My SD (6) lives with her stepbrother (10) when at her mother’s house. She told me in confidence this morning that they have “crushes” on each other and have been “kissing on the lips” but begged me not to tell her parents.

I am going to tell my husband after they’re in bed, but not sure if I should encourage him to raise it with their mom. It’s a very high conflict relationship and I am sure she will be angry at us and say we’re “accusing” her stepson of something.

I haven’t come across this before and I’m not sure if this is a typical and totally innocent thing or if this is a cause for concern. I know grooming and inappropriate touching does happen between step siblings but have no way of knowing whether that’s happening here or likely to happen. I’ve only met the kid once at her birthday party and he just seemed like a totally normal kid, so I don’t want to upset the apple cart over nothing.

Hello all, just venting here. I’ve been with my girlfriend for 2 years now. We are both divorced, and her ex is not in the picture at all. She has 3 beautiful children and I never had kids, so this is all new to me.

Recently, her daughter who is 15 was found to have been messing around with a couple of boys her age. It came to our attention from others, we had no idea. We confronted her about it, and she acts like it’s no big deal. We have taken the last 4 days of private talks with her, and her mother has had quite a bit to say to her that hasn’t been so nice.

The daughter has a history of being mouthy, manipulative, and deceiving. She has taken no accountability for her actions, or really shown any kind of remorse for what she’s done. We punished her by giving her a string of chores, no access to her phone whatsoever, and made her just stay in her room. Well we hid the phone for 4 days and she had the nerve to search for it and find it. This made my girlfriend absolutely lose it.

We’ve had issues in the past with her talking to boys but this really topped it off…..and you guessed it, it’s causing a lot of tension between me and my girlfriend. I’ve tried every single approach but her and her daughter have never gotten along. They both think way too much alike. I’m left feeling like I’m in the middle of a fucking shit show and have no solutions.

I’ve gotten to the point of thinking of walking away because it’s non stop arguing, bickering, and shouting. I don’t know what to do here…but this all feels like way too much.

Does anyone feel like they’ve taken on not only Step Children, but the Ex Partner as well? The WHOLE package. I have recently just woken up to the whole dynamic. I didn’t realise how much some Ex partners are still so dominant in each others lives. Is this a deal breaker? It is really quite a dark dismal reality dealing with this when you step back and look at it. Even if you love someone dearly.

“ Thank you everyone. I got great insight, validation and clarity. I’ll be requesting boundaries or I’m just going to leave the blended family world. It’s just not for me. 🙏

Need some advice, my partner's oldest is simply brutal. She’s so disrespectful, and it’s not just me it’s to every adult in her life but she is ESPECIALLY mouthy and disrespectful with me. I don’t know how to adjust to this. I talk with my partner about it and she says “ she’s disrespectful to everyone in her life I’m trying ” or she will talk to her and discipline her but she has behavior issues so it does absolutely nothing. I love my partner, with everything I have. But this is so hard. Her oldest does not like me, no matter what I do and I continue to show up but it’s so discouraging. Every day I go home and wonder what I am gonna be faced with. What do I do? Keep taking the disrespect? I don’t want to NOT be with my partner that doesn’t even feel like an option. Just wondering what other people have done who may have been in similar situations. I can say one thing, being a step parent is not for the weak. Any Advice is welcome!

A divorced dad shared a routine he and his new wife use for dealing with their high-conflict exes, what he called "Texts from the Ex": on a weekend evening when their kids aren't around, they pull out a bottle of wine and read the most ridiculous messages from their exes that week in their best formal British accent.

My ex isn't that high-conflict and yet she still regularly sends me absurd and laughable texts, which I share with my partner. My partner commented early on that she was worried we'd run out of things to talk about when we stopped complaining about our exes, and while fortunately that hasn't been a problem 5 years later, our exes do continue to provide plenty of material.

Do you and your partner have a way to lighten the tone of interactions with your exes?

Hi. My brother (24yo, recently) is currently dating a single mom (31yo). They have been dating online for about six months, but talking for a year. They met on Discord through a friend and played games together.

We don't live in the capital, but she does, so he wants to travel to see her and stay there for about a month. We have an apartment there where he is planning to stay. However, I'm concerned not only because of the age gap, but also because she has two kids (with the same dad) who are about 6 and 4 years old, and she doesn't have any support from the father. Also, she doesn't have a job and lives in a rental with her parent (a single mom) and cousins. My brother lives with me, my other brother, and our parents in a house we own.

I've seen how he pays for things for her, like video games, the cybercafe, and that sort of thing, but I think he pays for other things too (I saw him transferring money to her mom). One of his friends warned him about her asking for money, but she told him that his friend was just resentful because she had rejected him and she didn't know that friend saw her that way.

My brother has no experience with girls and has always spent his time online. Now that he's all set to travel, I'm worried about him; I'm afraid she might have sex with him and claim she's pregnant or something like that. He is studying for a master's degree that our parents are paying for, and while he doesn't have a job, he has spending money from our parents.

I don't know how to tell him that she doesn't seem like a good match. What should I do?

I (M/33) have been in a relationship with my GF (F/41) for about two years now. She has two children (a 21 year old and a 9 year old) and both are awesome. She also has a good co-parenting arrangement with her ex-husband (father of the 9 year old), a solid career, she and her boys are all in all, great to be around. However, I'm still new to being in a relationship with kids (this is my first time doing this) and I'm worried I might be moving too fast on some things.

For background: I'm active duty and just recently came back from an unexpectedly extended deployment. I'm due to move in a couple months, so my GF generously offered to let me stay with her to simplify my moving logistics. I'm going to be moving cross country on my next orders and I'll be away for several years, so we''ll be doing long distance. Her 21 year old stays with her (he's going to college nearby) and her 9 year old alternates weekends and different weekdays with her (her ex lives just a few minutes away). I took her up on her offer to move in (move in being staying in her bedroom with her and storing some stuff in the garage), there hasn't been any issues, but I am starting to worry I may have moved too quickly on this.

I only met her 9 year old once before I moved in, and that was almost a year ago before I deployed. Hes a quiet kid, keeps to himself and I try to keep a respectful distance since I'm a new person in his life, and he already has a great dad. However, I am definitely a stranger in his life, and I'm worried that me being his moms boyfriend living there temporarily and then leaving, might not be the best or is creating a wrong impression. I also haven't met the coparent yet (the ex husband) to make sure he was okay with me being there and I don't know if that is a faux pas and something I should have pushed more for. For what it's worth, my GF says she has discussed it with him and that he is okay with his (he also has his own live in GF according to my GF).

Adding to my stress a bit is my mother. She's been very vocal to me that she thinks my temporarily moving in is a terrible idea. According to her, I'm being disruptive to the 9 year olds life since I'm only temporarily there and I'm being entirely too trusting of my GF saying all the arrangements are okay with her ex. My mom is also of the opinion that since I dont know either the 9 y/o or the ex well I'm opening myself to too much risk with the family, my mom is paranoid about me being the subject false accusations of child abuse or things of that nature. To be clear, there has been zero, absolutely no hint or inkling of something like that happening, thats just her fear.

For background context, I come from a very small insular family without a history of coparenting or stepparenting. My mother also works for a school district and is unfortunately exposed to a large amount of negative examples step-parenting and co-parenting arrangements. My GFs family is a very large extended family with multiple examples of step and co-parenting.

My biggest fear and whats been making me feel uncomfortable is being this new person in the 9 year olds life. The last thing I want to do is be disruptive to him or inadvertently cause harm by me being there and then departing so shortly after, especially since my living there is temporary. My mom's worry about fake accusations (again, nothing to indicate that would happen) has also been a little niggling fear in the back of my head. My GF, to be clear also, didn't invite me in to try and suddenly thrust being a parent on me, she is just trying to be nice and give me a spot to crash while I plan out my move. I've spoken to her about my discomfort and shes tried to assure me the arrangement is okay and that if I do want to crash somewhere else she is okay with that.

Obviously this is just a small snapshot, but since I'm a novice with this kind of relationship I wanted to see if you guys and gals had any experience with something like this. Am I overreacting and overthinking things or would some of you recommend I pump the brakes a bit more?

It's pretty much as the title says,

It's so draining, she's 10, she's got some sort of psychological issue, her older brother is severely autistic so I think she's got something similar. He refuses to think there's a problem with her because unlike her brother she can talk.

She's quite delayed, even in size she's around a 6 year old. She's never been dry at night and still occasionally daytime wets (this is not very often but her underwear always smells of wee as of shes wee'd in small amounts all day long. She's not being se**ally abused, she's been to the doctors and he's done bloods, physical, there's nothing. She doesn't wipe after going number two and her underwear are almost always full of poo.

She hides dirty nappies and pants around the house for no good reason, she has access to the bins.

She steals, lies, tantrums, attacks her younger siblings and sometimes her older brother too.

She shouts at teachers in school and is violent there too, she's been relocated three times due to it. We're in Europe and the school can't force a diagnosis. She's seen a psychologist but the problem is, she sees her for an hour every now and then, and her father lies and pretends these behaviours don't exist at home. He always says "she's a bit naughty".

She loves being naughty too, she loves when her father makes out like it's some cute thing "you are so naughty" with a big smile, it's just stupid.

She always wants to hear about things that are negative or unpleasant.

She has these major tantrums, especially with me, where she's screaming like she's being murdered and I just have to walk away.

But when she starts, almost every single time, her father tells her off, then tells me off. I "rile her up" or I "talk to her too much" and it's always my fault. He tells me I don't know how to deal with children and I should just shut up and go away.

I'm getting so sick of being spoken to like this. If I comment on anything, like if I see he's being unjust to another child in order to appease her anger, I speak, and that always causes problems.

What am I supposed to do?

Eu e meu namorado estamos em uma relação tem 1 anos e alguns meses. Desde o começo sempre foi muito conturbado financeiramente, ele está até hoje sem estabilidade financeira e eu tenho uma vida estável, de certa forma confortável, por causa de aluguéis que eu recebo. Pra começar alguns meses após o relacionamento ele foi preso por acusação de ameaça e permaneci do lado dele apoiando financeiramente e psicologicamente. Depois que saiu ele estava sem emprego e com muitas contas por causa do advogado e aí começou toda bola de neve. Um desses espaços que tinha como renda, ele passou a usar porque alugava com os equipamentos também, fiquei sem essa renda e ainda passei a usar minha renda pra apoiar ele, depois disso teve que vender uma moto que eu tinha para cobrir certos gastos, tive que usar o meu dinheiro pra ele pagar pensão dos filhos que estava em atraso, e acabei deixando de pagar uma conta minha e fiquei endividada. Depois ele teve uma série de 3 episódios de raiva, em uma delas tinha saído com uma amiga ele surtou na rua, mandou eu entrar no carro, na outra estávamos na casa de um amigo e ele ficou puto quando disse em quem iria votar, quando quis ir embora falei que não queria ir com ele e ele puxou o celular da minha mão, virou uma briga. Em outro episódio ele ficou com raiva de uma inquilina minha e quebrou o vidro da minha porta. Na última situação que rolou ele estava com uma dívida de 10 mil por pensão também e estava sem dinheiro e penhorou outra moto para conseguir o dinheiro, ele não deu conta de quitar as parcelas e vendi a moto.

De todos esses fatos, o relacionamento é bom, ele é alguém amoroso, companheiro, temos momentos maravilhosos juntos, ele me faz sentir eu mesma quando estou com ele. Queria saber o que pensam sobre tudo??

We got married about a year ago. He has a 5 year old, I have a 10 year old. My son is extremely respectful, polite, a rule follower and just generally all around a great kid. His 5 year old is the complete opposite of my son. When his kid is over our kids play together and have fun but his kid just does whatever, doesn’t listen to me, disrespects my son and has free reign over everything while my husband sits and plays games. Then when I put boundaries in place his kid runs straight to him crying saying I’m being mean. I’m just parenting the same way I did with my kid and the boundaries are don’t hit or pinch or punch your step brother. Seems pretty straightforward in my opinion. When I try to talk to my husband he says he used to be the fun house and now his kid won’t want to come over because we’re the house of rules. So stupid honestly I don’t know what to do.

Background: my hubby and I have been together 6 years. I have 2 kids from previous marriage 13 and 9. Good A grade kids. Kind caring follow our expectations and we all live together so well.

2 years ago my husbands son (from his previous marriage) moved in with us at 14. His narcissistic mum was done with his bad behaviour, never at school, swearing, hanging out with the wrong crowd... he ran to ours. Of course we said its fine. But he was so messed up about his mum and her new boyfriend he hated the world. We gave him everything. A private school, enrolled him into sport, love, compassion and help.

Hes now gone back down the wrong path at 16. Hanging with the wrong crowd, wagging school, doing dumb shit to impress the druggy kids, we yell, sit him down and talk, ground him, say no to parties... but he gets worse! "No one loves me anyway!" We remind him we do! We've helped him, given him a caring home.. and he juat does dumb think and shrugs and said "owell I don't know why I did that.." and off h a goes

Im all for grounding. No parties this week! No friends over you're in trouble. No my hubby says "juat leave him. We are putting to much pressure on him" even worse "you're treating him like his horrible mum did! Im his dad ill deal with it you stay out." His way is sit him down, have a quiet chat, you are loved.. off you go "he needs to learn from him mistakes.. not us yelling and mean consequences"

Umm so we just let him keep treating us like crap!? No way would I accept it from my 2 kids. I cant parent like he does! 😞 what do i do. Every time I say something I'm nagging. Or I'm not letting him parent HIS child, stay out of it.. i hate been told to stay out of it in my own home..

I can only imagine the dramas to come at 18 or when he gets his licence 😞

Thoughts?

He has said it once to me (32F) before when we were at a bar and giving our order to a waiter. He was a little tipsy and we talked about it, but he didn’t realize it at first.

Today he did it in front of of his kid who heard it. I did stop talking in the moment to just give him a look with my eyes and just walked away. I got home first and went inside to calm myself down. Addressed it to him in private upstairs, but says he didn’t say it so no apology.

He also uses the b-word from time to time. His children can hear it and sometimes uses it when talking to me. I’ve asked him to stop but he just says “he’s working on it”. I told him not to speak crazy to me at all but especially in front of his kids, but he then says “these are my kids I’ll say whatever I want to them they know when to turn ears off” (???)

This hasn’t been sitting right with me. We are 2 years into our relationship and both want more children. Will this behavior change or get better? Or will he speak to me like that when kids are older and we have some of our own?? Any experience with this? This really is my only issue, but it is huge for me. We’ve talked so much about it, I just don’t want to get further in if that will be my future.

UPDATE: I did indeed pack my things and got out of there while I could. Will try my luck with someone without children next time. Hopefully this is the last time I’m in this sub!

I’m not talking about beating. My wife and I agreed that’s a line we won’t cross. But whenever I tell him no tablet or I take something from him for acting out my wife says I’m being too strict even though she’s done the same thing for the same behavior. Or when I don’t take something from him or give him something without knowing he’s in trouble or not supposed to have something then I’m too lenient. I don’t understand because telling her that I’d help when it’s asked and to let me know when something like that is happening so I can act accordingly I was also wrong I’m just confused. Is there a medium?

I am 30 year old male childless stepparent, my gf is 31 with 3 kids all boys, 14, 12, and 10. The first two kids dad is not in the picture (no child support or contact) the youngest boys dad essentially is their ‘dad’ since he’s been around them since they were very young. He gives no child support and sometimes picks them up on the weekend. Over all the living situation isn’t bad, I’ve lived with them now for 6 months and been dating their mom for 2.5 years. The kids love me, I’m not really a step dad but kind of in that realm, they are good kids do their chores and majority of money comes from the mom. Their ‘dad’ is useless can’t hold a job doesn’t have a car etc etc. long story short, I love their mom dearly. She is definitely my best friend, does it ever get easier? I feel like I don’t ever get my own space from the kids, not that they bother me but just constant noise from tvs, iPads, etc. I help where I can financially, we both tag team dinners, we work quite well together. Just sometimes I am back and forth on if this is what I want. She wants to get engaged soon. Any advice or thoughts please.

14 year old step son keeps mid behaving and starting arguments with BM, my partner, who then has anger management issues

Last time she hit him (self defense in a way), and said she never wanted to see him again

He ran away to his biological dad’s house, albeit they eventually reconciled after a week of drama that I had to pick up

This has now happened again. The 14 year old adhered to all the rules such as de escalating and apologizing and giving space. Unfortunately my partner, his mother, kept pursuing in anger including blocking his phone

Step son has now ran off to fathers again who of course takes great pleasure in all of this as a way to get to mum

I can’t keep getting her out of these problems or covering for her upset, these are situations she causes herself

I doubt sons coming back this time, nor can she make him. She says she’s not bothered, as he’s disrespectful, but of course she is bothered and will be into a depression for months

It’s all so obvious what is happening, and I warned her. Her anger takes over though.

I can’t keep getting her out of these problems or covering for her upset, these are situations she causes herself

I doubt sons coming back this time, nor can she make him

The way my house is set up, the master bedroom is on the lower level and my stepson’s room is upstairs, directly above our room. We have hardwood floors.

He doesn’t really have a bedtime (I know) and is constantly getting out of his bed (very loudly)- it’s a bunk bed and he’s wants a regular bed, but we tell him all he needs to do is clean his very very very messy room and we will get him a regular bed, redecorate, etc. (he’s never done any chores like that here but that’s for another post.) He’s a big 13yo so the sound of him climbing down from the bed, climbing over the stuff all over his floor, and walking around INSTANTLY wakes me up every time.

Since as I had our baby I obviously wake up easier as us parents don’t really sleep deeply during the baby years. I’ve asked my husband to please let SS know that walking around the house all hours of the night (unless he is using the bathroom) is disruptive and should be kept to a minimum. As I’m writing this he has woken up my baby again- I was already awake from him waking me up a few minutes ago.

He does not have soft footfalls, I bought him slippers hoping it would soften the noise a bit but I’m just at a loss. Am I being ridiculous? No matter how many times I bring it up to my husband nothing changes. I’ve given up on caring about his lack of a bedtime or playing videogames/being on his phone all night. I’m at the point of NACHO parenting and have been for awhile, although when something is directly effecting my sleep and more importantly the well-being of my baby I can’t ignore it. Is it impossible for 13yo to tiptoe and think “I should be extra quiet since everyone else is sleeping directly below me”?

Edited to address some questions/comments-

My stepson is allowed to walk around the house and do whatever he wants, it’s how loud he is that’s the issue. Going to and from the kitchen over and over and things like that is what I meant by walking around all night. I hear the toilet flush up there like 10 times a night but I’m not gonna tell him he can’t use the bathroom because that’s insane.

Yes, I wake my husband up about half the time and he kinda just shrugs, rolls over, and goes back to sleep. This summer he was allowed to stay up all night (my husband leaves for work at 4:30 and SS would boast that he stayed up so late he heard dad leave for work.) One night I kept getting woken up to SS yelling and laughing while on FaceTime and playing video games with his friend- it was so loud I thought someone was outside our house. I woke my husband up and made him go say something. The very next night it happened again.

I have gone up there myself literally in tears BEGGING him to be quiet because he keeps waking the baby up, which wakes me up, and it’s not okay to be that loud. We need sleep. I’m someone that if I’m woken up suddenly I’m NOT very fun to be around.

I truly think he just doesn’t understand or empathize and thinks he’s not being loud. My husband is a great dad, but he displays a lot of guilty parenting due to how horrible (truly insane and borderline abusive) bio mom is and how she’s affected SS. He has kind of a “his mom is terrible so I need to be an extra sensitive and easygoing dad towards him” attitude. I’m not worried about this kind of thing happening with our son because it’s a different situation and with the age gap I don’t think there will be room for the younger sibling comparing his rules to his big brothers.

We can’t move his room, the two other bedrooms are either the baby’s room or our office. The baby sleeps in our room with us though, but their rooms are across a narrow hallway from eachother so it wouldn’t make any difference sound-wise.

As far as cleaning goes, I don’t think you guys realize how messy it actually is. It’s not even something that he could clean in one day. It’s not dirty, just full of too much crap and unopened Lego sets, Christmas presents he never cared to use, clothes that he doesn’t wear, etc. He literally doesn’t know how to clean. I’ve been in his life for 12 years and he’s just never had any chores, it’s not up to me. I always tell him “let’s clean your room this weekend!” and he says yes but then doesn’t wanna do it. It’s up to my husband to help with that at this point.

Need some advice, my partner's oldest is simply brutal. She’s so disrespectful, and it’s not just me it’s to every adult in her life but she is ESPECIALLY mouthy and disrespectful with me. I don’t know how to adjust to this. I talk with my partner about it and she says “ she’s an asshole to everyone” or she will talk to her and discipline her but she has behavior issues so it does absolutely nothing. I love my partner, with everything I have. But this is so hard. Her oldest does not like me, no matter what I do and I continue to show up but it’s so discouraging. Every day I go home and wonder what I am gonna be faced with. What do I do? Keep taking the disrespect? I don’t want to NOT be with my partner that doesn’t even feel like an option. Just wondering what other people have done who may have been in similar situations. I can say one thing, being a step parent is not for the fucking week.

I’m 27F, and my boyfriend is 46M. We’ve been in a long-distance relationship for three years, living in different countries. He has three children (15, 18, and 21). The two younger ones live with him 50% of the time, while the oldest lives with their mother.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time with him in the US, met his family and kids, and i love him deeply. We’ve discussed marriage and having kids together.
However, I’m hesitant about moving to another country, leaving my family, friends, and entire support system behind, and trying to fit into an already established household and family dynamic.
I’m also closer in age to his children than I am to him, and I wonder how that might affect the family dynamic and my place in the household.
I’d really appreciate any advice.

I had a baby with my partner in early September, and since my third trimester, I’ve found myself dreading visits with my seven-year-old stepson. He has level 1 autism, is demanding of attention, and has some behaviours I find difficult to deal with. On top of that, my partner is now facing a court battle to increase his parenting time to 30%, which will put considerable financial and emotional strain on our household.

I’m starting to wonder whether it’s really my stepson I resent, or the circumstances surrounding his visits: a newborn, exhaustion, a higher-needs child, and the stress of ongoing conflict with his mother. I want my partner to have more time with his son, but I honestly don’t want that additional time for myself.

Our couples therapist and friends tend to reassure me that I love my stepson whenever I express frustration, as though that must be true. But I’m not sure it is, and I feel terrible admitting that. I try to act affectionate toward him regardless of how I feel, which adds another layer of emotional exhaustion.
I feel like a jerk, but I’m wondering how many other stepparents genuinely struggle with their feelings toward their stepchildren, rather than simply struggling with the circumstances. Have others felt this way, especially after having a baby of their own?

This is just a funny story about the cons for kids who have step parents.

See, we are not programmed to believe that our stepkids are perfect little angels who never do anything wrong. We sense if there is some bamboozeling going on. We won’t be manipulated as easily as the bio’s.

So I have noticed that SS was coming by after school on days it was not our time like every day. As my SO is either away for work or is working from home at that time he can’t really spend time with SS. I am in between jobs for the moment ( I have the next one lined up don’t worry)
I am home and I was seeing a pattern.

He would take forever to come inside from the place where he puts his bike. My dog would alert me on this. Like 15-30 minutes… he would then walk in. Have a little chat and then take his bike again and “leave…”

However I started to notice my dog remaining edgy. Like looking at me questioning and whining. So I wondered if he took as long to take his bike again as it was to bring it in. But I couldn’t see him. ( I can see the garage from inside so he wasn’t there)

You have to know that we have a large home and there are a lot of places SS could be where I didn’t see him.
So I took out the trash and walk around to see what my dog was complaining about.

There I found SS with his bike, bend over on it looking at his phone… he was positioned near our front porch and where I couldn’t see him from inside.

I asked him what he was doing, he said he was too tired to bike home and resting. I told him to do that inside but he refused, saying he was going any minute now.

I told my SO and he found it quirky cute and funny. Like he always does. But I felt that there was more to this story. I suddenly realized what was happening.

Both BM and SO have implemented a no phone until after dinner rule. SS like many teenagers is completely addicted and if we let him do his thing he will be on three screens at the same time 😅.

BM tracks SS phone. So if he stops somewhere random for 30 minutes to an hour, she will call him to check. But if he shows up being at his dad, she won’t think twice about it.

But inside we also enforce the same rule so he can’t wait inside.

I told SO my theory and he immediately said I was paranoid. There was no way his kid could be so deceptive. As I said all these bioparents have the “my kid is a perfect little angel brainworm” .

So fair enough, I told SO to make SS “ rest his legs” inside and to not let him dilly dally 30 to 45 minutes on our porch. I was met with an eye roll but compliance.

SS his visits became increasingly more sparse. This is the first time he is not showing up casually in the weekend because he was just “ biking around in the neighborhood”.

Poor kid. He would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for his meddling stepmom 🤣.

Quick background: I (39F) previously dated my now boyfriend (42M) 20 years ago when we were teenagers. We dated for 2 years and he was "the one" for me. We lived together and were very close, but he cheated on me and broke my heart. I moved on and got married and had 2 kids. Due to serious gun related domestic violence after 18 years of that relationship, we are divorcing. I reconnected with the ex, and now he's my boyfriend of 1 year again (so 3 years total, 1 year currently).

There are some things I strongly dislike about him, but I accept because I tell myself I will always dislike some aspect of everyone and we have history, he's VERY intelligent, makes good money, has his own house, etc. I just tell myself to stay level headed and don't fall deeply in love; just have fun and enjoy him and if it goes south, then no big deal. Some things I don't like:

He works IT for a porn company. I don't like that.

He has an extensive sexual past while I value long relationships. He has slept with old ladies (like as old as my mother) that send me harassing messages and make posts about me. It's fucking disgusting honestly. Like actual disgust and repulsion, and I ignore it.

When we first started dating, he would take calls from his BM no matter what was going on. He took her calls while we were naked in bed post sex and talked nonchalantly about non-kid related stuff. He took her calls while at my house and chatted for ever about non-kid related topics. He would leave my house to do chores and come to find out he would talk to her for 5 hours.

He told her things about me, like about my domestic violence, divorce, etc. I told him I didnt like it and he said that people can say my name, it's not that serious. That really pissed me off.

He was comparing me to her, telling me about what she does for work, etc. I didnt ask and don't care.

He was prioritizing her and would leave me hanging at his house to help her with stuff under the guise of coparenting and in the best interest of the kids even tho it had nothing to do with their kids. He left my house on a whim once to drive an hr to get his kids from her house to take them shopping for a wedding that she/they were going to the next day because she failed to prepare for it. Again, her problem and her lack of parenting and she says jump, and he jumps.

The kids are 16 and 17, and they can communicate directly with their dad. The whole coparenting BS was a farce and I considered it enmeshment. I told him he needed to set boundaries or I was out. He put up a huge fight about it and said she never did anything wrong to him to do this to her. Then he wrote a draft text to set a boundary and it was disgustingly apologetic and basically said they were so close and it wasn't fair to me so they needed to focus on coparenting only. I said it was weak and looked liked he was under duress, and he accused me of just wanting him to be a jerk to her and start drama. Then 2 weeks later he says he had a phone conversation with her and shes fine with it but he needs to see his kids more. (They dont have a court order). He refuses to tell me what the conversation actually entailed, and I know he hides his communication with her now rather than he simply doesnt talk to her anymore. He doesnt say a bad word about this person even though I know she's done alot of shit to him, and falsely accused him of DV (she admitted that and dropped the PFA). She used to mess with me years ago after the bf and I broke up the first time. She was a menace and I tried being nice to her, and she was just off the wall unhinged.

Anyway. We're at a point where we've been together a year now and I haven't met his kids, yet my kids love him and call him their stepdad. He is great with them and does more for them than their dad, who tries to hurt me through them. Early on, he wanted me to go to a concert with his son in March but then his ex said she didn't want me to meet them because I was going through a divorce. That really upset me but I said OK. Then I asked about meeting his kids and he never said much. This entire time I thought I wasn't meeting them because of her.

Last month, he said that he wanted them to meet the best version of me and basically said it's him that has kept them from meeting me. He said it was because I was going through things and I needed to get better before I could meet them. The "things" were the domestic violence and subsequent criminal case, the custody and divorce process, my mother passing away in May and me mourning her, and finally, my lawsuit against my old employer. I found this all incredibly hurtful and insulting. His kids are nearly adults, not small children. I'm sure they've met people who lost their mother or are divorcing. It hurt me deeply like he was accusing me of being flawed and that I would harm his kids and that I was too bad of a person to even meet 16, 17 year old kids for 5 minutes to say hello and introduce me. Don't forget that he doesn't have 50/50; he sees them a few hours a week. I apparently am too terrible of a person to even be introduced, meanwhile they met the old lady he lived with previously.

So we had a big fight and ultimately all that came of it is that I buried it and accepted it. I grew resentful and decided maybe I didn't even want to meet his kids anyway. I have my kids and I have fun with him, and that's where this ends, even though I wish he wasn't up his exes ass and I wish he was proud of me enough to let me simply MEET his kids. I've known this man since I was 15! Dated for a total of 3 years now. And I cant even MEET nearly adult kids?

I feel it's actually 1 of 2 things. It's actually the ex saying they can't meet me and he's covering for her by saying it's him that doesn't want me to meet them, OR it's true that he doesn't think I'm good enough to meet his kids. I honestly don't know which one is worse!!

Now, I'm done with the criminal cases, custody is final for now, the divorce is pending, and my lawsuit is finished - I won over a million dollars. He seems very different since I won. He is so happy and sweet, and very loving again. It's almost like the beginning. We have alot of plans together.

He said about me meeting his kids for Thanksgiving and I kind of realized I don't want it. I wasn't good enough then, so why am I suddenly good enough now?

Help me untangle this complex web. There's more here than just a stepparent dynamic, and I apolgize for that. I've never been a stepparent and heck, I've never even met his kids. I feel like a year was an incredibly long time to wait and am offended by his reasoning, or protection of his exes demands. A part of me wanted to be a family and have all the kids together, but since he's cut me so many times, I kind of just want to have fun with him and stay distanced from him on a deeper level.

I need help and appreciate your insight.

Edit: I took all the advice and broke up with him. He called me a narcissist and immediately blocked me on all social media, insulted me, and said to never talk to him again. It's hard but had to be done.

I posted earlier this year about being in a step-adjacent dynamic. I was with a man who waited 8 months to tell me he had a daughter. Well, I left, and my psych said it'd be not a terrible idea if I update. I'm out. No more drama, no more raising some man's kid for him, no staying with a guy who lies to me. Gonna go be 22 and young and dumb (and not a pretendo mom to a kid that's not mine for a man who doesn't do the parenting for his own self). Yippie.

That's all. Thanks to everyone who told me to gtfo in the first place <3

My SS6 has had a major change in behavior over the past several months. He’s been stealing, lying constantly, bullying, fighting, vandalizing school property, wandering away from class, ignoring instructions, and acting impulsively and recklessly. He used to be a sweet kid who did well in school, but now his behavior is affecting nearly every environment, and neither parent seems to know how to handle it. Punishments, grounding, and rewards don't seem to work, and spending time with him has become exhausting because it's constant correcting and redirecting. I suspect ADHD, but I'm also concerned about what could be causing such a significant change. What should our next steps be, and is there hope that things will get better? It’s becoming hard for me to be want to be around and that sucks because I love this kid, we created a bond. But I’m tireddd. The weekends are my only days off and this whole weekend was spent dealing with back to back bad behavior. We slept over at DH’s sisters house and every single adult had to pull him about something. He almost broke their $2000 camera that we explicitly told him NOT to touch. I tried to make a post with more context and explaining some of the stuff he was doing but it was sooooo long.