As I have mentioned before (probably a few dozen times), I believe that both parties in an adulterous relationship are to blame. I wouldn't regard adultery as a "mistake" any more than embezzlement would be a mistake. If your stepfather had embezzled from his employer, and kept the money, would you have still have grown to appreciate him? I am not trying to be difficult; I really don't understand the concept.

Dropping your mother's prize vase is a mistake, throwing it at your brother is not. I don't believe that forgiveness in the absence of remorse and restitution is appropriate. (Obviously restitution is appropriate even when something is a mistake).

My mother's sibling lied to her and cheated her out of a bunch of money, yet my sister is friendly to her, and once asked me to help her out financially. I don't get that either, since she has never shown the slightest remorse for what she did.

I know I could never love a stepchild as I love my own. And I am a person who volunteers at my DD school, I have a home where all thi kids hang out, and I am active in civic and charitable organizatins. All that being said, if I know I could never love a Stepchild as I love my own, how can I ever expect anyone else to? That is why I agree with TOS on waiting until children are in college.

There are some people that are just more generous of heart than others. mom2emall, I suspect you are one, as is TOS's sister.

It doesn't pay to hold a grudge. My ex-husband couldn't say "no" to attractive women, but I don't blame them for the break-up of my marriage. I don't even blame him. If my marriage had been a good one, he wouldn't have bothered to engage in conversation with attractive women in the first place. So I forgave him, without his remorse or restitution. I wouldn't take him back, but I forgave him. It was best for my children, and it's allowed me to move forward and be in a better place in my life. Equanimity, as far as my ex is concerned. (I'm still working on that equanimity with DH's ex, LOL.)

I have seen some research that indicated that forgiving too easily is harmful to your mental health.

I don't think my sister is "more generous of heart;" especially since there are quite a few people who she believes have wronged her or others whom she has not forgiven. She has given me reason to believe she would not forgive my exH if he begged for forgiveness on bended knee.

I have no problem with forgiveness when there is remorse. A couple of Christians on another board once told me that the Bible doesn't say to forgive someone who is unrepentant. Not having read the whole book, or paid much attention when we read it in school, they probably knew better than I what it says. I think they had a good point.

tamar,
I really shouldn't matter if your marriage were absolutely horrible, or even if you regularly put arsenic in your husband's cereal. He had no right to cheat on you, and the "attractive women" had no right to cheat with him.

I do forgive people, though I don't ever forget. My stepdad was wrong in getting involved with my mom when she was married, but it doesn't erase everything good he ever did. And my mom played up the "unhappy marriage, damsel in distress" thing for him and he felt as if her marriage was long over before he entered the picture. So I do believe that most of the fault lies on her shoulders. She is the one who stood before God and everyone else pledging her love and faithfulness and broke that vow. I do think that if it had not been with my stepdad, then she would have found someone else.

I love my neices and nephews and would do for them what I would do for my own child. I love my dh and my skids are a part of him. I was in love with him way before we introduced kids to eachother, so that probably helped. Plus they really are wonderful kids. Any hard time they gave me was a direct result of their bm's brainwashing and I can not hold that against them. For mothers day they each made cards and gifts in school, not one of them asked to mail them to their bm. They all proudly presented them to me on mothers day!

I guess that I am just more able to love then some people are. I really think that for a blended family to work you have to love your steps as your own, I would not have settled for a man who did not treat my son as his own and love him as his own. And I would not have married my dh if I would not have felt this love for his children. I would never want to live in a house of resentment and unhappiness.

So, if you could not love another man's children as your own then I fully agree with not marrying him! And if another man can't love your children as his own then I do believe that it is best to hold off on marriage until the kids are grown and out of the house. But fortunately that it not my situation.

So have you forgiven your mother? Just out of curiosity, did she cheat on your biological father with your first stepfather?

I don't think many people would love any one else's child like they would their own (except by adoption, in which case it is their own). Grandchildren might be an exception. I love my adopted nephew like I do my biological nieces and nephews, but I love my own children differently, and far more.

I did forgive my mother, though it was not easy. I hated her for moving me around. I had lived in the same house with her and my stepdad from the time I was about 2 until I was 14. Then we moved around a lot with my new stepdad because of his company. I had to go to 4 different high schools. I would not wish that experience on anyone! Sometimes I still wonder what would have happened to my siblings and I had she stayed with my stepdad.

No, she did not cheat on my biological father with my stepdad, they had been divorced not too long after I was born.

I agree that many people would not be able to love anyone else's child like their own. My family is all very important to me. Had I not fallen in love with my dh before we involved our kids in the relationship I may not have fell in love with them so easily. I am a teacher and I do not fall in love with my students. And I can not say that I love any of the kids friends. But I love my son, my skids, and all my neices and nephews. I would do anything for any of them :) I am very close to them all!

My husband's ex-wife has not remarried--they were divorced 18 years ago.

She was dating a really nice man several years ago, when my SD was about 16.

SD told her that if she remarried,SD would move to our house. That she wanted to stay a "two-some".

So her mother did not remarry, and they ended up breaking up. It's unfortunate, in my opinion, because he seemed to be very nice, and was financially independent. Heir to a company that you would recognize. But he was ready to marry, and begged her to marry him. And eventually, then broke up.

Now, SD is grown, and Biomom is alone. At least she doesn't have any Step-father issues, right?

I definately think that a parents love for their biological child is a sacred thing. However, in the instance of mom2emall, where the man with whom her mom cheated had no children of his own, I think it's possible for that person to love a stepchild like his/her own. Given they have no comparison, it's has to be pretty darn close!!

Although I have to say...on the subject of forgiveness-what you don't forgive you carry around with you. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Also, forgiveness is about oneself. It's to clear your own heart and spirit, not that of the person who has done you wrong.

And it's also quite possible that mom2emall's second stepdad did feel remorse for his affair with her mother, but I certainly don't think it's appropriate to discuss adultery within the family with the childrenif they are too young to understand how affairs happen. I don't know mom2emall's age when all this happened, but I doubt it was something to call a 'family meeting' about. Her mother likely tried to keep the particulars of the situation from her. It's hard enough to process an affair when your old enough to wrap your head around it, but when you're young there's just no reason to even have that knowlege. That's what my mom's mom did when she had an affair. It was only after the fact that her and her siblings found out what had actually happened.

mom2emall said on another thread that she was 14, and she had caught them cheating. Under the circumstances, I think it would have been very appropriate for the second stepfather (and her mother) to apologize.

Although the traditional wisdom is that forgiveness is good for the forgiver, not all agree. Some psychologists believe that it is harmful to self-esteem, and that women in particular are pressured to forgive too easily. One interesting article on the subject is here:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/articles/lamb.html

Just chiming in on the ability to love a schild as your own...well, not in my case, but I did largely raise my three DNephews, and w/o a doubt, they were loved as my own. In fact, if I don't wake up tomorrow, they are my sole heirs - the 'will' was done before I had kids and DH and I were taking off on our honeymoon, so if the plane went down, I wanted the boys taken care of.

I don't know if I love them as my own since I largely raised them, I got in on the ground floor (since they were very young when I entered the picture), my heart just went out to them due to the unfair hand they were dealt, or if the 'ex' situation is not existent in that I did not marry their mom's ex-h as he is my brother, lol. I did, however, have many issues w/ my brother's ex-wife w/ respect to the kids. She was the BM, but I was the one raising them, etc, so much like the SM.

So, I often wonder if I could love a skid as my own because of how I feel about my DNs.

Mom2emall: I'm not great about forgetting, either. I've heard that if you truly cannot forget an incident, then you really have not forgiven it. I just don't know how to get past that last hurdle, lol. If I figure it out, I'll let you know - I'm 1/2 Italian and always credited my 'never forgetting' to that, lol.

TOS: I agree, it's hard to forgive when the person hasn't asked for it. I feel like that w/ my skids though I'm trying to move past it. Somedays, I think I'm really making progress, others, it's not so good.

Dana

vista-you eventually had kids with DH, if I'm reading your above post right. I'm saying, if you had no kids of your own, but only stepkids, or nephews raised in your house, et., that the lack of biological children would result in a love similar to that of bioparents and biokids.

Note, similar is not the same. But I think the people in such situations would love their stepkid/nephew/niece/etc. as they believe they would love their biological children. And certainly not every person would even attempt such a level of love, but the ones really that really step up are going to try their best!

TOS-I DEFINATELY think that women are steered towards forgiveness when it may not be deserved. Women are traditionally raised to be peacekeepers. We're not to 'stir the pot'. We're not even supposed to see the pot! But I do firmly believe that forgiveness is about ME. I can't be full of heart without forgiveness. Don't misunderstand...there are some TENSE moments at family reunions to this day...but I can at least walk in with a clear heart and a loving spirit. If anything, my self-esteem is only pumped up by that.

I did find the post where mom2emall said she was 14 and she had caught her mom and the future stepdad. (right after I posted above) and at that age there should have most definately been a conversation with her. I don't know if there was or not...but one was certainly merited.

My personal philosophy is that forgiveness is not merited unless there is remorse. My older kids and I have had "discussions" about whether forgiveness is merited even if there is - they firmly believe that some things, such as adultery, are unforgivable.

TOS, our marriage was horrible, and there were many times I thought about lacing his cereal with arsentic (LOL!).

And you are correct, neither he nor any of the attractive women he was with had the right to cheat. But they did. I never actually said to him, "I forgive you." I just don't hold a grudge, which has allowed me to be able to move on. I guess that in the big scheme of things, he is just not important enough for me to be thinking about at all.

Unfortunately, my exH is important enough to me to be thinking about. We were together for a quarter of a century; he was a good, devoted father, and our marriage was, I thought, a good one. There is not only the pain of the betrayal and the pain the children are going through, but even the pain I am pretty sure he is going through because he has effectively lost his children (even if it is his own fault).

As for the questions about the affair, my mom and sd did not discuss the affair with me at the time. My mom is one of those change the subject type people. I would make comments and she would not respond. I would ask questions and she would tell me that it was not my business. It was not until I was about 20 or so that my sd and I began discussing some of the affair stuff. My mom had told him that my previous sd was physically abusive to her (which I doubt because I never saw it). So my sd felt that he was "rescuing" her, me, and my siblings.