I really miss the way things used to be. I have 3 skids. SD16, SS14 and SD12. Things were good when they were younger. I came into their lives around 10 years ago and we were very close. They went through a lot with BM. She left DH for H2 while she was pregnant with SD12. Then they (her and H2) had a baby and when he left, she gave the baby to H2s sister to raise. They haven't seen the baby since and she's going through another divorce now.

BM has tried to turn the kids against me since she was going through her second divorce. She made life hell for us. But DH kept me out of her way when he realized what she was doing. He also encouraged the kids not to listen to BM when she was telling them bad things about me.

So things were good and then all of a sudden they weren't. It happened around two years ago. The kids started hating me overnight. They would talk back, curse, insult me, call me names and were disobedient when asked to do something. They didn't change toward DH until he sat them down and told them that they couldn't treat me like crap because BM told them they could. SD16 and he had a huge fight after she told him he couldn't make them love or like me. When he told her it wasn't about loving or liking me, it was about showing me respect, she went ballistic and their relationship has been seriously strained since.

It got worse after SS came out as gay last year. SD16 started sleeping around, with both boys and girls, and disrespecting our home by bringing them there for sex while nobody was home. DH and I found her a girl in the living room when we came home a few months ago. DH told the girl to leave and grounded SD16 for disrespecting our home the way she had. She hasn't come to our house since that incident. We found out about a month and a half ago that she's had unprotected sex with boys, which is freaking me out because if she gets pregnant...

SS and SD12 are following in her footsteps. They don't want to be here either and have done everything they can to stop coming here. DH drags them to the car every time. He keeps fighting, hoping they will come back around. And I used to as well. But I can't anymore. I can't take being treated like trash for two weeks a month. It's not just us affected by this, it's our bios together, too. DS7, DS6 and DD4 are hurt by their older siblings behavior. Especially since the kids used to be so good to them and now they won't even sit in the same room as them. The boys find it harder because they remember even as recent as just before Christmas, playing with the skids and spending time with them.

I still have a box of stuff all the kids have made for me, including the skids. It's hard to look at and remember the relationship we had.