beginner's eye, "...your assuming the person apologizes and accepts your apology. what if they don't. is that the fault of the parent as well..." I'm going to take....fault of the parent out of this equation and provide another example here. Perhaps a non-apology was given. I have an older sister, who I'm estranged from. She was given to periodic calls out of the blue. Usually, she would rage at me, criticize, judge, etc. Sadly, she just could never connect to my feelings. The point is that it was all about her and her feelings. I got used to her negative judgments and criticisms. She was very aggressive, although I'm convinced that she never saw herself as an aggressive person. She always framed me as the problem. Once, at the urging of some therapy group she decided to make another call. By this time I equated all phone calls and every interaction with her as emotionally painful. As charastic of her, she demanded to know why I avoided her. My sister could never, never see how hurtful her behavior was. EVER! Then she said to me, "...If I apologize, will it make things better?" This took me by surprise and there was a long history of her emotional outbursts, anger and denial. I responded saying I guess so. Then she got mad. Then immediately after she made another very telling comment, she said,"I DON'T GET ANY OF THIS." I was in therapy at the time and discussed her non-apology with my therapist and why I felt it was insincere--it was a very telling comment to me. She was apologizing for behavior that she didn't UNDERSTAND, because as she said, "She didn't get any of this." Neither could the rest of my family and the rage, anger and blame continued from them. My response was to distance myself even further. The concept here is that if someone truly doesn't understand how hurtful and destructive their behavior is (and will not own it and don't understand it), then I'm certain that the behavior will continue and there will be repetition. This may not be the best example, but think of a wife-beater who abuses his wife, then profusely apologizes with flowers, gifts and she reconciles. Then he beats her again, even more cruely than the first time. Then her well-meaning friends or relatives say, "she allowed herself to be manipulated, abused," or they may encourage her to "forgive and forget". Plenty of people MINIMIZE emotional abuse and the damage it creates, because unlike physical abuse you can't see it, therefore if you can't see it, it must not exist. I can assure you my estrangement from my sister is NOT TO PUNISH her. It is 100% about PROTECTING MYSELF and PROTECTING my emotions. It is not because I do not want "...resolution/reconciliation/closure/healing". Of course, I want that. I also want change and I want her destructive behaviors to STOP. I want her to demonstrate AWARENESS and I want to be convinced that she UNDERSTANDS why she is apologizing. I'm not interested in prolonging the conflict. I'M NOT INTERESTED IN PROLONGING EMOTIONAL ABUSE with someone who DOESN'T UNDERSTAND my feelings. I am also not looking for perfection of character. Responsibility and awareness, YES. That is what I am looking for. My intest is in preserving some sense of myself and protecting myself. I posted on another thread about the Art of Apologizing.

I agree with a lot of what you people are saying. To me when it all comes down to it, it's how a stepmother acts in the situation. If she doesn't expect a stepchild to come through like her 'biological' child, they won't. A stepchild needs to feel equal, and part of the family. Not like an obligation, like they aren't good enough, like they are being squashed into the household. Being an adult means that you're the supposed to be the bigger person and teach them respect. By teaching them respect I don't mean pounding it into them, I don't mean letting them walk all over you. I mean you need to show them respect to get some back. Just because you're an adult it doesn't mean you deserve respect before them. Respect isn't earned, that just goes back to making the child feeling unfit. Respect is mutual, it goes both ways. You need to think of it from their perspective. Make it easier for them. That is what parents are supposed to do. They are supposed to comfort them, be there for them. Stepchildren or not they need to be treated like any other child in the household. If they aren't what makes you think they are gonna treat you with any sort of esteem? Personally I have gone through both physical and verbal abuse through my childhood, more verbal than physical. I suffered from depression. Nobody knew, not even me. I came from a messy situation involving more abuse with my mom and her boyfriend. I left my home that I was just getting used to, I moved a lot when I was younger. I left the only father I really knew, who abused my mom. I left my younger half brother and sister increasing my anxiety. I mean nobody knew these things, not really anyways. They saw the police reports, and knew about the anger management courses my stepfather went through. But they didnt really know. They never heard about my stepfather telling me to choose if I want to move two hundred miles away with the father I hardly knew. I only chose this because I knew my mom would come and get us when her bipolar was under control. That she wouldnt go back to the guy that would hurt her if she saw me move away. We were just too close for her not to. We did go to some counseling for the court. I didnt know this, and the councilor I was with told me it would be a secret, just for me and her. That she would make me feel better. I really trusted her. To have my own mother, and my stepmother approach me about what had clearly not been confidential hurt me. I pretended after that. I pretended everything was okay so I wouldnt have to see the councilor anymore. She bought it. I refuse to visit a professional therapist to this day. Dont get me started on how I should. I know, and I will when I am ready. For now I have my best friend who too has in her past had similar problems, and a very kind caring boyfriend. Moving in with a woman and her boy was increasingly stressful. At first she was nice. At first she brought us places, smiled a lot, and praised us for what we did right. She even quit smoking because of my asthma; my stepfather didnt even do that. I liked her, I let my guard down. I get it, its always this way when you first meet. As time progressed she laid a ton of responsibility on me, doing all the household chores to avoid going to the babysitters. When I was living with my mom I took care of my three younger siblings, I was responsible and twelve is definitely old enough to stay home for a few hours by yourself. She didnt trust me, to this day she doesnt. I havent done anything to break her respect. I have been nothing but respectful and paitent her. She began reading my personal journals, things I used to vent, going through my room, my personal belongings. Praising only her son while telling me how bad I was at everything. Scolding me for having feelings, and so I will admit I became irritable. Throughout my childhood I was a shy girl. I didnt really fight back, I was scared of her. You arent supposed to be scared of guardians, step or not it was her responsibility to be a parent figure. I lived in that house for four years. Relieved I left and moved back to my moms house, leaving my friends, and a place I lived in longer than any other. Some might call it running away, I dont really care. To this day our relationship, in short terms sucks. I am still hurt by her. I am hurt that my dad stuck his head in a bottle and ignored it. I am hurt that he chose her over me. That he didnt protect me. After moving to my moms house, with her husband of six months, things got better. I left ends loose with my dad. It took one final fight for me to move permanently, one fight about me crying on the telephone to my mom. The court didnt see her fit to care for me at the time, but I was old enough to decide for myself. My dad had practically told me in his drunken haze to get out. I did. I was sick of it. My younger sister moved with me. My younger sister who was treated more of a daughter from my father and stepmother than I. It ticked me off that she would be treated better despite the fact that biologically she didnt know her father. They seemed happy enough without us. Two months later my step mom parked the car up on the sidewalk, making my biggest fear come true. She climbed out of the car attempting to guilt me. My mom, step dad, sister and I were living with my step grandma. She started yelling at me. I was so scared I couldnt move. I tried to but ever time I stepped she would yell. She told me how cruel I was, to leave my dad who cried every night since I left. She told me how stupid I was to leave. She scolded me for moving an hour away in the hood of our city. She told me everything I already felt guilty about. She trenched up everything I buried deep within. I just stood their motionless tears streaming down my burning cheeks. Finally she left, and I cried, I cried because I didnt mean to hurt anyone. I cried because my making things better had backfired, as usual. I then stormed in the house crying, screaming, I was hysterical. I couldnt help it. My mom told me it was ok. I knew she was lying to make me feel better. Her childhood wasnt lollipops and daisies either, Im sorry that she didnt learn from it like I have. I practiced writing a letter about how I feel to my dad, I never could send one. Four months from that day on the sidewalk two doors away from my house my dad called. My sister had been visiting every second weekend. I hid in the house holding my breath till they were gone. He called and told me I was coming to Disneyland with the family. I obliged just glad he didnt sound mad, grouchy that it took so long for him to forgive me, or in that case bribe me. The trip was two weeks in a motor home. Not as bad as I had thought it would be. I dont remember much. They didnt force me to talk, I dont think my step mom mentioned the outburst that day. I am surprised to this day that they hadnt interrogated me, usually they wouldve. I was a stress case by the time I got home so nerved by being in such a small space with the two people I despised. I visited an odd weekend here and there. Spent a Christmas with my dad while my step mom and stepbrother went to Disneyland again without my younger sister or I. Again I was feeling the wrath of my truly evil stepmother spoiling her son. He came back with loads of toys and clothing, bought us a couple outfits that I pretended to like. She still really didnt, and to this day doesnt know me. I did home schooling for my grade eleven year. Two years after I moved away. I was having trouble coping with my issues. It got better. Not the relationship of my step mom, dad or I but my feelings. To this day I am scarred by it. I allow myself to think of it as something to grow from, something to learn from. I will never forget it, and one day I will forgive them. I fear to have kids, fear that I could turn out anything like them. I have never been mad at my mom she was going through her own stressful time. She was coping how she knew. The court gave her no other choice. Aside from that fact she moved two hundred miles to be close to my sister and I. She is happy now, finally finding a man that cares for us. I hope this just goes to show you how awful things can get. Being a kid it is tough. Especially when youre faced with ultimatums a child shouldnt have to face. So I realize you will all say my situation was a little out there. You gotta understand that if you fool around with it too much it can get this bad. Kids are kids, they need nuturment, they need love. If you can give them that you are well off. If you can't maybe you should back off and not make things any worse. Children don't understand the tit for tat thing, they indeed don't need any of that stupidity in their lives. You rub off on them, and what you do could affect who they will be. Being an ADULT comes with responsibility, and if you aren't ready for it then your relationship might not be worth it. As tiring as it gets there has gotta be some good, just a little that is worth the pain. If not you aren't ready to be a step-parent.

These two by John Adams are important to me today: Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people. . Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. . But I wonder if we'll ever have agreed-upon facts and knowledge after the current fracturing of information and reporting, revisionist history, and general lying to the public to serve personal ambition and gain. . BUT, there's Ruth Gordon telling us not to despair. Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, face the facts. And "conversational gray hairs" -- What a great description!

Thank you for your response, but kids’ want their way and their feelings aren’t taken into consideration all the time, by bio-parents just as easily as step-parents. A child thinks like a child, which generally means self-serving interests. Kid wants yet another bowl of ice-cream before bed; if the step-parent just says No, that is not SM being manipulative or wanting her way. That is SM acting like what she is, an adult and an adult in her own home. Call it what you want, “children first,” etc. There are many names to put on a BM trying to put some sort of spin of child endangerment in dad’s household, that he now shares with his wife. Now, I can’t say for sure what is really going on in that home, but I’m suspecting neither can you. The older, more knowing kids, don’t seem to have THAT much of an issue. Other than the pot, the examples you listed above just don’t scream out abuse. They more-so scream out: big misunderstanding. And, if you allowed your ex- to smoke pot when he was with you and your children, you might want to ask yourself why suddenly now that he is doing it with someone else, somewhere else you are so-o concerned about it and diminishing him to worthless father status. I’ll tell you what the future is for you and your children, because I’ve seen it and heard of it many a time. I’m not saying there is parental alienation syndrome going on here (PAS), because, again, I don’t know all of the facts. But, to me it sounds like you think you should have control of not only your children, but your ex- and his wife, while your children are in their home, at least. And/or, maybe you divorced your loser husband expecting him to suffer for years and years, and instead he found a new wife/ woman a little too quickly? Any way, it is extremely easy for a BM to take minor incidents that occur with her children and blow them out of proportion. This begins a cyclical effect where the kids and BM feed on each other, encouraging each other to think that dad, and especially SM, are Evil or losers or even abusive, and that they don’t have to be listened to, which in turn, upsets dad and SM, so they feel they have to somehow try to get the kids in line further, which then gives the kids even more fodder for mom, and the cycle continues and grows. But, as a BM, I admit, you pretty much have all of the power. It is very easy for you to use that power however you see fit. The court system, society as a whole, will all give you the shadow of a doubt and the shadow of a doubt alone because you are a single mother. Keep things going, and your kids will wind up hating their father, hating SM, and loving and relying on only you. You may go on to get involved or remarry, and the kids will go on to think of step-dad as their “real” dad because mom is promoting him so and not at all just because he deserves that role. There will be issues and drama beyond belief for years to come due to Evil SM and deadbeat bio-dad (that will be your and your children’s spin, anyway). In the end, your kids will think the world of you and hate/ blame their father. When, in reality, the only thing dad and SM may have done wrong is to dare to marry and to try to be happy with each other and dad’s children in their own home. Yes, to some BMs (and SKs and others) that is a crime. Stay out of it. You are the kids’ mom and he is the kids’ dad. You both have the right to parent; just because YOU feel he isn’t parenting that doesn’t mean he isn’t parenting. Regardless, it is up to you how the rest of this plays out. Enjoy your power.