Thank you all for your posts.I'll try to answer all your questions. "if this were your biological son who abused your step daughter, how would you handle the situation??" I would do everything in my power to help him and make any sacrifices that were required of me. But the problem is that my husband is not willing to ignore the rest of his children and focus on helping him.He has alot of anger towards him because of what he did to his other siblings.He doesn't feel comfortable showing the girls affection because he doesn't want them to think he is trying to be sexual...One of the twin boys has also been really affected by the abuse and is really confused as to his "sexuality" he seems to thik he has to act feminine because of it.To top it off,my husband has never had a close relationship with the oldest at all.When his wife left and he was alone raising the 4 children he took on his moms role and was very abusive toeards everyone,including my husband.He blames his xwife and his mother for making him the monster he has become and he just doesn't want to spend the rest of his life dealing with his mental illness.HIs x wife left him because she couldn't she deal with him anymore.although he is too young to be diagnosed,i honestly believe that he is a manic deppressive like his mother.I can only imagine what he will be like a few years from now if he indeed is-because he has so many other issues along with that.The fact that the 2 women who raised him were both selfish,controlling,deceitful,cunning and verbally abusive doesn't do much for his personality either because this is exactly what he is like.I feel for him, i truly do..but i don't want to spend my life trying to undo such horrible parenting.I never would have gotten married had i known that i would have to neglect my own children to help fix this child in the first place.The fact that he also abused my daughter adds the fact that my daughter would probably resent me for the rest of my life for having put her abuser's needs ahead of hers and i don't think anyone would be willing to do that. "Don't you think he deserves a chance to heal and become the best he can be? Why throw the baby out with the bath water? His behavior is a loud cry for help. Someone needs to answer the call." I agree someone does need to answer that call,the problem is that the only person who is willing to take him in and raise him is the grandmother-who thinks he is just misunderstood and spoils him to death.She basically excuzes all his bad behaviors and tries to justify his cruelty to others by saying that he can't help it because of the way his mom raised him.So he is never held accountable-and he plays right into it and pulls on her heart strings every time he is in trouble so that she can bail him out.This little boy lies,steals,beats other kids up,runs out of the classroom in school,yells at the teachers,refuses to bath with soap,thros dirty toilet paper on the floor,breaks whatever he gets a hold of when he is angry,has full blown tantrums that last for hours,is direspectful to adults in general and cruel to animals and she says its normal because he is becoming a teenager...My husband can't stand his mother because of it so it makes co-parenting virtually impossible because she will ignore my husband and do whatever she wants with him.I know that she is not what he needs-but what am i suppose to do?Put everyone elses's needs on the backburner to try and make him the best he can be? Its not fair to the other kids-especially his that have had to live in his shadow all of their lives.Besides i am dealing with alot of guilt since i was spending so much time trying to "help" him,exhausted and streched to my limit-i wasn't emotionally available to the rest of the children when he was abusing them.Maybe if i hadn't been so tied up deling with him all day my daughter would have come to me sooner...or i would have picked up on signs that it was going on.Because thinking back,there were many signs-i was just too drained to put them all together. if you abandon the marriage now, no one will heal from the harm that has been done. I agree with that statement totally,I love my husband and my stepkids but i have stayed in this relationship mostly because i want these children to have some closure from the harm that has been done.I don't think i could live with myself knowing that i just ran away from this situation not to have to "deal" with it.Its important for all of us to get through this,it will teach them a valuable lesson in life.We shouldn't "run away" from things,we should confront them and find a way to overcome them... Are there other relatives around who will take on the responsibility of the SS ? Unfortunetely the only relative availableand willing is the grandmother. My husband would not be willing to move out and stay with him,he has a hard time going to the visits to see him and when he does he usually comes home feeling all mixed up.He says he has conflicted feelings,he loves him because he is his son,but he acts so much like his xwife and his mother-who he can't stand to even speak of,that he feels as if he is just just like them..I think they call it "transference" in other words he sees him and he sees "controlling,abusive,crazy mother and x wife" whom he chose to get out of his life when he realized that their toxic behaviors were making him "physically ill".This is his son-and he is just as toxic as they are.I think he struggles with the fact that he is so much like the two women who have caused im so much pain and misery in his life and nomatter what he does he is destined to have to deal with his toxic son for the rest of his life.Its just all really complicated...Right now i am just focusing on the kids i am raising and helping them heal from the trauma they suffered. There is no way i could focus on his oldest and remain sane.Its just too overwhelming.

dedtired - I am just like you - I put on the hat, scarf and coat over my "house outfit" to walk the dog etc. and look just fine. For the summer (note I did not say spring because really spring is usually freezing) I have 2 cotton coats that I bought at consignment shops - they are not lined and are about the same weight as a cotton housecoat. So I put those on, particularly when I have to walk our dog - he is always on a leash so I have to go out with him. I have summer hats that I put on my head (auburn hair - coloured of course, but it fades and I burn in a nanosecond anyway). I also suffer horribly from allergies and am allergic to anti-histamine. I did try the shots but had a reaction to them but I so love the really warm summers - 90 F would suit me just fine - with no sun. Bugs love me - the whole animal kingdom does. I remember back in the day when we actually had 4 seasons, now we seem to have one - winter and a bit of summer which is really like spring used to be. heather_on - Bite your tongue. Please not a COLD summer in Ontario (at least not in Toronto). We have had a few and frankly I do remember people complaining about them. I hate the snow and ice and my 9 year old dog loves to eat it and we seem to have salt alternative everywhere. I have been looking at him and asking him why he can't use the toilet - that is how much I hate going out in the cold. It isn't the walking part I hate - it is the "out". Eskies are very cat like - except they need to go out. So I am hoping for a "real" spring - back when "put on your Easter bonnet" was possible.

I love Facebook. My facebook friends include some of my current friends, old friends that I had lost track of - people that I had often wondered how they were - what they were up to, etc. and LOTS of family - my mom, my dad, my sister, aunts, uncles, cousins.... my great aunt is on Facebook and she's in her 80s. I have 18 people in my list of friends who are over 50 (I just went and counted), so it really isn't just for younger people. I do have photo albums on my page, but they're only viewable by my friends, and their is no one in my "friends" that I wouldn't feel comfortable showing photo albums to if they were visiting my house. One thing that I think is great about it is that you can make your Facebook profile as public OR as private as you want it to be. My mom is in Italy right now, and she's posting pictures from her trip every few days on her page. She only has about 10 people on her list, but they're all people that she wants to share her photos with, and Facebook is a great way to do it easily. Only people that you accept as your friend can check out your profile, and you can put as much or as little on your profile as you want.

When i started to notice alot of my step-son's strange behaviors i realized something was definetely wrong.i knew it had to be more than just ADD(which was what he was first diagnosed with)I spent days researching different types of conduct disorders and negative behaviors.I found a website that talked about RAD,and "all of his behaviors" matched their description of the disorder.I talked to his therapist at the time about my concerns but they blew them off and told us that he did not fit the "profile" because RAD children were alot more problematic.I was really frustrated at the time because nobody had a clue how much of a problem he really was.The school was just as useless,they kept minimizing his behavior at school insisting that he was acting up "just for attention" and the only solution they could offer was to change his medication.This was the same child that was litteraly "kicked out" of three different daycares because they just couldn't handle him.Mind you,this child was also getting suspended on a regular basis-almost monthly since the first grade!We continued to advocate for this child,in the hopes that someone would believe what he was really like.It was sad to see how not only his mother but the "community" had turned their backs on this child. After the abuse occured, we were just too distraught after the terrible shock of finding out that one child in the family sexually perpetrated upon the other children in the family.Here we were a couple by most standards, two people joined by love . Each of us was the birth parent of one of the kids involved. We were both horrified and almost inconsolable. The tears could not be stopped. The anger and disbelief on our faces was painfully obvious. The grief was too much for us to bear. I felt our sanity and health were in danger at that moment. I felt so much raw emotion that it sickened me. There were the victims; which were safe and basically unharmed physically. But would all the family love and support be enough to keep this nightmare from returning to haunt them as they reach adolescence? Will this horror cause them confusion about their own sexuality and will meaningful relationships be impossible for these kids when grown? Whether confinement or treatment will ever rehabilitate this boy is questionable. We only can pray. All I know is that this unfortunate choice on his part has damaged all involved and will be a horrible end to any life he may have had along with his innocence, and childhood.As much as i pity the circumstances that have created such a monster of a child,i just can't bring myself to "trying to help him" or advocating for him to get better treatment.I know alot of people may think i am a horrible person,but i just can't bring myself to trying to help him -when my daughter is still healing from what he did to her.I already have so much guilt to deal with over what happened after i found out.For the next few days-while my husband were still recovering from the shcok and figuring out what to do,i had to continue to care for this child...who suddenly asked me for hugs and kisses almost constantly.I tried my best to put my feelings aside and not treat him any differently then i had previously until My daughter saw me hugging him and ran into her room crying. As you can imagine,she was inconsolable and angry at me at the same time.I remmember leaving her room and walking into my bedroom and just collapsing on the ground where i stayed and cried for over an hour.I left after that,and stayed at my moms and did not return until my husband took him to his grandmother's house. That did more harm than good-soon after staying with her he recanted his story and said my daughter had "started it" and later we found out that she was actually "encouraging him" to defend himself and let everyone know he was innocent...When CPS stepped in and removed him from her home ,although it wasn't what we had hoped for we were relieved that he would be away from her influence.Unfortunetely all that CPS has done is put him in a theraputic foster home instead of an Intensive residential treatment Center for young offenders which is what "all of the therapists that have seen him" recommend that he go.Their agenda is to basically keep him in a safe home where there are no other kids and close the case.This is a high profile case,as our caseworker has told us.The main problem is that he is the "youngest offender" in the state of NJ and all of the programs available in resedential treatment settings are for older kids.We have written to the commisioner and various others for support but unfortunetely it hasn't done anything to get him the treatment he needs.I've spent so much time trying to advocate for this kid-that its just added to the guilt i have by neglecting my daughters needs and making him a priority.Disengaging for me was a matter of self-preservation.I just can't do it anymore.Sometimes i feel as if this marriage was a mistake,and i wonder how things would have been had i not made that decision.I just have alot of conflicting emotions about the entire thing. So here I am on my day off trying to get a bite to eat and make sense of all this. I'm feeling overwhelming pain and sadness. I'm questioning my husband and myself about the world we live in that creates such a problem. Out loud I wonder how we can protect kids and raise children who have no wish to ever do these things. How can this happen in a home like this where there was love, caring, and watching? I want badly to blame something or someone, but who? (sorry for the long vent-i really needed it today)