When I met my husband he had three pre-teenage boys and 18 year old daughter.
His daughter is from his first wife and the three boys from his second wife.
I have a son and a daughter who were 12 and 9 when we met, both from the same father.

His daughter lives with her mother in another state.
His daughter is nice enough but seems only interested in any money we can give her.
If we don't have extra money, she doesn't have any interest in us.

His sons live with us full time with no contact from their birth mother.
As well as no financial support from their birth mother either.
Birth mother was as horrible as they come, she caused a lot of damage, they are waaaay better off without her but we really could use some financial help from her (it will never happen).
She was teaching them to lie and steal etc…the boys were headed for incarceration if something didn’t happen soon. She disappeared once she realized my husband had someone to help him, she knew she couldn’t manipulate him anymore.

We have heard from her twice since she took off 4 years ago, she wanted pictures of the boys both times. She didn’t ask how they were, she didn’t ask if they needed anything she just wanted pictures, my guess is she wanted to use the pictures for sympathy stories. We didn’t send pictures. She hops from one church charity program to another as well as a one man to another, weaving these pity stories because she is a “victim” of terrible ex-husband that took her boys away, what a joke, has nothing to do with the fact of her drug and alcohol addiction or that the neglect the boys experienced, or the boyfriends and parties and finally abandonment that caused a neighbor called police. She really is diabolical (even when she is sober) she doesn’t care who she hurts as long as she gets what she wants. I have never met anyone like her; I believe she is a true sociopath.

I share custody of my son and daughter with my ex-husband, we keep it as civil as possible. He pays child support (not much) but every little bit helps. I wish my kids were with me all the time, I really miss them when they are not home.

The day after I met my husband’s boys for the first time; under the boys’ birth mother's instruction the middle son accused me of hurting him. To this day I don't know why he agreed to do that. Long story-short, it was proven a lie in court and my record wiped clean.

A couple years go by and we married. My family was really uneasy about this for obvious reason, but they saw how much my kids loved my husband and my husband and I loved each other. They hoped we could pull it off. It took my family a little while to warm up to the boys but they embraced them and include them and support them. My husband’s family, let’s not even start there. Let’s just say they very rarely get involved.

We now have five teenagers in the house ages 14 (boy-stepson), 15(girl-daughter) ,16 (boy-stepson), 17 (boy-stepson), 18 (boy-son). I have his sons full time and only get to see my kids a little over half of the time.

I came from a family with lots of divorce and abuse. I was determined not to have that for my children, but as we all know by now life doesn’t turn out the way we plan. I am from an abused childhood and my saving grace was moving away from my mother and in with my dad and his new wife and child. I thought I had a unique perspective on how his sons may be feeling or thinking…since the situations were similar. As a child, I just wanted someone to love me and a safe place to live. So, when I know I was going to be a step-mom, I read and read and read everything I could get my hands on to help me in step-parenting. I truly believe I have done a great job. My failure was in the fact that I assumed they would want to be in a safe loving home. I thought they would want me to love them since I went through hell (falsely accused and all) for them. I have always wanted a big happy family, doesn’t everyone? Turns out the boys are the most uncaring, inconsiderate, ungrateful and selfish people I have ever met. It is not that they are in your face kind of disrespectful just a constant unaffected by their Dad and my existence. They lie constantly. Half way do anything we ask, which is one chore a day, so we do not ask much of them. So, I am not naive enough to think it was all going to go perfectly and everyone is always going to get along. But, I had hoped that after 4 years some sort of relationship had started to form. It feels like we just serve a purpose and that is to provide food, shelter, medical care and money.

The other side of this is my husband’s parenting style is totally opposite of mine which doesn’t mean he is wrong or I am wrong it is just simply a problem. Now, we talked about parenting quite a bit before the boys moved in with us, because I was unsure if I should marry him and take them on as a step-mom, due to our history I was really unsure. Plus, I reallllllly did not want to put my children in a bad environment. Through our many discussions before they moved in, I felt that we would be a strong parenting team and we would be able to work anything out. My husband kept saying over and over “they are really good kids, they just need a chance” I thought we believed the same things, had the same expectations and generally wanted what was best for the kids and us.

My husband has not held up his end of the bargain in one aspect. He doesn’t discipline his children. He feels guilty for how bad it was when they had to live with their mom. So it feels wrong to discipline them now (to him at least). One of the reasons I fell in love with him is his love for his children, he went through hell with his ex trying to do the right thing. I have never witnessed a man willing to go through that to help his children, all the males I have ever known would just walk away and leave the kids there. I digress, anyway, so my husband style of parenting is to complain for a while, then raise his voice about it and then NO follow through. So, guess what, they do their chore or act like they do until he is out of site then they go back to what they want to do, knowing he will not check to see if they do it. I have told him I have seen them doing this, I watched his son put the broom back in the closet while leaving a dirt pile on the floor as soon as my husband walked out of the room. He just shakes his head. He doesn’t want to ground them and when he does (by my encouragement) it is only a few days and not a real grounding. He does this explaining/justifying why he is grounding them almost like he is apologizing. They are teenagers; they know exactly what they are doing or not doing.

My parenting style is to tell them what is expected (chart of chores, color coded one chore a child per day) I shouldn’t have to ask them to do it. If if figure out they have not or halfway do it I will tell them again. This includes my kids too. If nothing is done then, I will ground for a minimum a week and all technology including TV is gone. That seems to be their currency. I know situations change day to day with school/work activities and I am really fair and ask the same of all of them, I don’t single out the step-children. Unfortunately, it is almost always my step sons that are the problem.

The constant lying is a MAJOR deal with me. Most of time it is not big stuff but it is just constant lying. My husband is unbothered by it. He knows they are lying to him. I can’t get my mind around it. He just says “well, what can I do?” Uhm, it is called be a Father. He is teaching them it is ok to do whatever you want even if you lie to do it. Hmmmm…..wasn’t I stating that about his ex-wife earlier? I don’t think he wants them to be like that but I believe he thinks as long as he is not “mean” to them they will not take advantage him and they will turn out fine. I guess he forgot who their mother is already.

At first, I was staying on the boys about their actions and calling them out on their lies. Making them do the right thing. Explaining that is what is expected and it is an important life skill to learn to live life without lying about everything. I mean I was their step-mom, I was raising them and taking care of them, it felt like the natural thing to do, I was doing this because someone needed to let them know the boundaries. I wasn’t being mean, I handled it kindly but firmly. But, I realized that husband was very quiet and uninvolved. Slowly I realized he needed to be doing this not me. These actions put me squarely in the “wicked step mother” role. Even though what I was doing/saying was not meant as evil but meant to help them because I knew their mother didn’t provide much of a moral compass for them. So, I naturally went to my husband (we are in this together right?) he agreed with what I was trying to do and he would handle it. But, he didn’t. I was left to deal and I was getting angrier and angrier. I was in a bad mood all the time. Which is unlike me, I am normally one of those happy go lucky positive people. So, I then completely disengaged with the boys. I didn’t say one word to them about their actions or chores or their lies. I called my kids out when they didn’t do their chore but that was all. I checked out. I was thinking surely he will see and surely he will step up. Nothing. I know realize that is how he wanted it, he doesn’t want to put effort into it, he doesn’t want to be the one to say something to the boys. He doesn’t want me to say anything to them about their actions. So I guess you could say he avoids conflict on a major level. I guess he thinks if nothing is said then nothing is wrong. I guess you could say I am a problem solver and he is a problem avoider.

He brought a ton of debt and a ton of problems with him. My life was fine before we met, I was a single mom barely making ends meet but I was making them meet by sacrificing where need be. I loved my kids, I was happy being by myself. I don’t know it just seems like because his life was so bad before he feels he shouldn’t have to for example pack a lunch he should be able to go out to eat every day. He thinks we should go on a vacation every year (we haven’t yet) but every year it is an argument. Now he has moved onto building an above ground pool (we haven’t done that yet either). We are not making ends meet. Think about it, a family of seven. The food expense is killing us. Yet again my husband and his boys are extremely picky and wasteful. As you probably know everything is so expensive from food, utilities, insurance. Husband lets boys sign up for whatever they want at school and we have to come up with the money even though we agreed since there were five children that each child can choose one activity at school. My kids instinctively do not ask for anything because they know we are not making ends meet, they don’t even feel like they are sacrificing they just know that is best for everyone. I do not believe I or my children should always be the ones that sacrifices because he had a bad marriage before. He has not directly “said” that but he has said on a number of occasions “I have had to go without for so long I am not going to do it anymore”.

I know (from experience) that my life could be waaaay worse.
But, here I am with five teenagers, a husband that is sort of a parent and sort of a child, I take care of the bills, we both work full time. I don’t see this getting any better. Before we married, I told him if we were going to marry, I need a man/partner not another child (my previous husband loved his computer games more than me and our children). So, it makes me wonder maybe I had all of this really wrong. Maybe he lied to me about lots of things. I don’t doubt he loves me and he adores my kids. He gets more joy from my kids than he does his. I mean is the trade off to live like this to be with this man I love, my kids love him to death, my kids want to send the boys away and just live with my husband. I guess I am just so disappointed. I worked so hard, I thought everything through put my heart into it and dragged my kids into it and now I am ashamed that I have done this. I wanted better for my kids. I wanted better for all of us. How could I have got this so wrong I was being so careful to avoid this but here I am. I think I am losing hope and I am tired off holding my head up and putting one foot in front of the other and nothing improving. I have always strongly believed if you worked hard and always did the right thing everything will work out fine. I guess I was wrong.