Hi Forumers, thanks for your informative forum. I have a complicated situation and need some advice.

In brief,I met my belle December 06, and we moved together around September 07. We both have children: she has 3 kids (boy 9; girl 13 and girl 23). I have a girl (11) and a boy who is 9. In general, all kids are still in the process of adjusting to their new family life, with varying degrees of success.

For about 4 months now, I noticed that my belle easily picks on my daughter. She is quick to harshly correct her when she does something wrong. And that is how she relates to all her female kids. When I asked her about her manner of correcting kids, she explained that that is how she talks, and it does not necessarily mean she is angry. So, I

now keep quiet and just observe, in some cases i intervene by offering needed explanation to save my kids from her attack.

Of late, her issue has been that my daughter is using every

opportunity she gets to seek attention from me, her Dad. Admittedly,my daughter is not too organized, and sometimes would run up to me asking if I have seen her pen/pencil or other stuff. My belle gets annoyed or irritated when my daughter does that -- she claims she is using such "tactics" to get attention from me. For example, every

morning, before my daughter goes to school, she finds some reason to knock on our bedroom door to ask me some question, and my belle finds it irritating. I have asked my daughter to be a bit independent, and get better organized, but she seems to want attention from me. Finally, one morning in early December, after my daughter missed her

school bus, my belle got angry with her because she felt she

deliberately missed the bus so that she could get me to pick her up to school.

I spoke to my belle about the incident. I told her that my daughter might be seeking more attention from me for obvious reasons: her Mom,a drug addict is no longer in her life, hence she might be clinging to the only certain part of her life -- that is me. It might also be her adjustment to a new family life situation -- she might be feeling lost

since she and my belle's daughter do not get along too well, hence again, the need to cling to her Dad. So I suggest that she can correct my daughter, but sometimes, it makes a difference if it is done in a gentler but firm manner. I cited various instances in which her own

kids scream or talk back at her when she tries to correct them because all they have known is being shouted at, and my kids hardly talk back at her.

She seemed to understand our discussion. But given some of her conversations that I overheard with her friends, and advice she has given to friends who are faced with similar situations with their Step daughters, I felt she would not want to interfere in my daughter's affairs unless it is absolutely necessary -- and indeed, that is how

it has been for the past 2 months. She only talks to her when it is necessary. Instead, she continues picking on her

For example, when we noticed increases in our energy bill, she indicated that it was because my daughter leaves her ceiling fan on all night, even though she knows that all the other kids leave night lights on all night, and I even leave my TV and computer on all the time -- she couldn't find any other reason, but point the fingers at

my daughter. Just this evening, my belle and myself were watching TV, and we both fell asleep in the couch. Apparently we both woke up some minutes later and continued watching the TV, although my belle thought or assumed I was still sleeping. Moments later my daughter approached

me to ask me a question -- as she was approaching me, my belle reprimanded her harshly asking her: "Do you want to come and wake your Daddy up?" At that time, I was already up from my nap, and asked my daughter what she wanted. She explained, and i gave her direction she needed.

I am concerned about these dynamics, and I am not sure how to handle it. My belle seems quite content with our family situation: all her friends tell her (and I think she believes it too) that she has secured a good professional man for herself, and with his help, the entire family has moved and settled into a beautiful rental home. Hence to her and outsiders, all is ok. But deep within me, I am not

happy, as I see that she cannot take or deal with my daughter's closeness to me.

To make matters more complicated, I am HIV-positive and so is one of my kids. I explained this to her before we started our relationship and she said she was ok with it. Recently, she got to know that my kids are aware of our positive status, and she is seriously concerned

about what might happen if her children get find out (you know, kids talk). this has added to my depth of confusion, because it looks to me as if we are building castles in the air: i try to hide our medications; we take them in secret because we don't want others in the house to find out because of the stigma. At the same time, i feel

one day, this "dirty secret" would come out, and it would devastate their world (we come from a culture that extremely stigmatizes this health condition), and her kids will be quick to tell her Ex and family about it -- a situation she claimed she would rather avoid. I

wouldn't want to bring such a shame on herself and her kids, hence I feel like just running out before the chips start falling.

I now know i moved in with her too quickly, but I was very hesitant to do so. In fact earlier in the spring this year, we saw a vacant building and she tried to get me to agree to move in so we can share floors, and I vehemently opposed it, because I knew I wasn't ready. Later in the fall, I thought I could give the relationship a chance

and to give my kids more stability, we decided that we rent an house together because I believed I loved her. At this

point, as the realities of family life begin to unfold, as her fears about accidental disclosure of our positive status is manifest, I am questioning my decision. Now that we are together, there is the pressure to go ahead and marry, and I am not ready for it still. I just know I need more time -- and the zeal to go ahead voluntarily is

not there yet.

As a result, I decided to tell her that I am not ready, and that dragging the kids along the dynamics and challenges of a blended family would not be worth it, especially when I am uncertain about marriage intentions, and given the issues surrounding disclosure of my health condition to the her kids.

Well, I finally gathered the courage and did. I told her sometime in March or April that I wasn't ready, and my previous promises to do so were out of pressure I was putting on myself. She seemed to understand and told me that she also was not ready, given our histories and relationships. She also said she was not too worried about my health condition, and that I am imagining the worse and that for all you know her kids would accept it. I told her it is a risk she is taking, but she didn't seem bothered by it. Hence, by implication we could just continue to live together. A few weeks later, I raised the topic again, and told her that I do not think it would be a good idea to continue to live together, since that would imply indirect pressure or expectation that something would come out of the cohabitation arrangement. I made it clear that marriage or long term relations is the last thing on my radar at this time, I wouldn't want to be giving indirect promises by agreeing to live with her. Besides, we both wondered what our daughters would think of us when they soon reach teenage years in a year or two. Thus, I suggested that we "wean" out our relation by the time the lease expires. And that if we cannot find separate suitable places at that time, we could consider a month-month lease until we each found our place. This was the decision we arrived at early May.

In the meantime, the relationship among the kids have not been too healthy. My daughter is noisy -- she is loud and seeks attention, and wants people to notice her presence. According to her, this irks her daughter to the extent that her daughter does not talk to my daughter at all. They both attend the same school, but there is little interaction among them. Other parents who called our house looking for my daughter (because they want to pick her up for a visit) also confirmed that my partners daughter displays some form of hostility to my daughter and at one point rudely told another parent that she would not call my daughter to come to the phone. Such is the relationship between my daughter and step-daughter. In the same vein, my step-daughter doesn't talk to me either, unless it is absolutely necessary. And, as my previous post shows, my partner does not make it any easier. Her son seems to be good friends with my son, but on occasion tries to show that he is more intelligent than my son, and actually did say it clearly that he is. Other times, my son reports to me that my step son told him that he is dumb. These utterances make my son feel really bad, but I encouraged him to forgive and forget.

About a week ago, my daughter and step son got into a fight: according to my stepson, my daughter called him "something" that was offensive, so in order to hurt my daughter, he also insulted her by saying that he is not lucky to have a mother who is an idiot. (I must admit, my Ex has done some silly and terrible things towards my kids, but I never discussed this with my stepkids, and my kids also indicated that they never told the other children). This insult infuriated my daughter and me. Initially, my partner indicated that it was my daughter's fault that is why she was insulted, although she does not condone his son insulting my daughter's mother. She asked the son to apologize but the boy refused.

I told my partner that I would move out, but she seems to think I am taking it too seriously, and that kids would make-up. Her suggestion is that we should keep an eye on them, limit interaction between her son and my daughter, so as to prevent future interactions. I told her that this is not a healthy situation, particularly if we have to keep an eye on the children. Even though my son still loves my stepson as play mates, I just don't think it is worth going along simply for the sake of convenience - because I am not ready to marry yet. My partner however thinks otherwise.

I wrote a letter terminating the lease and given it to her to sign, but she is refusing to, saying that I am overplaying the incident, and that she has seen all 3 kids (my kids and her son) playing since the incident, and therefore there is hope. I however feel otherwise.

I want to ask her to look at the broader picture and consider the feelings of her children also, who might not be ready for a blended family. But she claims there is nothing more she could do since it appears to her her kids don't want to be ready. At the moment, I am more concerned about how to safeguard the emotional health of my kids, and find a place for them. How can I convince her to sign the lease termination letter.To me the convenience of living-together is not worth the emotional toll on the kids.....and that is all I have been telling her and I want her to understand. If she doesn't want to sign it, can I notify the landlord directly that I am moving out at the end of the lease? Do I seem to be over-playing this incident or is she right that it should be ignored and just move-on?

thanks for your help....Less_Lisa