"I have never felt it really was a blended family, more like two families living under the same roof." You're right, it's not a family. I think in order for a blended family to be successful there has to be one set of rules for everyone in the house. The two parents should come to an agreement on these rules and apply to them ALL kids the same. It sounds like in this situation what's good for the goose is not good for the gander. While you have no problem with your husband correcting your kids, he has a problem with you correcting his. When the two of you discussed getting married, did you discuss family rules and how discipline would be handled? If not, I doubt there's anything you can do to save your marriage and why would you? Sounds like your husband has reached his limit. He's already kicked you out because he said he's warned you for three years not to interfere with his kids but you continue to do so, your daughter is suffering as well, she stays in her room all evening when she gets home from school. And it seems you are stressed out seeing your husband's kids heading down the wrong path. Why subject yourself to more stress? I think you are better off without him and his family. Your husband seems fine with his kids behavior, so why would you subject yourself and your kids to more of the same?

Wow, that sounds like a pretty intense fight. I agree with you that both your sister and your stepmother said things they shouldn't have said, and when it escalated to physical harm that obviously made it worse. I think it would be a mistake in that case to try and determine who is the party 'at fault', because it sounds like they both were. Technically your sister 'started it' by being the first to escalate it to name calling and being the first to start letting it get physical... but I can also see where your stepmom was being provocative and meddling by asking about the locks with a judgmental tone in the first place... AND she certainly had a choice once the argument began as to how she could respond. She chose to call your sister a whore and scratch her instead of saying: "you know what? I'm going to remove myself from this right now and cool off and maybe we can talk about it more when we both calm down". To be fair, your sister could have said this too, but my point is that they were both party to it and therefore it would be wrong of your stepmom to now act like it was just a wrong that was committed against HER, i.e pressing charges. That's why I agree with your Dad that pressing charges was not the appropriate way to deal with the situation. Sounds like extra stress & uncertainty in your sister's life has been making her extra touchy (on top of pregnancy hormones) and I guess for your stepmom's part she may be extra worried about every dollar because of the combination of being financially dependent on your Dad and having a secret gambling problem. Neither can really be feeling all that good about her own choices and her own inability to get by independently. Both of them are in financially and emotionally unstable situations, and it sounds like to some extent they each blame the other for their problems, or at least partly. Each probably thinks the other is a selfish, weak-willed hypocrite. It's probably easier for each of them to lash out at each other than to feel the fear each of them probably does about what's going to happen and if they will each be okay or if the circumstances they each put themselves in will spin out of their control. Hopefully, everyone can sit down and talk and try to acknowledge/understand everyone else's stress and worries, or at least 'agree to disagree' as to how each should be conducting their lives according to the other. It's your stepmother's right to back out of dealing with your sister if she can't handle it (and vice-versa), but she wouldn't have the right to dictate how your Dad should conduct his own relationship with his daughter. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

ummm let us back up here. First, I did say that I hate the word stepmom or step whatever... but I DID NOT say that I told the kids that they couldnt call me step mom. FYI They call me L_. And, if you reread my post I am the one that told the kids not to call me mom and to respect BM's feelings. My point, obviously completely missed by you, was that I dislike the word because of how people view steps in general.... I thought the reference to Cinderella made that quite clear. BM and myself are from the same area... south but not THE south. The whole Ms. thing was just a way for her to create a seperation between myself and the kids... like when the kids were asking how my aunts and uncles became my aunts and uncles. I told them that they were brothers and sisters of my dad. They were confused because BM and DH had a family friend that the kids called Aunt and Uncle. I told them that they werent really their Aunt and Unlce that they were a really close family friend and so they called them Aunt and Uncle. Bm chose to tell the kids that I have no idea what I was talking about and knew nothing about her family. Not her family, infact friends with DH before he even met BM...but whatever... those were rocky years. She would get angry with the kids and demand that they say Ms._ It got to be ridiculous after a while... especially when she was making this demand the one or two times a month she was seeing the kids at the time. The kids would get confused and not know what to say. So, it was time to squash it. The Ms. before addressing an adult was always DH's rule for the kids when talking to someone outside of family, it was a way of her digging in a thorn.

My BF tried the "you don't understand what it means to be a parent" line *once* ----- and never again. Just because someone has a child in NO way means that they automatically know how to parent and just because someone doesn't have kids doesn't mean that their insights into child raising are irrelevant. I find that to be a *huge* misconception among parents and non-parents. My BF had horrible parents himself whereas I came from a very stable "normal" (for lack of a better word) family. I was a nanny in college and have been the official and unofficial "auntie" to tens of kids. I *know* my input is valuable and rational and every bit as valid as his. That said - I do try to back up a lot of my suggestions with doing some extra reading/research on successful parenting. Yeah, I watch "supernanny" and read parenting magazines and forums like this. My mom has been a teacher her entire life so I often talk to her too. I try to approach my conversations with him from the perspective of "If I had my own kid" or "when we have kids I would like to do X". I try not to specifically attack the way he handles his own son, but put it in other terms. I got lucky and he has agreed to let me have basically full parental authority with his son and backs up in front of his son. Like everyone else said, the 10 year old is really just doing her job. She needs to explore boundaries and exert some independence as part of her own growth, but left unchecked, it makes family living harder and will teach her nothing about setting boundaries and self discipline. It's actually doing her a diservice to give in to her manipulations. I asked my BF to keep in mind the 'end result' he wants to see with his son - who does he want his son to be when he grows up? I told him to imgaine his son giving an acceptance speech for some mighty award - and what does he want his son to say about his dad in the speech ("I want to thank my dad for teaching me discipline, perserverence, hard work, value of a dollar, value of community service, etc, etc.). YES - it's totally cheesy, but common sense really says that no scholar ever stood up and said "I want to thank my dad for letting me get away with murder and giving me everything I've ever wanted without having to work for it" - those kids don't win awards, they end up in the unemployment lines... :)