Toni 2980
How did you get my life? lol

I, too, am in my early 30's with 4 kids being dropped in my lap, 2 of which are teens. And, yes, they are great birth control because I wouldn't want to bring a baby into this kind of mess either.

SS15 - angry liar who manipulates and bullies, materialistic (says he won't drive a car unless his first car is a BMW) HA!
SS13 - not bad... just a little lazy from time to time
SS9 - acts like he's 2 wanting to sleep with daddy and giving puppy dog eyes to daddy all the time - fragile as all hell - sensitive beyond belief - and I even think he might be gay (even kind of looks like a girl)
SD5 - hmmmmm... where to start - lying, manipulative, jealous

Being a stepmother is not even close to easy, is way harder than being a bioparent (sorry, bioparents) and is not fun AT ALL!!!!! I don't even like kids but unfortunately I fell in love with a man with 4. And thank God they are not at our house full time or I would have killed myself by now.

Welcome to Steptalk and please feel free to vent... we all do.

It's shit that the trade-up for being with the person you love involves raising someone else's spawn(s). I love my husband and SS25 but I cannot fucking stand SD8. She is a little cunt (no other word for her) and she creates nothing but tension and stress in our home. Even DH is happier and more relaxed when she isn't here. If only he left his abusive, cheating piece of shit ex wife before a child resulted from that abortion of a marriage. Now we're chained to his foul ex-bitch wife and her mini-me. He loves SD, obviously, but there is an element of 'duty' there. However we never let the kid know this, she gets treated with the same amount of love, care and attention as we give our son, despite her deplorable behaviour. She is just unlikeable and DH had a different relationship with his first son (now 25) when he was growing up. They were two peas in a pod, and SS 25 has grown into a lovely man, and was a delight to raise...SD8 however, not so much. You can't like somebody as a person just because they are a child. SD8 can have her moments and be nice, but it always comes across as very insincere and very much in self-interest. But her personality is undeniable; she is just not a nice person. She is obnoxious, selfish, manipulative, lying, lazy, dirty and stupid just like her mother. As she's grown and developed into a person in her own right, she's got worse and worse. I can deal with bad behaviours and habits; they're learned and so can be unlearned. But you can't change someone's personality. Even her own father is starting to realise she's not the darling princess he thought she was....even he is realising she is growing into a horrible person and it's killing him. He's seeing the child he's loved and cherished her whole life grow up into a piece of shit who's going nowhere and treats people as pawns while expecting everything to just fall in her lap. She can't even make or keep friends because she's so nasty. She's starting to come here less and less because we don't stand for her shitty attitude and behaviour and discipline her, so now some weeks she doesn't come over at all. Which I don't understand at all, because her mother has and enforces the same rules we do. Her behaviour got so bad we had a family meeting and made an agreement of how to move forward. As horrible a person as his ex is, at least she's mature enough to co-parent effectively. SD's reduction in visits bothered DH at first, and me by reference, but now not so much. Our home is so much happier without her, I hate to say it. Our son is happier because he's not sleep deprived from her deliberately making loads of noise to wake him from his naps. DH used to miss her after not seeing her for a day, now her being here 1 night a week is enough. Any more than that and she causes so much disruption and tension between DH and I (which SD delights in causing). It's like he's realising she's awful and we have nothing in common with her at all, and he's seeing her just enough to maintain a relationship and some influence on her upbringing. It's like she doesn't want to be here and she's making it so we say don't come here anymore. Well she's welcome to stay away. It's like having a stranger's child most of the time and for me, it's like having an interloper in my home, who insists on having a bedroom here, which she sleeps in for no more than 4 nights a month and continually trashes on purpose and refuses to clean up. She's even shit all over the floor and poured paint in the carpet out of spite because I told her to clean her room (for the millionth time), or I'll start giving things to charity since she can't treat her things with respect. She trashes my son's bedroom (he's only a baby), and when she 'tidies' her room, she throws all her crap in my son's room. That's just one example of how nasty and spiteful she is. She's told lies of abuse and bullying, getting me in trouble with the police and kids expelled from school just because they'd pissed her off for whatever reason. She won't wash, she's overbearing and rude and is so obsessed with herself she poses in anything reflective she can find. She HAS to be centre of attention or subject of conversation or she loses her shit. Everything has to be her way; she rules mealtimes and generally tries to rule the roost . She behaves like my husband's mini wife which makes us both incredibly uncomfortable, especially now she's getting older. She resents my son while pretending to adore him to get attention. She's so possessive of my husband and his time; she even waits outside the bathroom like a fucking dog when DH goes for a shit. Pathetic. I'm sick of having to have someone else's brat in my home and seeing my husband miserable, stressed and conflicted because he loves this spawn while also disliking the person she's become. The way she's going, she's going to be a thorn in our side well into adulthood. She's behind at school, while she thinks she's a fucking genius and school is beneath her. She can't even do basic things that should be expected of a child her age. For the most part it's like having a 4 year old in the house with a teenager's attitude. She's going nowhere in life if that attitude remains, and she'll end up on our doorstep with her bags asking to move in. Then we'll never be rid of her. She'll be living off us just like her piece of shit mother. I'm just praying that she gets us off the hook and decides to be with her mother full time.