I was wondering if other people have situations simular to mine.Th ex here has been ex'ed for 13 years now.She was wife number 2.I am wife number 4.Number 3 left because of the crap the second wife was doing.Calling and harrassed her and the husband.myhusband has one boy who is now almost 16.His mother is bipolar as well.I don't know what she is tryign to cause or what she wants with the cronic phone calls,it's always about this son.He lives with her,we are supose to get him every other week end,we don't,she changs the schedule beacuse she needs leaves picked up,they needed picking up the weekend before and they had time to gt it done.Yes the calls came even at 12 midnight just a year ago.She wantd to at one point give up her son but she wantd to keep custody.She would take careof all her sons schooling from 40 miles away via e-mails to the teachers,and drive here if she needed to.My husband so graciously said yes to his coming and signed papers to do so.I found the papers.Signed sealed and delivered in his papers he keeps.i was suspicious anyway and to prove my feeling were so i went to look it up,there it was.She would keep her child support money and he will come here and live with us.Yeah! I bet! this was her way of moving in here.She actually met up with my husband and went to dinner over this paper signing. I am still very hurt that he would even think to do something this stupied.In hope his son will be with him?I wonder if he really wants to be with her at any cost.i don't get it.He knows her undermining.She even calls on our anniversary to discus the sons christmas list.Muy comment was you buy what you want and we buy what we want,he'll be happy.Come to find out his daddy bought everything and she gave him 150.00.I haven't an issue with daddy being his santa claus but I do have one with her telling him what to do.I buy ny step son things i know he will really like.Iremember the things he has mentioned over the year and i tell his daddy abou tthem.he says he didn't say it was what he wanted.I asked him if he ever has listened to him at all through the year.I do.I normally do not need a list,especially when I know someone. You'd think after 5 years of me being with this guy the ex would go away.She has a boyfriend and her son said she didn't feel anything for him.She has dated him 3 years now.Well about 3 1/2 years ago after me and my husband married she called my husband and said she was getting married to this same fellow she'd then had dated him 3 times.She was out house hunting as well with her son.my guess is she told him she has bipolar with other and he doesn't want to commet.She did lie to my husband about that as well.He had no idea she had that at all.It was at the wedding his brother was hearing this from friends there.Oh my! I think if i found my sposue to lie like that I would have ennulled the marriage.He didn't find out until she had a breakdown after the boy was born when she went out of town and not on meds.She was going to divorce him because at first she wasn't getting pregnant 9 months inot the marriage.Then low and behold she was pregnant. I am tired of the calls.It has been put to minimal.He keeps his phone on vibrate.He has a new job wher ehe has a phone at his desk and she i am sure calls for stupied things still.After the decision I made on the child staying with his mother and not coming here it really has stopped alot of her calls.I tols my husband it has to be him coming here which means mother dear will be over here,and it is her or me.he chose me and he stayed at his mothers house.he has a councler who really is trying to evaluate the situation.It is soon to believe that it is mother who is the one with issues.my step son knows it isn't him.I made sure he understood it was not him.He has mad ehis friends in his area he lives in and he is now happy with his decision and my decision that he stayed there.theropist are keeping her out of his life as much as they can.She had unfinished bussiness with my husband I am sure.i had to let him go there with theropist trying to deal with the son and the mother and I needed the docotr to push their life to a closier so she can go away. i think her bipolarness is still such an issue that she will not let those sleeping dogs lay still. So agin is it a bipolar issue or the ex issue.Two mor eyears and it has to stop.the calls have to stop.I will leave him if he keeps it up. Bad enough the first ex calls and posses as his brother.he allows that too.He ha smental issues himself to even let that go on.I have thought many times i am bringing up my ex all the time and in his face I will be with it.he can get a taste of it.Now he has real reason to be jealous of my ex.he is handsome and smart as a whip.we were also togther 30 years,27 of them married.He hasn't been maried over 3 years in all of his other 3. thanks,i needed to say something before I explode.

I hear a lot of whining, blaming, and making excuses why it's everyone else's fault or not doable. "Not everyone can afford daycare - if I'd had to pay after school daycare for a couple of kids at $200 a month each, it wouldn't have been worth working." If you can't afford $200 a month, I venture to say you wasted your time & money on two graduate degrees. I can afford $200 a month (because that's about what it cost me in fuel to go pick up my step daughter after school everyday when she went by her mom's house) I agree that not everyone can afford daycare, but there are also subsidized programs for low income and single parents. When they get to 13+, they can usually be home alone. I'm not sure many 13+ year olds would want to have a babysitter. Isn't part of being a parent, figuring these things out as you go? If it means taking a more flexible job like TOS or working more & hiring help like KKNY, we do what we have to do. When I was a single parent, I couldn't (or chose not to because I had job security there) change jobs so I found a house near where I worked. I could run home on my breaks if I needed to. The school was just down the street if I got a call to pick someone up. When they were able to, they went to after care and when they got too old, they came home and I monitored what was going on by calling or coming home on my lunch and breaks. I could have lived in a nicer house in a nicer neighborhood but further away from work and it would have been harder to be as involved as I was. It's all about choices. "And then what -- even if you pick up the kids after school, they have less flexibiltiy re after school activities, their school friends are 10 miles away." When my stepdaughter was going to school 28 miles away from us, she was in taekwondo with her mom. On my husbands weeks, I would take her. I'd pick her up from school, hang out window shopping or running errands for an hour (sometimes take her to the park or work on her homework while we waited) and take her to her taekwondo class which was near her school & mom's house. She also was in girl scouts and karate where DH and I live. She made friends there too so she had friends by her mom's house and dad's house. I didn't realize that kids were only allowed to make friends in ONE area.... hmmm. Like I said, if you want it to work, you can make it work. IF TOS has two degrees and can earn more, she may be able to afford a babysitter/daycare or she may choose to take a lower paying job that has flexibility. You choose what works for you, just as I chose to live near my job.

"You are right, but this is about extras, not CS. If SM feels that on top of CS and regular necessities SD requires (during her 50/50) that BM is expecting Dad (and therefore SM) to pay for extras, I can see her problem." The problem is that not only are there bound to be plenty of costs for "extras" that are going to be incurred in raising children (I mean, if we're considering anything beyond food ---but not necessarily FAVORITE food, just food--- and, like, Hanes 3-pack basic white tees as clothing and the cheapest uglist Walmart notebook and Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencils as "extras")... but that the definition of "extras" is very debatable... "It would feel like BM considers her husband's money as separate and not to be used for her child, but SM's to be part of Dad's available income. Who would be purchasing the sports equipment if there was no SM, and therefore no item to borrow? Assuming Dad's income was the same, and his CS and custody the same, could he afford this item on his own, or would he ask BM to split the cost? (BM could use some of her CS, or ask her husband to help.)If both parents were still single, how would the item be procured?" I just gathered that there happened to be already in existence in the house an item of the kind that was required, which was not being used by anyone else at the time it was going to be needed. In that case, why SHOULDN'T OP's daughter be able to use it? Is it inconceivable that OP's daughter would loan something to her step-sister in a similar situation? Has that never occured before? I mean, yeah, I suppose that for everyone to be perfectly even and everything to be perfectly fair, there should be two of absolutely everything in the house for each of the girls, no matter how easily worked out a sharing plan may be... just so nobody feels like BM is "getting off scot free" or "taking advantage" of the already-purchased hockey stick (or whatever it is). But why spend the extra money (which Dad would be, since he's presumably already paid for half of his step-daughter's item, we can presume he'd be paying half of this item too) or insist or suggest that someone else (BM) spend extra money when there is a perfectly good item right there, which will not be in use, and which the user of (step-sister) has already agreed to lending? It's not costing step-sister or SP anything to lend it, and if it's damaged it won't cost them anything either b/c Dad & BM would pay for a replacement. The only reason would be to (pardon the pun) "stick it" to the person(s) who would be asked to pay for a second one, in one way or the other. Now, obviously, if the item is lost or damaged, or if OP's daughter will be using such an item more frequently in the future, then it's appropriate to purchase another. But to go around and imply that anything shared in the house that's an "extra" has to be purchased separately even for one-time use is just not very family-like. In intact families, no one would dream of proposing a waste of money (on anyone's part) or excessive consumption (and clutter?) of this sort as a general practice... I guess that's what I find so colossally sad in these blended family situations. That, as much as many SP's regard the situation like the SK's are "spoiled" b/c they have two households, it's just as often that they end up getting shafted b/c everything gets nickel-and-dimed and bickered over to death. And I'm not even really thinking about in the *material* sense, but psychologically... How do you think it feels growing up where every little item or expense you require as a kid is argued over, debated, and you're made to feel like you're such a source of financial burden and your parents arguing all the time and the expenses paid for are all conditional on how well you (or your mom) behave? Like someone's sitting there all "ca-ching! ca-ching!" every time you express a cereal preference that costs an extra 80 cents, or scowl ("deduct a dollar for the "extra"-nice notebook b/c of your attitude! I don't HAVE to do anything for you!")... and you may, perhaps, be in the regular presence of a step-sibling who (b/c his/her parents aren't divorced) doesn't face the same kind of nickel-and-diming, or you feel like you have to run a decathalon of requests and requests-for-requests to DARE to borrow the item of its "rightful" owner, whom it WAS procured for, presumably without much hubub... I CERTAINLY can understand the need to budget to the point of splitting hairs (b/c there's no choice) when funds are tight (but in OP's case it didn't sound like that was necessarily the case)... but when the situation is more comfortable, nickel-and-diming is unnecessary and rather depressing. Not to mention an enormous waste of energy and a veritable minefield packed chock-full of potential explosions at every little teensy turn. (Which, btw, ain't so great for the marriage, either...) Come up with a plan, an agreement, based on reality, decency, common sense, and what you think "family" should mean and general principles of what will/won't be split (or set a dollar amount limit, or an age limit, or limit the extracurricualr activities by quantity). Figure out and decide once and for all on the definitions of "extras" you and spouse agree on and everything should fall into place. If this can't be agreed upon between current spouses, it is not the ex-spouse's fault, and they shouldn't be dragged into the mess. If the CS arrangement is unsatisfactory to both current spouses, seek to have it changed instead of whining/nickel-and-diming/b.s. psychological games. If it's satisfactory to one spouse but not SP, or if expenditures just CANNOT be agreed upon no matter what, then maybe consider splitting finances. But acknowledge that it is the CURRENT SPOUSES who cannot agree on expenditures or come up with a workable plan, so it isn't anyone else's fault or burden to bear if you two can't work it out between yourselves.

Good for you Sunflower! I've been thinking about your situation over the past few days, and had an epiphany a few minutes ago, and wondered if that might apply. You seem like a sensible and reasonably mature (though young - under 30) person who's goal-oriented. All good. And you talked about moving forward with your relationship -- and I get that. Moving forward in a relationship is generally what we like to do. It's the normal and logical progression of life: High school, some high school boyfriends, college, some college boyfriends, graduate, get a job, set up life with an apartment, career, more boyfriends. Then you find a BF you especially like who especially likes you, and you move forward -- maybe live together, then get married. Then you have kids, raise a happy family, etc., etc. You spoke of moving in together as 'moving forward', and I'm wondering if in your mind, is somehow is. Like it's 'advancing to the next stage of life' -- moving your game piece forward, or 'growing up' another degree. And in a sense, it is. It is moving to another stage of life. But viewing it from that angle makes it sound like it's automatically a good thing -- a step ahead, a move forward. And in reality, it isn't at all! (Does the teen mother who marries her high school baby daddy somehow 'win' by going through her step-forwards quickly?) It certainly can be a move forward -- with the right guy at the right time in the right circumstances. But it can be every bit as much the learning and growing experience to say "No" as it is to say OK and move in together. Laying out your ground rules -- the way you did by specifying that he had to get his finances in order -- That's a very empowering thing you did! If it turns out we were all wrong and he is a reponsible guy, then he'll respect you for taking a stance now. And if he's a weak link, that'll become evident too, and probably a bit sooner now. You're doing the right thing Sunflower! And that's really a step forward.