Well that is a tough question. But I would say make you marriage top priority over EVERYTHING! Becasue the kids and the ex can put a lot of tension on the relationship. Take it a day at a time. From my experiece I have found it best to let the dad handle discipline and lay down laws for your home and his expectations of how the kids are to treat you. My husband told me once "give your more to recieve you less." That made perfect sense to me for some reason. I try to maintain a good relationship with my stepson but I keep my expectations minimal. I am not his mother and I don't act like it. It works for us. As far as the ex try to stay out of the drama. I need to take my own advice But I am working on it! The less contact the better. We have asked that all communication be put in writing since verbal communication was horrible. This seems to work. Keep your sense of humor. I really shouldn't be giving advice but I did my best Good luck.... Oh and stand united with your boyfriend or husband someday. Becasue kids and ex's are smarter than you think. They will manipulate every situation possible. Not as easy to do when the couple is on the same page

The only advice I can give is... Get thee into counselling immediately

Just the mere fact that you have actively seeked out this site, indicates to me that you are already experiencing problems . You are having trouble resolving these issues with your boyfriend and unless you are both willing to work to defuse the landmines strewn in your path, welcome to years of heartache and misery.

Counselling provides couples with the power to speak and be heard. Most of us don't know how to communicate effectively and a cousellor's guidance is priceless. You both need to be very clear about what your expectations are and the strategies needed to attain the greater good for all involved.

If your bf refuses to discuss issues with you and refuses to get couselling, personally, I would run away in terror!!

If your bf is commited to working on things with you (with or without counselling)then there isn't too much more you can ask of him. But be sure he isn't just giving you lip service. His actions have to back up the words he utters.

The above advice is only the product of my own experiences. It seems to me, after extensively reading the posts in this site, that everything ultimately revolves around how well the core couple is communicating.

I hope this helps a little and best of luck to you
KeeKee

My sage advice: do NOT under any circumstances let the psycho ex-wife weasel her way into your mind, feelings, or life. She will try VERY hard to infiltrate your relationship and eventual marriage. She will try to appeal to your sensitive side and become your "friend". Do not fall for it! Do not try to be her friend, do not try to rationalize with her, do not waste your time trying to explain or justify yourself to her. Adopt the mindset early that she will never change, she will never be sane, and she will always dislike and disrespect you. You will be tempted to show her how good of a person you are but trust me, don't bother. She doesn't care. You could be Joan of Arc and she wouldn't care. She will say things that she knows to be blatantly wrong just to try to get you to argue with her. Don't fall for it. If you are anything like me it will be very hard for you to ignore her when she's spouting lies trying to get your attention, but you HAVE to. Avoid talking to her AT ALL if possible. Even if you know she's wrong or the things she's saying are very offensive or hurt your feelings. If you eventually give in and talk to her that will just show her that she has power over you if she pushes hard enough and will encourage her to continue messing with you. She will tell her children lies about you and try to get them to hate you. Be as supportive as you can to the SKids and don't ever say anything ill about their mother to them or where they can hear you. If you insult her, you are insulting them too. No matter how psycho she is or how much of a bad environment she provides for them, don't express your distaste for her or their other home in front of them.

If your "psycho ex-wife" is anywhere near as psycho as mine is (which, sorry to say, I highly doubt that she is but you never know), you may have a wild ride ahead. Just some things I've learned from experience, that apply specifically to YOU: let your employer know now that your boyfriend/fiance has a very irrational ex and it is highly possible that she may contact your workplace to complain about you and attempt to get them to discepline or fire you. Put a flag on all of your accounts - utilities, cell phone, credit bureaus - so that she can't get in and mess with you or get your personal info. If she exhibits any harrassing behavior to you now, however slight, it will only get worse before it gets better. Keep a log of anything out of the ordinary that happens, especially if you can link it to her. If she ever calls you or comes to you house with content of what she said, write it all down. You never know what can happen and you might have to get a restraining order in the future, so it's always nice to be prepared and protect yourself. This is something that I didn't do because I thought that I could "handle her myself". Trust me, every day I kick myself in the ass for not having started this with the very first phone call from her. Overall, just be careful. Read and learn all you can, especially others' stories because real-life experience is what we all have that you don't and is a very amazing learning medium.

My apologies if this sounds bleak but I would not wish the horror that I've lived through with my psycho stalker ex-wife on anyone.

*~So sayeth Nymh~*