AL NON though. They might tell Dad to go to hell. If the kids aren't willing to try and 'fix' their relationships with their father and what they have all been through, Dad has no choice but to let them go for now. Because until they deal with their hurt and anger and refuse to understand the role the drinking BM played , what happened in your individual confrontation with the SS and their childish ultimatum will just get worse. As it is right now they blame you. You're an easy target to blame. You stole and 'changed' their father from them...but in reality all you've done is help DH escape the old dysfunction and move on. They want to reel Dad back in. What Dad needs to do is try and pull them out.

I think SA has some excellent advice. I'll also say that if the kids don't get along with their dad, they likely won't with you either.

In the future, I think you should try to remember that it's their relationship with their dad. If they want to improve things, dad and/ or kids will reach out to the other party.

I'm sorry they hacked your email. All I can suggest is change your computer and email passwords. And press charges if they do so again.

So what exactly are they doing for their dad?

You have "changed" him, you've this, you've that, how dare you, you're not part of this family, you're not my mom (really, kid? you think this hurts me? because hey if you WERE my kid, I would've slapped your mouth, you ungrateful brat), blah blah blah. Oh? Really? She has? Then, dear SS's and SD's, what are YOU doing for your father? What are you doing to support him, love him, enjoy time with him? Whining and moaning and hacking into private email? Yes, that's so positive! Can't imagine why Dad wouldn't want to throw a loving wife over for all of you!

To those of you slamming this poster for writing what she did in those emails: what the hell? They were her private thoughts! If she had written them in a diary and the kids had found it and read it, it's still her private thoughts! There is zero absolutely zero excuse for them to read it. Don't any of you dare tell me those kids have always been saints, sweet little misunderstood angels that never once spoke a word against SM in public or private. What's fair is fair, let SM look at their phones, computers, emails etc or is that invasion of privacy too?

That being said, as for the kids, obviously something was said or done (regardless of how it was heard or discovered) that was horrific for them to react with this much venom. SM needs to talk to them too, not just DH, and explain why she said what she did. Perhaps there was some misunderstanding about some of her thoughts. But if what she did say was that bad and the kids felt blindsided, a major family meeting needs to happen.

skids need to grow up and dh needs to grow some balls.

its clear the skids are selfish and are not happy their father has a new wife who loves him.

you are hurt and shocked. this is no longer matter once you are disengaged. i wish you the best.

I would say your skids already didn't like you much even before they hacked into your email, or they most likely wouldn't have done it in the first place....so sounds like even without them reading the emails they were looking for something to pin on you

I've experienced this same situation from my H's eldest daughter - the "it's her or it's me" ultimatum and I feel your pain

Of course my initial thoughts when this happened to me were :jawdrop: :O that anyone could seriously have hatred and rage on that level...especially since I'd done nothing but tolerate her crap and fall over backwards for her. Although this outburst was similar to your situation in that I had sat down to have a long overdue talk with my H's daughter about her behaviour towards me, and this was exactly what she needed to set me up as the problem in fact, just like your SS my H's daughter actually screamed that I was the one with the problem, not her - which confused the heck out of me because she was clearly the one who couldn't stand me, not the other way round :?

Anyway my next thoughts were what if my H would actually end his relationship with me as his brat demanded....I didn't really think that would happen and my DH confirmed it by having a chat with her himself. I'm wondering if any of this could be said to your skids by your DH. It went along the lines of that the best thing he could do for her as her father was not give in to her demands to dump his girlfriend just because she was having a jealous temper tantrum. My DH told his daughter he hoped one day she would get onside with it, but if she chose not to, it was her decision to walk out of her father's life not the other way round

Once this happened then H's daughter decided to play the card she threatened and tried very hard to make DH and I pay for, in her mind her father choosing his girlfriend over daughter. She never went as far as to totally cut us out of her life, we did see her at DH's family get together's in which she was rude to DH and openly hostile to me. She kept everything going on in her life secret from DH, but made sure to tell DH's sister or FIL just to make sure DH heard second-hand all the things happening in her life that everyone but DH knew about.

I began to feel really awful that I was the cause of the loss of the relationship between my DH and his daughter. It made me anxious and very angry at the same time as I knew I did nothing to cause it and yet worried my DH would blame me (which in moments of anger he did and I still have a hard time forgiving him for it) and wondered how selfish this (then) 19 year old bitch really could be

And she made it worse. She decided to start playing the same card with anyone in DH's family who did not side with her against me/the relationship her father and I had. This really hurt my MIL, and quite honestly disgusted my FIL

At that point, now feeling that the entire family was being ripped apart because of me I started to succumb to the pressure and suggested to DH that if it was this much trouble, perhaps I should just leave

My DH came trough with shining colours on this one again, and said if I were to do that, this would only happen with the next woman in his life (has it had with BM and her SO)

So, we then tried to win DH's daughter back by attempting to talk with her, I wrote heartfelt cards and letters etc... the more H's daughter saw how important it was to us that she not walk out of her father's life, the more she kept this up

I finally disengaged from her, gradually over time until completely. And although DH and I never talked about it, he followed my lead and as much as it was possible for him he did the same. In the end, this is what seems to have given her a change of heart. She made the decision to walk out of her father's life and we sent her a clear message back that we got it, and were respecting her decision H's daughter, after about 4 years of hell, decided to get (or at least act) onside with it all

Of course after we once again welcomed her with open and forgiving hearts and went back to treating her like an entitled princess the nonsense started up again with her

I think the key is these kids/adult kids need to know they don't dictate to their parent who their parent will see nor do they have the right to treat their parent and/or step-parent with disrespect

I hope your DH can convey this to them somehow....while it has been rough for them and certainly I"m sure you and your DH are sorry they read what they did, they still had no right to act the way they have towards both of you including hacking into your email (do they know it's against the law?) and there is no need for them to take it to this level - which is out and out extortion!

I keep reading story after story about the Skids laying down ultimatums "her or us". This is exactly what happened to me. Ultimately DH choose them instead of me :(. Seems like most of what I read the DH's do stand up for their wives. Is there anyone out there that actually got the boot, like I did?

There is some really brilliant advice on this thread on how to deal with situations like this...... if something like that happened in our house then quite simply SS and SD would be immediately banned from coming over until there was an apology and more coming from them.... as it is SS and SD are already banned from our house from a previous incident which happened in a public restaurant and as I have not had an apology then that ban is still enforced and will be enforced until that happens although I suspect hell might freeze over first!

You should not be made to feel uncomfortable in YOUR own home, never mind you trying to make the stepkids welcome! I agree that your husband needs to say a lot to them about their behaviour to you and he needs to say it asap - as I have maintained to my fiance that if you don't say something very soon at the time of an incident then I believe that it starts to lose impact and the kids think they can say and do what they want even more, basically that they can get away with it.

I had my SS say in that pubic restaurant that his dad wouldn't choose me over them......mmmmm and as my fiance said he shouldn't be made to have a choice because it's NOT a choice and that shows you the level of maturity that we are dealing with here and in your own case too.

We had a similar situation. I think the kids were looking for any reason to make you look bad, they found something and now they feel justified. Okay, so you might be able to understand their hurt but at the same time they were snooping. More than likely if you were snooping in their private stuff you'd probably see hurtful things written about you but somehow they justify their actions and cover up their own bad deeds.

My SS blew up and his dad and I a few years back, told us what terrible parents we'd been, told his dad I had not accepted him and made sure his dad knew that I had registered on some web site that I had 3 daughters but had not included my SSs. Of course SS would not disclose the website. It could have been a mother/daughter web site for all I know. He was always coming up with some kind of garbage and accusations. He was looking, trying to find anything that would make me look bad so he could justify his own feelings.

Needless to say, I finally drew a solid boundary line with stepson when he told us we would never know his daughter as our grandchild. He wanted control and he wanted revenge. At that point he was 27 and I was no longer excusing his poor behavior and I held him to his word. He has never contacted me since and I have not contacted him.

Your husband needs to tell his children that they are not innocent nor are they victims. They might be upset over whatever but they need to deal with their own issues and if that means going to counseling then they need to do so. Your husband also needs o make it clear to his children that you are his wife and he has no intentions of leaving you, that he is happy and if they cannot accept that they are going to be fighting their our battles in their heads (their own emotions).

I think the par that kids never seem to get is that we, as adults/parents, are entitled to our own lives and our own happiness. Our happiness is not dependent on our children and we do not need to be controlled by our children.