I regret not having more of a backbone! My husband, although at times clueless, is a great guy and we have a wonderful son together, so I wouldn't change that for the world. His kids are materialistic spoiled brats that I wish I could just let them know how I really feel, but because Im a coward and am afraid of their BM I say nothing. Im just saying I'd probably change more things about me that might make it easier to handle the skids. I simply need to ignore 99.9% of the crap they do and I'd be better off. I wish I could change their materialistic and narcissistic ways, but unfortunately i cannot..

I guess I'll just be 100% honest...I wish I had my DH and our family all to myself! I'd like a world with no BM, no Skids and neither one of his parents (they are just so in love with his first wife it makes me sick) Hey, a girl can day dream right?!?

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that day my friend said she had someone she wanted me to meet, I would have told her no thank you!! What you don't know you don't miss.

The biggest regret I have is going along with the idea that de-compartmentalizing was the best thing for us. I look back on the early days of our relationship, back when BM and the skids didn't even know I existed, and that was the happiest time of my life. Everything went sour AFTER we started introducing his kids to me and thus bringing BM into my life. Even though I refused to meet the screeching witch she has been hovering around the perimeters of my consciousness, causing problems, bringing me up in negative ways, and generally being a pesky mosquito ever since. If I could turn back the clock, I would hold onto that precious time we had where it was just the two of us and not be so anxious to give that up. Back then, our relationship seemed almost secretive at times and that was the whole reason we pushed for integration so soon. I wish I could have seen where that openness would take us.

I wish that we wouldn't have bought our house 3 years ago! I wish we would have stayed in the little 2 bedroom house that we were renting because then SD16 would NOT have been able to move in with us. I would seriously give up my horses (put them back in boarding at someone else's place) and give up my beautiful home in the blink of an eye to NOT have SD16 living with us.

I agree with Mercury on a lot of points.

Early on things were great when DH and I were dating and we were a "secret"... I think that made it 100 times more difficult when the "big integration" came along, because we were already so far in.

Having been raised in an intact family, and not really knowing ANYONE who were stepkids, stepparents, etc I had no clue whatsoever what to expect. Here I thought I was so freaking worldly, but little did I know what was in store for me.

I also wish that when things started getting rough that I would have had a lot more backbone than I actually did. I sooooo wanted things to be great, I overlooked a lot of behaviors that should have been nipped in the bud (behaviors from both DH and SK's). By not standing up early on I think it lead to quite a few years of heartache.

I can honestly say things are WAY better now. We've had our ups and downs, and the downs have almost led to divorce. Many would probably see my behaviors towards DH as "making him choose" but I had to TELL him where I expected to be in his life... HIS WIFE first, not somewhere ranking behind SK's, BM, etc. The way I saw it, if he wasn't prepared to treat me as an equal and put me ahead of all others (within reason), then WHY OH WHY did he pursue me in the first place? I took the attitude that it was all on him -- I could either take it or leave it. When he realized I was pretty apathetic about the whole situation because I was tired of being last every.single.time, he had an epiphany and things have been pretty good since; no more letting SK's or BM call the shots where our plans/time/lives/money are concerned.

I sometimes wonder what the last 9 years would have been like if I would have been more "take it or leave it" from the very beginning. Or if I would even *BE* a stepparent today had I taken that attitude back then.

1. I would have had more of a backbone from the start. It is easier to teach good habits than allow bad ones to form and THEN try to change them to good later on!

2. I would not have poured so much of myself into my skids. Although they are good kids, it was not appreciated much, was looked upon as over-stepping by BM and probably shorted my own son out of what he deserved considering I was his only involved parent.

3. I would have found steptalk a lot earlier!!

Let's see, thiniking that time heals all wounds, it doesn't. BM still is and will always be crazy and hate me for the fact that I'm with FDH.
Not finding this site sooner. It has given me a voice of reason that I could have used in the begining.
I don't regret meeting my FDH, but I'm with ripley and forever, I want more kids but can't because we can't afford another one or have the space.

Ugh, mine would be

Believing BM is capable of co-parenting with DH EVER.
Falling for her petty attention-seeking tantrums…should have ignored those!

I had just kept quiet and keeping my opinions between me and DH. I have and will always be her excuse for not having to be real parent to SS3. Consolidation prize is that he will be a decent person when he grows up because of this but I won't be getting the credit for that either.

I also regret being gullible enough to believe all those "friends" where there to support me and hear me out when they were just hanging around to keep the rumor mill going strong with drama.