Have you had a conversation with your husband about your negative feelings towards your stepkids/stepmom role? I am looking advice on how to explain how I feel without starting a fight. I feel like DH will always side with SS because DH is all he has (see below for long story). SS just sits in the living room playing video games most days when he is home and I feel like I have to hide out in my room or go to my parents house with DD because I don't want her around the games. Expectations on my involvement have also changed since we got married; initially I was expected to have minimal involvement with parenting due to only having SS every other weekend but now DH seems to expect me to do a lot of the work (driving, preparing food, etc.) with minimal authority since we got full custody.

When DH and I started dating he had SS every weekend and one night a week because BM worked weekends. Once SS started kindergarten, about a year after we started dating, BM took a different job so she would have weekends to spend with him and so DH had him every other weekend & one night a week. I didn't mind the every weekend schedule because I'm pretty independent and the every other weekend was perfect because I could spend a day with them and have a day to do my own thing and then we could have a weekend together. SS and I got along great during this time.

BM hated me, refused to meet me and eventually when DH and I got more serious I started going to SS's sporting & school events which led to fights with DH & BM and DH & I. She avoided me so we never actually were introduced which I found annoying and DH's family sucked up to her when she was around so that she would let them see SS more often which I thought was kind of disrespectful to me. I ended things with DH after an incident at SS's school, he begged for another chance & we decided I would not attend SS's events & DH would deal with the parenting since we only had him 4 days/month which was fine with me.

DH & I got engaged shortly after that (another mistake, we never addressed the issue like it should have been addressed) & him and SS moved into my house a few weeks before our wedding. BM used SS as a pawn, looking back I should have run when we had these problems but DH seemed to be handling everything ok. For example, I scheduled our engagement pictures for a weekend with SS so we could get a few pics of all us for the house so we would have pictures of SS in the house to help him feel at home but BM picked him up from school early and left town. DH just said we could get them without him and we just put up a few school pictures/candids of him. We had a destination wedding and the day we left BM called and said SS had a concussion from running into a door and that DH needed to go to the ER at the same time our plane left, she had a tonsillectomy scheduled that week also to try to get DH to stay but he told her that he couldn't both times.

Eventually BM decided she wanted to go for sole custody, DH had issues with alcohol in his early 20s, approx. 10 years before we met, and had a slip up with alcohol over his birthday weekend. He was supposed to have SS that weekend and we had plans to do stuff as a family but BM took him out of town again. This caused a fight with DH & I because I was sick of her ruining our plans so he ended up spending the weekend with his buddies and getting an OWI. He had to take a class on drinking, pay a lot of money and had a suspended license due to a previous OWI in his early 20s. This put a lot of stress on our relationship and made me question staying with him but he took responsibility for his actions and quit drinking altogether, went to AA meetings and expressed regret for his actions. I was pregnant at this time so the stress was not the best for me during the pregnancy. I had our child on a day that DH had SS during the custody battle so he ended up having SS and my MIL in the room for a few hours while I was in labor. Seeing them and listening to them talk about BM while I was in labor really upset me and I ended up kicking MIL & SS out of the room after a few hours and DH threatened divorce and briefly left. He came back prior to our daughter being born but I still hold a lot of resentment towards him/them for this.

Within a week of DD arriving, BM was killed in an act of domestic violence. SS witnessed her murder and it was all over the news in our small community. At this point DH couldn't drive so I was driving SS to school in an adjacent town (25 minutes each way)over my maternity leave and taking DH to work. At this point I started building up even more resentment and DH dealt with all of the stress by turning to drinking and smoking weed. Summer vacation arrived a month later and SS went to stay with my MIL because there was no daycare lined up. DH and I got along better and when SS returned I tried to stay positive but unfortunately we ended up right back where we were prior to summer vacation.

SS got in quite a bit of trouble at school for anger issues, we later learned he had anger problems from pre-school on that were documented each year in his progress reports and by his pediatrician. His teacher stated he was the most angry child she has seen in her 15 years of teaching and he was put on a behavior plan and we had constant check-ins with the school and daycare. DH refused to acknowledge that SS had anger issues and said he was getting picked on due to his "situation" which is how they refer to the murder. After 6 months I ended up filing for divorce and moved out until SS finished out the school year. They moved out after this and we've been in a strange limbo ever since.

DH has gone back and forth on wanting to stay in DD's life and sign over his visitation; right now has supervised visitation one day every other weekend until he finishes his substance abuse classes but he comes over during the week quite a bit to see her. We are going to start counseling and try to get back together, we have two major issues to resolve - his substance abuse issues and SS. My relationship with SS is terrible, we ignore each other and when I think about him moving back here I physically get sick to my stomach and feel extremely anxious. I'm not sure if I will be able to overcome this, I'm so bitter that because the circumstance has changed (BM dying) now I am expected to basically just take over mom duty when we previously decided that I would not have that responsibility. DH has also not stuck up for me when I have asked SS not to break DD's toys or to brush his teeth when DH is gone; he says because SS is not my bio that I don't like him & am being too hard on him. SS is 9 and I'm not sure I can stand 9 more years of living with him 24/7, he has seen DH stick up for him so he knows he can get away with anything. I also get nervous that his anger issues will get worse, so far he has been pretty good with DD but she isn't old enough to really test him yet and honestly he hasn't spent much time with her in the past 6 months or so due to living apart.

All of my friends tell me to run but when DH is his old self he is basically the perfect husband, very attentive, loving towards our daughter and I, hard working, does chores, cooks and makes me very happy. I also do not want to get a divorce if I can avoid it. I would likely not date until DD is in her late teens because I would never expect someone to deal with stepkids due to my awful experience as a stepmom. Is there any hope for counseling to improve the stepfamily dynamic? I'm assuming DH will be able to figure out his substance abuse issues once we get in a good routine and he learns stress management techniques, attends AA, etc. (which he said he would do) but if that doesn't improve I will have to file.