After about a year of staying away from Steptalk, I'm back with a new username and a new attitude toward my life.

Here's some background...Been married to DH for 3 1/2 years. We have a BD3, and I have a SD12. In the past, I was ready to completely disengage or leave because things were so bad between me, SD12, and the BM. Even being a mother myself, I couldn't understand some of the things the psychopath (BM) did. I told some major horror stories, and I could go on for HOURS telling them again...but...

In recent events...About 2 1/2 weeks ago, I'm on my way home from bringing BD3 home from her dance class and DH calls me and says, "Umm, are you busy?" Me: "No, Why?"
DH: "Well, BM just called me and wants me to pick up SD12 says she is to live with us and she wants nothing to do with her."

Of course I'm in complete shock at this point because BM spent 12 years trying to get DH's visitation rights revoked and now all of a sudden she wants him to take her full time? When he gets home with SD12, he hands me a paper that BM brought to him that says she is relinquishing all rights and will return all child support until an order is finalized in court. BM signed it, DH signed it, and SD12 signed it. And to my surprise she's actually been sending the child support back every week...SHOCKER!

So we come to find out that SD12 is failing in school, has been suspended twice, and had been having very inappropriate conversations on Facebook. Two days after she came to us, DH filed for custody (still waiting on a court date, but BM has been served her papers and says she agrees to everything in the order). We switched her schools to the one I teach at, and lo and behold, she has all A's and B's. Go figure! She has recently showed an interest in playing softball again, so we signed her up for that, and we have honestly had NO PROBLEMS with her since she came. I'm completely baffled as to why BM thinks this kid was having such problems in one home and not the other but it's still SD12's issue and not BM's...*hmmm* Think about it?

Not saying that we won't have issues like you would with any pre-teen/teenager, but so far so good. She's helpful, she has been wonderful with BD3, she helps around the house, her grades are good, and she finally SMILES!!!! I wish for SD12's sake that this had happened sooner.

Now as long as court goes as planned, SD12 will be here full time and BM will have every other weekend visitation (possibly supervised only because of pending criminal charges that BM swears she has a lawyer for and is fighting...so we'll see!)

I guess what I can offer to other step-parents at this point is that if you continue to push through, there could always be that light at the end of the tunnel that you'd NEVER expect!