Husband and I have been married 18 years, together we had custody & raised his 2 sons and my 2 daughters from a previous marriage. The kids got along great, they consider themselves brothers and sisters, they were 3, 5, 7, 8 when we met. Sure we had a family troubles.....mostly husband wanting me to take care of all issues concerning his sons and not giving me support for how I chose to take care of issues AND both exes.

Both exes disappeared for 2 years and when they did come back inot the kids' lives they came back with all intentions to fill their hearts with hate for us. There were constant lies and manipulation that were so frustrating to me. I could not even comprehend how a parent could do such evil to a child. I would try to talk to the parent and it just made the situation worse.

As the younger boy approached legal adult years it was the worst ever. He didn't want to follow the rules of the house and felt he could come and go as he pleased. He had a girlfriend that he felt he could spend the night with but that was against house rules so there was continual push and stepson always asserting he had the right. Husband was fearful of losing his son if he put down his foot and stepson knew his dad was a soft spot for him to land so the anger was pointed at me and his support was dad, my husband, not good.

When stepson decided to get married, which we knew nothing about, he made arrangements to fly himself and his finance to a completely different country where his bio mom lived and we were not invited. As soon as we found this out my husband made contact and he alone attended the wedding.

Stepson went to Iraq with the military, came back a "new" man and made a point to visit with us and let me know that all the things I valued so much he too valued. Shortly after that I got to meet his wife and baby daughter for the first time. I thought all was going well but maybe still guarded from the past.

Well, another bio mom issue came up this past week. I had been trying to figure out how we could celebrate my grand daughter's first b.day with her and I get an email from my daughter-in-law saying they were moving the party date to this weekend so that stepson's bio mom can be there, she is flying in. Okay, so we weren't invited to the wedding and now they are making a convenient date for bio mom to spend grand daughter's first b.day with them. What about us? I was furious.

Bio mom has been nothing but hurtful, pulling the most awful stunts. She has never allowed the boys to love me or even accept me and I was the one raising them. Every function we have attended together she has tried to stare me down with her evil eyes, looking at me and the girls like we don't belong in the room. I refuse to be in her presence any longer.

I did email my daughter-in-law back and this is where I drew my boundary lines and it should be more than clear now if it wasn't before, that I will not be in the same room as this horrible woman. My response to the email was, "H*** NO! long history, will not go there!" Stepson contacted his dad saying his wife was all upset, I was rude and out of line, that there was no need for this type of response, etc.

I just can't do it anymore. There's parts of the past that come back to haunt me like post-traumatic stress disorder and I have the feelings very overwhelming. I won't sleep at night and I will ahve terrible nightmares of someone trying to kill me, it's been awful.

Has anyone here expericned the same and been able to work past this without totally disconnecting as that is to the point I am right now?