I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, mostly due to the fact that I've disengaged from both SD10 and SD15. Initially, I had only planned to disengage from SD15. However in lieu of recent events/changes in SD10's behavior (mimicking her sister's behavior to a tee) I found it a lot easier to disengage with both.

Here is what I did:

-Reminded DH that in the recent past I had told him that if the SD's bad behavior and disrespect continues, I would disengage from one or both.

-Stopped making dinner, stopped getting up to ensure SD10 was off to school on time, refused to pick SD10 up from school when she fakes sick (at least once a week and no less than once a month since school started SD10 calls home sick on the same day of the week at the same time and expects to be picked up because she doesn't want to do PE) and told DH that they are on their own and if they need anything, including "girl stuff" they need to ask him. 

-Went out to dinner by myself and enjoyed steak and shrimp while DH and SD15 struggled to prepare a meal (there's plenty of food in the house, but neither of them can cook to save their lives). 

While doing all of this was a relief and felt great after all the time I spent biting my tongue, I also can't help but be sad. I want to enjoy dinner with my HUSBAND. I want time alone with him without the skids calling upstairs at us the second we try to be alone for any reason. I don't want open-mouth coughing, messy, disgusting children in my house.

When DH and I first bought our house we didn't have the skids full-time. It was glorious. We could eat dinner peacefully together, watch a movie and have sex on the couch if we wanted. Now the couch reeks of feet and dirty-haired pubescent girls. I'm not kidding, it's awful. 

I've never known kids like these. No, I don't have kids of my own, but I am the youngest of many sisters that all have at least one child. I've been around/lived with babies, toddlers, teenagers, etc. Boys and girls alike. I remember what it was like to be a kid, a teenager. These kids aren't normal. These girls hate to bathe, but will wait until I'm about to take a relaxing bath in the evening to say that they need to take a shower, right that second. They wear the same outfit for weeks at a time, even though they have tons of clothes. SD10 will wear something for days, even sleep in it. SD15 gets a "complement" from a boy at school about how her tits look in a certain shirt, and that shirt will be all she wears for a month. Both still have to be told to change their underwear but SD15 has been begging for us to buy her thongs since she was 11. Maturity-wise, I would put SD15 at about ten years old and SD10 at five. SD15 THINKS she's grown. We are constantly grounding her and taking her phone away (she hasn't had it for going on a year and a half now) but she still continues to overstep her boundaries (mini-wife) and lie/otherwise be manipulative. When she is confronted about her behavior she throws a full-on tantrum. She is what you would call (and, as I recently found out her classmates refer to her as) "Easy", and she is proud of it. On a daily basis we hear more about how many boys like her/who her new boyfriend is (this changes weekly if not daily) than we do about her school work. I am amazed that she gets passing grades and I'm not fully convinced that she isn't cheating on tests or getting people to do her homework for her in order to achieve this, as she has very little knowledge of the world outside of her little bubble and little to no common sense. Since I've disengaged, DH assumed that she would be the one taking care of dinner but she is incapable of even boiling water properly, which is not due to lack of trying on my part. I've tried to teach her to cook but all she did was get in my way and flip her hair around the food, complain about how chopping hurt her hands, and refuse to use proper technique when I showed her how to chop without getting hurt.

SD10 has no concept of time--the reason we have to get up with her in the AM is because if we didn't, she'd miss the bus every day. We are fortunate enough the the bus stops literally in front of our house so she is able to stay inside until it arrives. But she still can't even manage to do that on her own. When I was ten I was baby-sitting; (not just for my own family but for families in my neighborhood) and earning money. We can't even trust SD10 downstairs by herself for an hour without something happening. She picks her nose and eats her boogars, still occasionally sucks her thumb, and constantly has to be told to stop using "baby talk". She also has started calling home sick once a week because she's too lazy to do PE. She refuses to wear a coat, so she always has a runny, crusty nose. She's disruptive at home and at school. DH and I will be talking and she will walk between us and start yelling and screeching or interrupt us with some other nonsense--they both do this, actually. This behavior is addressed each time, yet it still continues. I should mention that they have plenty of time to talk and speak their minds, both during the day after school and at dinner, but they choose to do so when DH and I are talking to each other. 

They have absolutely no social cues and have no idea how to behave in public. In the six years DH and I have been together (three of which married) we've taken them out to dinner about three times because it's embarrassing. SD10 will climb under tables, or laugh and act spastic until she spits food or her drink out on the table. They both also use very offensive and racist terms for Asian people, something they got from BM that DH and I have tried to make them stop doing but they are too ignorant to listen. SD15 will order the most expensive thing on the menu and then not eat it. They also both complain about my cooking, even though I am a trained chef and they wouldn't know taste if it hit them right in the trailer park.

All of this has me thinking about what my life would be like now if I had never gotten together with DH. It makes me sad because we started out so in love, and I still do love him now but I don't like who I've become as a result of having to deal with his kids. We have talked and yes, he does enforce discipline and he has gotten loads better at handling them and not tolerating their crap. Still, I can't help but wonder... Is it too late? When DH and I first started dating we both worked swing shift and DH's parents lived with DH and watched the girls when they weren't at their mom's. Because of our work schedule, I didn't have to interact with the girls because the brunt of our time together was spent when we got off work and both DH and I wanted to make sure we were both serious about the relationship before I met his kids. When I finally did meet them, they seemed like regular kids for the most part and I limited my exposure to them so that I wouldn't get burned out or annoyed with them. I wanted to like them. Once DH and I became serious enough that I was spending weekends there is when things started to go downhill. They didn't listen, they were brats. SD15 (then eleven years old) started with her mini-wife behavior, lying, and stealing. SD10 (then about 5) acted like a feral child, like how Helen Keller was described: wandering from plate to plate at breakfast or dinner and grabbing at everyone's food. She'd climb counters and cabinets and bookshelves. I had had enough. I broke up with DH for a few months, telling him that I couldn't deal with his kids and the lack of control he had over them and his household. 

Then, one day, after I was on a different shift and we had been broken up for a couple of months, DH called me to tell me that while he was at work, the SDs snuck out of the house behind the grandparent's backs and took off with their mom. They, then 12 and 6, had planned this with BM. BM who, I should mention is a heroin addict, but at this time was claiming to be clean.  The grandparents called the police, and an hour later the SDs were back but their mom demanded that she had a right to take them. When asked by the sheriff, the SDs said they wanted to go with their mom and since DH had no official parenting plan (he had them full-time due to an order from CPS but it turned out that it had since expired) the SDs were legally able to be taken by their mother.  This was the day after SD15's tweleth birthday, the birthday where her dad gave her $250 to spend at the mall and took her out for the day yet she claimed to her mom that he didn't even say happy birthday to her (he did, and she chose to go to the mall as her birthday activity).

After the SDs went to live with their mom, BM kept them from their father. During this time, DH and I reconciled. Without the stress of the kids, it was easier to talk through our relationship issues, most if not all were due to his daughters. DH was mad/hurt that SD15 had been buddy-buddy/daddy's little princess the day of her birthday, (when he was buying her stuff) with her knowing that the next day, her mom was coming to take her and her sister. I moved in with DH that summer. We got married that fall. I know what I did was probably in haste. The brats were gone and I had on rose-colored glasses. You have to understand though, after those girls were gone our relationship was beautiful. DH was calm, relaxed. We had the best sex when we didn't have to worry about locking our bedroom door or being quiet.  The house stayed clean, my knickknacks unbroken. The grandparents, now free to do what they pleased, bought a camper and took of to tour the USA. I'd never seen them happier.  I could hang my purse by the door without fear of it being gone through and stuff being stolen by the SDs. After we got married we started looking into buying a house and that spring, we did. Life in the new house was blissful. We were newlyweds in a brand new, cozy little house. We went on dates to Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond. We doted on our pets and each other. We cuddled on the couch and laughed at each other's stupid jokes until our stomachs hurt. I was stupid and naive. I couldn't imagine things changing. BM had claimed to be clean and we had heard from people that knew her that she was clean. It was easy to not be worried about if the SDs were being taken care of--their mom was clean and DH was paying her child support on a regular basis. Once, BM contacted DH to say that since she wanted alone time with her flavor of the week (who we later found out was also her dealer) the girls would be spending Thanksgiving with us. We had them over. It was slightly awkward but they seemed taken care of, and after we dropped them off we didn't hear from/were unable to contact them or BM at all after that. 

Until.

....until that fateful day at the end of May. Right before school got out. The day my husband got a call from BM's sister saying that the girls were staying with a family member because they were taken from their mom's by CPS. Their mom had warrants, was arrested and taken to jail and in the process, it was discovered that she was also an unfit parent. DH had to go to court, lest he surrender them to the system. DH goes to court for six months. All it would've taken for BM to get partial custody was for her to show up to court. This state is a "Mother State". BM never showed up, BM never took the drug test she needed to take in order to even get supervised visits (for this, however, I am thankful, because I don't know what I would do if I had to spend every Saturday from 12p-5pm at the McDonald's Play Place) and eventually DH was granted full custody of the SDs. Yay.

That was two years ago. My life has been hell since. Yes, I still love my husband. But that joy, that passion and that spark we had is gone. I know the honeymoon phase doesn't last forever. But ours was prematurely snuffed out by those two little twits.

For two years, I tried my hardest to be the strong female influence that I thought these girls needed. If anything, they've only gotten worse.

And while I know it was unrealistic of me to think that they were gone for good, out of sight out of mind, I still resent them. I always will. 

So, what would my life be like if I hadn't started seeing DH in the first place? I wonder.