As crazy as this is, I know EXACTLY how "dreading christmas" feels. I love my husband with my whole heart, and there is no question about it. His daughter was 6 when we started dating and she was the sweetest lil girl. Then, after we had a child together everything changed. She was almost 8, and was extremly jealous of her brother. She also no longer wanted to help do anything, and bossed me around like a slave when she was over (every other weekend, every wednesday, every other holiday,). She treated my son horribly and hurt him on several occasions. Her biological mother HATED us and was filling her head with a lot of crap about us, took away visitation for no reason, and would tell her daughter that her father didn't love her and didn't want to see her. When we would go to court and get visitation back, His daughter would act that much worse towards us and her brothers. When my step daughter was 11 was the breaking point. Myhusband and I had 2 sons together. THEY would cry when she would come over because she was so cruel to them. She would break their toys, push them down, and if they tried to talk to her she would ignore them. I dreaded her coming over because it meant a weekend of fighting and seeing my boys hurt and crying. As a mother, that is the hardest thing, to watch your own children be hurt because of another childs jealousy of them. We had my stepdaughter over for easter 2006. We sat her down and had a long talk, well we talked she rolled her eyes at us and wouldn't say anything, about how she acted at our house. We told her we were going to seek counseling from our pastor the next weekend she was over. We have not seen her since. She emailed my husbnad and said her mom is going to let her go to friends houses on his weekends and she didn't want to come over anymore until he left me and stopped seeing our boys. She then moved to another state with her mother and stepfather (who have no other children), and we have not heard from her since. We were given no number and a false address. She has another brother she has seen once by accident in a store before she moved, and has another one on the way that I am thinking she will probably never see. My huband is very hurt that he has no relationship with his daughter, but it was her that changed, and made everyone, including him, miserable every time she would come over. He of course still loves his daughter, because she is his daughter, but I don't have that feeling. I see her as a bratty 14 yr old that when she wasn't getting all the attention anymore, she tried to tear her father away from people he loved, just to get attention. My boys WILL NOT treat people the way she did and will not be like their half sister when they get older. I am making sure my kids are taught respect, and that they treat their siblings just as they would want to be treated. There is no room for compromising in that area. If you even mention her name to my two older kids they say "atleast she isn't here anymore to hurt us, we hate her". They were never prompted to say that either. That is how they feel. They are now 7 & 5 and are old enough to know what they are saying.

You don't automatically love someone just because your spouse fathered them. A relationship has to be established and kept up. I am sure everyone has had people in their lives that at one time they loved, but after the situation changed and attitudes changed, you no longer feel that way about them. WIth your own child, you have that natural bond, that no matter what you love them, with a step child you do not have that bond. You cannot make yourself love someone that you don't.

I think Prudie was very hard on this stepmom, and unless you have had stepchildren yourself that lived with their other parent, you will have no idea what it is like. If somthing ever happened to my husband, I would NEVER date or remarry someone with kids. My stepdaughter has killed the idea for me that it can ever work out well.

Your situation is very sad, but please don't compare yourself to the letter writer. You cared for your step-child, you and your husband worked extremely hard together to make a family for her. You are caught up in her adolescent rage and her biological mother's poor behavior.

The letter writer doesn't say she came to hate these children because of their horrible behavior and threats to the well-being of another child!

The situations are totally different: you approached yours as an adult; she's acting like another child who needs all the attention.

Instead of allowing the mother of your step-daughter to continually poison her mind and then let the child's behavior esculate to the degree it did, why did you not seek professional help when it first began? If you and her father truly cared for this girl, then you should have been able to see how much the hatred of her mother for the both of you was affecting her. Certainly, you must understand that her mother was blaming you for the loss of her father and she was acting out like many children do who are the product of divorce and then bombarded with negativity from one parent. She was probably made to feel guilty or possibly even punished by her mother for not remaining loyal to her. Shame on you and the girls father for laying the blame at the feet of a child. You should have done everything in your power to make her understand how much she was loved and wanted by the both of you.

The mere fact that you wanted to see a pastor (a person who probably has good intentions but not the necessary education) and not a doctor says enough about just how "much" you wanted to fix the relationship with your step-daughter.

Remarriages and stepchildren can work out well, provided all the adults involved attempt to act like adults. In your case, your husband's ex acted like a child by poisoning his daughter's mind. You and your husband acted like children by ignoring the issue for years before attempting to get help, and then by not looking for professional help. Unfortunately all the real children in the relationship suffered.

do you know that the bible condems divorce? if youre going to see a pastor, im sure he won't be so pleased to know that your husband remarried while his wife was still alive. I completely agree with the person who talked about how you should have got help, and made your stepdaughter feel more cared for. true you can't make yourself love someone, but you can still care for them. you also said that if something happened to your husband you wouln't marry someone with kids. in that case you'd be the one with kids from a previous marriage.

Wow - were those horrible children hiding as you stepmoms walzed down the aisle? Had your charming spouses hid them from you? Or had you just hoped, as my stepmom did, that we would all go off a bridge somewhere along with our mother?? I have been both - the stepmom and the stepdaughter. I say 'have been' because my loving stepmother wrote us off after my father passed away (they had been married over 40 years). What was our crime? We stayed in touch with our father! We listened to the years of hateful remarks about our mother, the crying and the anger, the conversations where we walked on eggshells because you never knew what would set her off. We even kept our mouths shut as she sat mere feet away from my father's deathbed and griped about how they should have divorced as soon as the passion wore off. We should have been so lucky!

I am a stepmother to two wonderful people. They were 5 & 6 when we married and my husband allowed us to find our own relationship which was and still is based on friendship. I WAS fortunate in that neither were already angry teenagers and that their mother lived three states away so we had them for extended periods of time. We have three children together and the greatest compliment we get is when people are surprised to discover the five kids are not 100% biologically related.

I am not naive and I understand that ex-spouses can create havoc. Today there are counselors, doctors, books, seminars etc etc etc to help a blended family. The biggest help though is when we remember who are the adults in the family and who are the children who had no say in their family being torn apart and them being re-assigned to 'adults' who can not stand them. For those of you who had your 'feelings' change after the birth of your 'own' children - take a minute to imagine someone feeling and treating your child that way - and then grow up!

nonameanonymous:

do you know that the bible condems divorce? if youre going to see a pastor, im sure he won't be so pleased to know that your husband remarried while his wife was still alive.

Depends on the denomination and on the pastor. Most recognize that divorce happens and that sometimes tehre's a good reason for it. Had he been any good at his job, however, he'd have recommended taking the child in to see a child psychologist opr better yet a child psychiatrist.

These behaviors of hers were neither normal or acceptable, and should have been stopped as soon as possible. Furthermore, they should have been used as grounds for wrestling custody away from the mother, since apparently that's where much of it came from.

I find it interesting that more than one poster thought that the real problem in this situation was that the couple was going to seek help from a pastor.

I find it interesting that everyone assumes that pastors never get any training in pyschology, therapy, or family matters. Of course, we all know from Christopher Hitchins that everyone who has any religous faith is a moron anyway.

I am the spouse who has other children and even if my husband had never spoken a word to me about his dislike for my children I would have known. I am not allowed to talk about them, I have no pictures up of them and when he found one out of my grandson he neatly tucked it away in my drawer. I will let all of you know right now that this will end my marriage. I will not be able to tolerate this much longer. My husband and I have 2 children and I will never put them through what my others have gone through. This man is supposed to love me, yet he hates a part of me. How can I continue to be someone who is so hateful. He has many wonderful qualities and loves our children very much, but his hate for my other children is unexceptable. My recommendation to all who sit in the seat of judgement is be very careful. You could possibly be losing what you "say" you love the most. I hope that one day soon you can see past your own jealousy and grow up to be adults who must realize these are just children who are in difficult situations. They are NOT adults and have not learned proper coping skills for stress in life, but than again you are adults and obviously none of you have learned either. Good luck to all.

Oh, go cry yourself a river!!!! Obivously, the mother was filing her head with crap, is that her fault?

Of course most ordained pastors get training in psychology and so forth. However, a kid with such serious problems as these needed someone who speciallized in them, particularly as regards children.

Whether they are your step-kids or your bio-kids. Boy have you got a rude awakening coming when your own kids turn into teens.

By the way, do you realize you picked a winner to father your kids. A guy who basically chose to dispose of his daughter. If he really wanted to, he would have forced the mom to have her come for visitation. It was just easier to give in to you. I hope next time it's not you and your kids being disposed of. Good luck with that. By the way, ever hear of karma?

LOL...And your still there with him? Some people just can't be explained!