To everyone posting on this subject... Be sure to check out my thread problems with my 19 yr old daughter.... Where theotherside once again flip flops on her beliefs... she is a total hypocryte!!! Here she is ready to lynch this man and in my post she makes it very clear that my daughter is not mature enough to handle her life and I should do it... She even states that a child is not an Adult until they are around 30!!! So therefore this man is not responsible for the affair!!! He was just immature and his parents should have stepped in and DONE something! right? :) :) Oh the isanity goes on. :)

Hi Dana, I had to work yesterday, so didn't have time to reply to your first response. First, it's important to understand that my stepmother is mentally ill. Her illness, which I believe to be a combination of borderline personality disorder and paranoid personality disorder, makes her a very difficult person to deal with. The only reservation we ever had was that she was already married when she met my father, and then pushed my dad to get married right away. We were concerned things were going too fast. She was antagonistic to my youngest sister right off, mostly because that is the sister who is very much like mom. I later found out that my SM started watching the family videotapes almost immediately after moving into Dad's house. She didn't watch them with anyone else, but by herself. We found out because a family acquaintance came over to the house unexpectedly and discovered her doing that. My stepmother's response? "I want to see what's so great about this other woman." Still, I do believe she feels threatened by us, although we've never threatened their marriage. According to my dad, he started regretting his hasty decision to marry within a month or two of their wedding. She decided the only reason he could have come to that decision was because we were urging him to dump her. I would NEVER presume to do that. I don't offer marital advice to anyone and could not imagine intruding in my dad's marriage in that way. All of my sisters feel the same. (Side note: One sister tells me that's the reason she confides in me about fights she and her husband have had ... because I always point out his good qualities and the things she loves about him, rather than take her side and bash him.) My dad says it's only been in the past year that he has realized how much she's lied about. We've been accused of saying and doing things that never happened. Turns out, she was telling dad that we were calling when he was gone and cursing her out. She also told him that his brother borrowed $1,000 from her and never paid her back. Untrue. For a while, I've wondered if she knows the difference between fact and fiction. My sense is that she makes up those incidents, knowing at the time that they're fictional, but after she's told the story a couple of times, the event becomes real to her. As for apologizing, I have done so, over and over again. Dad says she absolutely will not forgive -- that once she feels someone has wronged her, she hates that person forever. He also says she will NEVER admit she's done anything wrong.

I am sorry june to hear about your loss and your sc reaction. I have been reading alot on this Forum lately and it has done me ALOT of good. I wish i could have found it years ago but what i do know is that what i am reading just confirms to me that what i have been doing for the last several months ( and i have been doing it very seriously) is disengaging myself from DH adult children. I have done everything and anything for these children in the last 18 years and now that i am disengaging myself....i wonder why i got so trapped in their lives in the first place. I guess it was just the emotional instinct of a woman that made me react towards them like i had to be there for them constantly. Today, i can just say, that it is was not worth it at all! I must not be the only one feeling this way considerint June0000 post. It truly hurts me that stepchildren can be so inconsiderate. I've told my three SC that i was diagnosed with fibromyalgia two years ago. After work, i can hardly do anything and weekends i really, really try to relax and take care of myself. Not one stepchild has ever called in the last two years to simply ask me : How are you feeling? Well, i wonder why i haven't invited them even once over in the last months! On saturday, we had to stopped at the oldest stepdaughter's house for a minute. I didn't get out of the car. DH did. His daughter was outside and she could very easily see me in the car, waiting for her dad. Six months ago, i would have made sure i would have waved my hand at her to say Hi. This time, i just waited a little bit to see if she was going to wave her hand at me. Nope! Didn't happen. Not when we first arrived her place nor when we left! Ask me if i care! Lessons life teaches you. Keep on posting. Be good to yourselves.

If I may post a differing point of view: I often find even the "attack" posts helpful, if for no other reason than to get a glimpse into the mind of someone who is just plain mad as he** and lashing out. I deal with someone like that -- my stepmother -- who takes offense at the slightest transgression, nurses a grudge like a mother nurses her young, and never misses a chance to point fingers and play the victim. When I see a posted topic that lays out a position that sounds logical, with a simple request for feedback, I'm almost eager to see what the "attackers" are going to say. Negative Nellies are often hard to read and they never fail to surprise me in their response. Then I apply that response to my stepmother (others might apply it to DH's ex, etc.) and I begin to see just where stepfamilies go so horridly wrong. Through this board, I've discovered one thing that I always keep in the front of my mind now: A nuclear family is the most natural thing in the world. Everyone in it comes from a basis of love -- a parent's love for child, a wife's love for her husband, a husband's love for his wife, a child's love for his parents -- it all works, mostly, in harmony. A stepfamily is created from the pieces of that which has been broken. It's not surprising that it doesn't glue together properly every single time. Dad falls in love with wife, who doesn't automatically love his children. Said children wish mum and dad would just get back together and definitely does not love stepmum. No one, it seems, is prepared to offer the unconditional love, acceptance and forgiveness that is found in the traditional family. Those who do, such as Dana, often struggle with the task because others in the new family do not try as hard. The whole mixture breeds anger, bitterness and resentment and that's where the attack posters come from. I suggest looking at attack posters as the bitter spice in your cupboard. You don't always use it, a full measure might make you retch, but used in the right way it brings a balance to a recipe. Even if that balance is a little unbalanced. (wink, wink)