Here I share my struggles being a childless stepmom from my marriage. Not all of this was written at the same time, that is why it doesn't all flow together. dh = husband
sd = stepdaughter
bm = biological mother

I just want to hide under a rock the whole day. I don't want to be nice to anybody, I just want to crawl back into bed and stay there. My heart is breaking into a hundred pieces.

I keep getting caught up in my emotions and all that is going on around me. I need to be able to forgive dh. I am so hurt that all that I have been able to feel is hurt and not leaving myself any room for forgiveness. I need the strength to be loving to those around me regardless of my hurts. I need to not compare how he treats sd compared to how he treats me...it is so hard not to! It feels like he treats her like a royal princess and me like one of the petty servants, only here to serve him day and night.

I wish I knew what to do. It doesn't seem like anything that I do is right. I try and try to do my best and do good, but it seems like all I get is yelled at. I also get all my dreams crushed over and over again. I don't know what what is going on or why this is happening. I just don't understand. I feel like this evil, awful person. Am I? Am I wrong for having my dreams and desires? If they are just going to get crushed time and time again I would be better off not having any dreams or goals. It just doesn't seem like anyone really cares, least of all dh. I can't believe that he told P&N that the kids that I work with are good enough for me when they asked if we were going to have kids together!! That hurts so bad I can't even explain it. I wish that BEFORE we married he would have told me that he didn't want to have any kids with me. That would have been so much better, but now that I am married, I feel stuck. I just feel like I am living day to day with no real joy. There is nothing that I look forward to. The only things that I really want are so far out of reach that it isn't funny. I just want dh to treat me kindly and caringly and I just want to be a mom. I want dh to want that, too. He's already a parent. It isn't fair for him to hold that against me! I'm not the one who he got pregnant long when he was so young, but he is certainly holding this agaisnt me. I don't know what to do. My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces. I hate feeling like I am paying for the problems of him and his ex. I want to have children of MY OWN so so so so bad! Will this ever happen? Why have I had this desire for my entire life? I have never wanted anything more from this life. I wish I could take these desires away from me so that I can stop hurting. I just don't know how much longer I can keep going on like this.

All I was trying to do this morning was help dh and then he just gets so mad at me and nothing that I said would calm him down, it just got him madder at me until he was yelling at me most of the way to where we were going in the car this morning--right in front of sd. I don't know what she must be thinking. She probably thinks that we are crazy, with him yelling at me and accusing me of things that I didn't do and with me balling my head off. I just want to go hide under a rock and never come out.

I don't know what is up and what is down. I get confused, especially when he says that I am doing something that I'm not. Or at least that I don't think that I am doing, but how can I be doing something and not know it? When we first got married I really thought that he was trying to brainwash me. I still don't know what is going on with him when he gets like this. I really have no idea, it's like something snaps in his brain and there's is nothing that I can do to make anything better. I just don't understand what goes on at all. I want to see the best in him and to see him as you see him and to see him for what he has the potential of being. I want to believe him and help him to become a better person.

I wish that I could be totally loving and unselfish. I hear other stepmoms saying things like, "I love them to death, do everything I can for them, always buying them new shoes, coats etc., ... I do this willingly, without asking husband, I just like to do nice things for them and want them to feel loved and special in our home - which they do." I wish that I could feel that way. I feel like I could walk around with a big "S" on my shirt for Selfish Stepmom. I have been jealous and even resentful for such a long time. It was so hard getting married and finding that everything was completely different than I had pictured it. I thought that dh and I would be a happy, in love couple and that things would work nicely. I didn't expect all the problems that came up, and I certainly don't blame him for everything. I know that I had a lot of bad attitudes mainly because I was so insecure. I allowed my fears to over take me and run my emotions. I ended up angry, jealous, resentful, bitter, selfish, fearful and more. I was always accusing dh of not loving me and it certainly felt as if he was always putting sd before me and then throwing it in my face that he loved her more than me. It has been really hard getting used to dh and what makes him mad. Obviously saying anything about sd, whether good or bad, is one way. I've learned a lot over the years and mostly manage to stay on his good side.

What has been really hard is giving up my dream of having children of my own. Before we got married, he said that we would have two kids together but since being married he gets very angry at me if I bring up the issue. I have held on so tightly to my desire to be a mom because I did not want to lose it. I was afraid that if I let go, that he would be more than happy to completely give up on it. I have resented sd heavily because I have felt in my heart that if she was not in the picture that I would be able to have children of my own. It hurt so badly when dh said, "What if sd is the only child that you get? You need to be happy with that!" Being a stepmom (at least in my case) is nothing at all like being a mom. A mom has a say in her child's life, and her children listen to her and respect her, a mom has carried and given birth (or adopted) and has taken care of the child since infancy. The mother and child have developed a strong bond. I have not had the joy of experiencing any of this. In fact, once I was married sd was openly defiant toward me and was always trying to cut in on my giving affection to dh. She was rude to me to the point of going through a phase of hitting me. I know that no parent child relationship is perfect and that kids do defy their own parents and are even jealous of the parent of the opposite sex at times. But, I just can't think of myself as a mother to sd. Even though things are better now and she likes me well enough, even says that she loves me, I just don't feel like a parent. I am not her parent. She looks nothing like me and is going to be a foot taller than me by the time that she is full-grown. I did not give birth to her...in fact the whole reason that she is even in existence is that my HUSBAND had sex with another woman (who he was not married to). There is a sting of hurt since I didn't have sex until after I was married and I probably won't ever get to be a parent simply because I chose that path for myself. He was a lot younger than I am now when he became a parent (my dream, not what he wanted) and I am getting closer and closer every day to not being fertile anymore. It really hurts. What if sd is the only child that I am given? And, really I am not "really" given her because she is not "mine" in any sense of the word: biologically or legally. She's his and I'm in her life by default. Well, if she is the only child that I am given, I guess that I will have to learn to be happy with that. Otherwise, I will be completely miserable. Those are my only two options, accept it and be happy or refuse to accept it and be completely miserable. A baby is the one thing that I want more than anything else in the world. I am afraid of losing it--even though I don't even have it! I am afraid of it never coming to be. I am afraid that it will never happen. I am afraid (for good reason) that dh will never give it to me. I'm afraid of thinking of a life without children of my own. Ever since I was a young child I always imagined what my children would be like and how I would raise them. How disappointing to never have all those years of dreaming come to be. But, I would survive and move on and do other things with my life.

Last weekend was so hard and I am afraid that this weekend will go the same way. Friday has barely begun and I woke up feeling this way! This isn't the way that I want to begin my day or my weekend. Last weekend dh wouldn't even tell me why he was so mad at me. He just acted rude and mean to me. He was flaunting how well he was treating sd while he was treating me like crap. When I started crying and asked him what I did he got really mad at me for not knowing what I did. I had no idea, no idea at all! He wouldn't tell me until I was so incredibly upset. Then he was very mean when he was telling me what I did wrong. He didn't think that I had any right to be upset, even though he was treating me so mean and wouldn't tell me what I did to "deserve" it. I really don't want to go through that again this weekend. I really, really don't. I can't live like that, it hurts too much.

This week went fine, most of the week since we dropped off sd went really well in fact. But I just woke up with this feeling of dread that I can't seem to shake. I don't know if I should talk to him, that might make him mad. I just want reassurance that this weekend won't go like last weekend. I want to know that he will talk to me about anything that might bother him. I want him to treat me with consideration and respect even if he is bothered by something that I do. Last weekend I had not intended to upset him at all and I didn't even know what I did. I will be careful this weekend not to do what I did to upset him last weekend. The whole thing stressed me out so much that I could hardly even look at him last Sunday. It stressed me out so much that is probably why I got sick and was not feeling very well all week.

I wish he would love me and to treat me as well as he would want to be treated or as well as he treats his daughter. If he ever gets upset with her he is always quick to apologize and if *she* ever cries he hugs her and reassures her of his love for her, he never yells at her for crying! He understands how to take care of her emotionally but it seems like he just refuses to to take care of me emotionally. I don't know why. I really want this situation to work out, for us to be like a family and for me not to always feel like I am getting the short end of the stick whenever she is with us.

I believe everything that happens before marriage is a preview of what is to come. If sd is jealous it will be a problem later. If you are there, she will be jealous that you are watching a movie with him, not playing with her, and will try to make him get away from you and spend time w/ her. These are just signs. I think that the man has to set the tone and know that she cannot separate you and that her plans don't work. He has to do that early or they will play games.

My problems with sd didn't show up until dh and I were engaged. When we were just dating, sd loved me and loved hanging around me and always asked when we were going to get married. Then we got engaged and she literally threw a fit every time that I came around. I can remember one time in particular that we were driving to a premarriage counseling session with our minister and sd was SCREAMING her head off while crying because dh was talking to me and he told her that she had to wait to before it was her turn to talk. I begged dh to get her to stop, but all he said was that he couldn't control her. Another time we were out with our two flower girls shopping for flower girl dresses and sd was being a brat and I was irritated by her and said something about it, dh turned around and chewed me out right there in the store. The other flower girl (not sd) turned to me and whispered, "My daddy yells at my mommy like that, too." That was disturbing to me because this flower girl's parents have a marriage that NOBODY wants.

After we got married, everything ended up revolving around sd and what she wanted and what she was feeling and what she said. If she lied to me and then then turned around and told dh that she WASN'T lying, he just told me to quit accusing his daughter of lying because (get this) she doesn't lie! Whenever we were all out together, whether it be a movie, a sporting event, dinner out sd ALWAYS had to sit by dh. So, if we were sitting at a movie or a game, sd was in between us instead of me on one side of dh and sd on the other. If we were out to dinner it was the two of them sitting side by side and me sitting opposited them. ALWAYS. She would never let dh and I walk holding hands, she'd break our hands apart and hold dh's hand...and he would let her get away with it. He'd get mad at me for saying anything, because I was just trying to separate the two of them! Sd was always manipulating things to make me look bad, I don't know how she did it but I never saw it coming and I always looked like the bad guy to dh whenever sd was concocting something. They are FAR craftier than their bioparents ever give them credit for. Plus I believe that bm was behind much of sd's manipulations, telling her how to make me look bad. Even though bm was remarried LONG before I even met dh, she has always used dh as her "back up" and she has this idea about him that even if she doesn't want him at the moment nobody else should have him.

This is how much of my first three years of marriage went...not exactly what I had always dreamed about! I finally had to disengage and it took many months of that to get to the point where things were even STARTING to turn around in our marriage. After I disengaged, it took about two years for things to really improve. If you do the math, I was basically miserable for five years. Things are now just barely at the point where things are what I had hoped for...after five years of misery. Things are by no means perfect now, but they are finally better. When certain things come up, even though sd is no longer jealous of me, I feel like I am still tainted by what happened in the beginning and that at certain times I just don't trust her (sd).

It just seems like NOTHING is EVER easy. NOTHING is ever normal, it's just like EVERYTHING related to being in a stepfamily sucks. It absolutely sucks, and I hate it and am about ready to start resenting this whole thing again. I can't stop crying, why on earth does EVERYTHING have to be so difficult? Can't I enjoy ANY part of my life? Can't I ever just enjoy any new phase of life that comes?

I get married and everything hit the fan as soon as we got back from the honeymoon. Bm started pulling crap, sd was jealous as he** of me and made my life miserable. Dh would not stand up to ANYBODY when it came to me. He was always yelling at me, telling me how great things were before we got married and how I was being a pain in the butt and ruining our family. Then we had to deal with the whole stupid court thing because bm couldn't stand that dh wasn't focusing all his attention on her. GREAT first year of marriage, yeah exactly what I dreamed about growing up. Five years of he** and we were finally getting on our feet as a family and our marriage was finally starting to be enjoyable. So enjoyable in fact that dh decided he actually wanted to have a baby with me. That's got to say something.

Now, we are hitting this new phase, another phase that should be the most joyful time of our life next to getting married. Now everything has it fan again and life sucks again. No sooner than he decides he wants to have a baby with me than everything else in his life starts giving him crap and stressing him out. If we weren't in a stupid, sucky stepfamily things would not be nearly as crappy as they are. But, no we don't have enough money because dh has to pay bm so much in support. Dh doesn't have much time to give me because he has to drive all the time to pick up and drop off sd because bm moved so far away. He's already told me that I will be doing most of the care for the baby because he's not giving up any time with sd and he's going to continue driving all the time to see her. Fine, I take care of babies for a living all by myself. I'm used to taking care of babies without any help. I just want one that's mine. He's working a job that he hates and complains about all the time becuase he says it's the only job in his field that will give him the flexible hours that he needs so he can see sd as much as he does. But this job does not provide health insurance for either him or myself (I am self employed and can't get any insurance that doesn't cost and arm and a leg.) None of this was what I had dreamed about for this phase of my life.

If we had a NORMAL family, we would have none of these issues. He would be able to work a normal job with normal hours and actually get health insurance. We wouldn't be fighting about health insurance so I can have a baby. Obviously we wouldn't have to deal with his child suport payments or bm's crap if this wasn't a blended family. Why...oh, why...did I choose this life for myself??? What was I thinking? I sure wasn't thinking that my life would end up like this, that's for sure. Stepfamilies suck. It's never going to get better. Bm will never be out of our lives, someday sd will have kids (probably before I ever do) and we will have to deal with her then. It will never end, all we have to look forward to is the end of CS. Dh wants sd to come live with us so bad...I bet that if/when that happens the crap will hit the fan then, too. It's never going to end. I think I just need to accept it so I can move on. Sure, there will be good days, but there will also be days like this one aplenty.

My advice for those of you who are not yet married...RUN FOR THE HILLS!! Do yourself a favor.

I went from living with my dad and being a "daddy's girl" to being the stepmother to a "daddy's girl" and believe me it was NOT an easy transition. I went from being spoiled and doted on by my dad to being ignored by my dh when my sd was with us and being expected to spoil and dote on HER even though she was being a total brat to me. She was rude, out-of-control, manipulative and a liar...all behavior that my dad would never have allowed from even though I was spoiled and doted on by him. It was a total shock to me to see this child running the house and my dh (who I had previously thought was so strong and masculine) allowing it all...and expecting me to go along with it. I tried everything that I could think of to change this stepchild of mine. I yelled, screamed, made orders, and even asked nicely. Nothing worked because my dh would not back me up in expecting her to behave like a civilized human being.

I was shocked because when we were dating, he would always discipline her whenever she started to act up. But, after we were married I discovered that he disciplines her only when other people are around and then when those people leave, he apologizes to her for disciplining her. I've seen it happen many times. I was appauled and outraged. I felt like I had been lied to.

I had moved away from my family and friends. I knew nobody here and it sucked. We have sd 9/10 weekends and you can imagine how awful it was having to deal with that every single weekend. On top of that, since we were living in an apartment when we first married we spent all of our waking hours on the weekends at my in-laws, which is where they had lived before we got married. So for them, they were just returning home every weekend and I felt out of place. Sd would go off and play with her neighborhood friends or work the garden with grandma or go walk the dogs with grandpa. Dh would work on the cars because all of his tools were at his parents house still. I had nothing to do but go crazy because dh would get really upset if I even suggested that I didn't spend the days at my in-laws with him and sd. We spent AT LEAST nine hours each weekend day at their home. How I wish that I had personal boundaries back then!

When I was first married bm was being completely rotten. She told dh that if he ever wanted to see sd again that he better get a good lawyer. Lots of time and money later, we were broke both financially and emotionally. It was a TERRIBLE way to spend my first 6 months of marriage. I was insecure to begin with just being in a blended family but then you throw in all the junk that bm was doing and I was about as insecure as a person could get. I needed dh's love and affection desparately...but he had nothing left to give. He was so worn out from the court stuff and bm. Ended up in lots of fighting for us, even though we had already been fighting pretty badly during everything.

Communication is key! But not just communicating how you feel, you need to communicate it in a non-blaming way. It's hard to learn, at least it has been for me. I grew up in an environment where my mother could not take the blame for anything...everything was ALWAYS someone else's fault. Still is, can't say that I ever remember her apologizing in my entire life.

This stepfamily business is incredibly difficult, the most difficult thing that I have ever done. It should not be taken lightly. Stepmoms are often the ones ignored, we are the ones having to fight for our rights, we get forgotten, we are expected to bow at every wish and whim of the children. For those of us who have dealt with guilt-parenting dh's know what I am talking about...it sounds like you know it, too! It can change, your dh can change but it's going to be very difficult.

Dh and I have been married for 5 years. At first he expected me to love sd as my own and he would get upset at me if I didn't say I loved her and give her a kiss goodnight every night. So I faked and I know that sd could feel the forcedness. Then one day sd started calling me "mom" and I was all excited that she was starting to think of me so highly. I told dh, figuring that he would be just as excited as me. He freaked, "She can't do that! That's against the parenting plan! Don't let her do that!" Talk about mixed messages, treat her like a daughter but whatever you do don't let her call you mom! And by the way, the parenting plan states that nobody is to TEACH sd to call a stepparent mom or dad. By the time I found that out, I had gotten sd to stop calling me mom...and she never has since. I don't know what they want from us...it's gotta be on their terms and we have to figure out their terms as we go. One word: DISENGAGE!! Saved my sanity. Another word that saved me: COUNSELING.

Things have been very difficult. I had to make a drastic desicion. I have made the decision to focus on me, things have gotten so much better! I have been focusing on what I need to change, I have been going to therapy, reading books that were suggested by said therapies, I have been letting go of a lot of stuff and not expecting dh to change. I have been looking at the positives around me and letting the negatives go. Learning about how I was taught so many disfunctional and destructive things growing up and teaching myself healthy things in their place.

Somehow, not by my own doing, just by doing the things that I just described my marriage has done a COMPLETE turn-around. I have been feeling in love with dh for at least a couple of weeks now. He's been super sweet to me and when I express myself to him he doesn't get mad at me for being oversensitive or whatever. He says that he's sorry for hurting my feelings. He's been telling me how glad he is that we are together. He's been telling me how beautiful I am. The biggest change is that he has been calling me pet names again!! It still shocks me to hear it from him. He used to call me pet names (sweetie, honey...) when we were dating but I got totally offended after we were married and he was calling sd those same names. He said that he's always called her those pet names and I felt completely NOT special and I told him that I wanted pet names that were used only for me. I told him that I was not his daughter, I was his wife and I did want to be called what he calls his daughter. Well, we had a monumental fight over this and he hasn't called me ANY pet names at all in 5 years. I guess I've grown up because I don't care if he calls me the same pet names as sd, I am just so happy that he is calling me any! I haven't brought up the topic since we fought about it, but I had been wishing that he would start doing that again. And he did it all on his own. And he even calls me pet names that he doesn't use for sd.

So far in our marriage, he has been SO focused on sd and getting sd to stay with us that he has not even been able to think about kids with me. He used to always say, "How can you even think about other kids right now? We have to focus on the one that is here now!" That never made much sense to me...even if we have more kids we can still focus on sd. We won't ignore her just because we have a baby!

But lately, dh has been saying rather glumly, "I don't think that sd is EVER going to stay with us. Bm has her so brainwashed." It's sad...it's really sad because dh has done so much for sd and sd doesn't see it. She still likes coming over here, but all that crap that bm has been filling her with is starting to sink in. Plus it won't be long before sd is going want to be spending her weekends with all her friends and be involved with school activities during the weekends. Bm moved like 75 miles away, so it isn't exactly convenient just to run sd to a soccer practice or whatever. I've been praying that dh's heart would start leaning towards us having a baby...and since I started that's when all this fuss with sd wanting to spend more time at bm's has picked up.

It does get easier with time and that first year is really rough with all the reminders of his past and you want so badly to have a strong marriage bond with him. My dh and I have fought over the picture thing. He has pictures of bm, sd, & him stored in our garage. It makes me sick that those are in our house and I wish I could just burn them all. Then stomp on the ashes. Then put them in a bucket and pile the contents of a full litter box on top of the ashes. That would feel very good! But, unfortunately that is not something that I could do. Dh wants to save them for sd -- why, I can't figure out, bm's not dead and sd has plenty of pictures of bm at bm's house. My parents are divorced and I have their wedding album...and it really doesn't mean anything to me. They are not married now and looking at the album is just plain weird.

I have a hard time with sd's birthdays as well. Although it seems to get easier with time...I just learned that I don't attend any birthday parties for the skids where bm is present!! That feels like a huge slap in the face! Even if it costs extra money, spend the money to give each skid a bday party at your house. It will be worth it! I went to one birthday party that bm attended (married 3.5 years at that point) and that was so difficult on me. The emotional pain that I was in that day would not be done justice with words.

When I got married I felt more like it was them (sd & dh) and me. They already had their bond, they had all their routines, they had all their memories, they already had their whole life. I came into the home (we moved into a new place, nobody was infringing on anybody's territory) and they totally expected that I would just know what all their routines and rules were and just fit neatly into their little world. Shock of all shocks, I had my own ideas, my own ways of doing things, my own ideas of how children should behave (and not run the house), my own routines...and I did not fit into the cookie cutter that they had been expecting. I was made to feel like a bad person because I was different, I was made to feel that my ideas and the way that I do things were not just different, but WRONG.

It all felt so wrong to me. It felt wrong that my HUSBAND's bond was stronger with his daugther than with me, his wife. It felt wrong that I was constantly being made to feel like a bad person for being different. It felt wrong that my husband let his CHILD have more of a say in household matters than I did. It felt wrong that *I*, his wife, was expected to just go along with what the two of them wanted when he never made *her*, his CHILD go along with any plan that dh & I had made. If sd said no, then we didn't do it. If I said no, I got scolded. It felt wrong because it was wrong. When we marry a man with kids, the natural order of things is already screwed up. The natural order is that the husband and wife spend some time together (nature usually gives at least 9 months!) to get to know each other and to bond and forge a strong relationship. Then when the kids come along, the husband and wife are united and both get to start with the same children at the same time and they are able to help and support each other with the children and the children learn to love and respect the husband and wife at the same time and get to bond while they are babies. (Yeah, I know, in a perfect world.) We stepmoms miss out on all that and our marriages are off balance, at least for a little while, because of this because the order has been messed up. We have to work and fight for our bond and relationship with our husbands and we have to work and fight ten times harder for a bond and relationship with our stepkids...if we even want it!

But the good news is that if we do work hard, if we can have outside support, if we can have patience and determination and long-suffering we can get our marriage to be bonded and loving. It's not easy and it's not quick. They say that a normal marriage takes about a year to feel like a family but that it takes stepfamilies FIVE years to feel like a family. I've been married five years and we mostly feel like a family (except that I don't consider sd to be "mine") and it has been a long hard road. I have had to grow up a lot (I was still a child when I married fresh out of college) and learn a lot about myself, my husband, my sd, and stepfamilies in general. I have had to get help to get past my own issues from growing up in a divorced home full of emotional and verbal abuse.

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's there, and I finally believe that I will make it out of this tunnel alive and in love with my husband. I went from being head-over-heals in love with him (when we were dating) to all out resentment and hatred (after dealing with all this stepcrap) in the last five years. We have been working through some issues and things have been steadily starting to improve (with valleys thrown in with the peaks) and now we are back to looking lovingly in each other's eyes and grabbing each other's rears. It's okay to tease each other again. He tells me numerous times every day that I am beautiful.

Yes, I have given up a lot. I've been put through a lot. I have put him through a lot. But, it finally looks like there is a pot of gold at the end of this. I'm sure that I will appreciate our love more than if we hadn't had to go through so much stuff to get here. I didn't think that we would ever get to this point. It's just a start, things aren't totally fixed. But it's a start, it's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's hope where there was none before. It's possible! We can still get what we missed even if we have to wait a while.

Is it possible for them to understand/comprehend/grasp that the fact that we do not feel the same way about THEIR children as they do? I don't think that dh can even fathom the possibility. The way that he talks about her, you'd think the earth revolved around her. I think that if I tried to point out how things would be different with my own child he would go crazy. If I remember correctly I tried to do that earlier in the marriage and he would just get livid! So I stopped.

I think he is warming up to the idea of having kids because if you take an honest look at our marriage over the last year it has improved drastically. Even more since I took the time of reflection. Although he is warming up to the idea of having kids I think that he is scared because he always brings up how he "will never be screwed over again like bm did" to him. Thanks for the vote of confidence! Because HE has been the one to bring up the last few times. I have to point out to him that HE brought it up because he always gets mad once he gets going...

I think that anyone in my shoes would be confused.

Before we got married, we used to always talk about our shared dream of having a family. I never talked specifically about having kids of my own, but assumed that would be the case. I just didn't feel comfortable bringing it up before we got married (why? I have no idea.) Then once we were married I felt free to talk openly about having kids together. I think the first time I brought it up was about the second or third week of marriage. He got all uptight and didn't want to talk about it. My feelings were hurt, I wasn't trying to talk about having kids RIGHT THEN I just wanted to talk about the someday of having kids. But he informed me that having kids is a very serious thing to him and he it wasn't something that he was going to daydream about with me.

I tried brining it up several more times. I always got a different reaction but it was always negative. Plus our life was in major turmoil with bm threatening court and causing all kinds of problems because she was jealous that she was not the only woman in sd's life. Sd and I were also having major problems as well as dh and I having serious problems. I can see in hindsight why it was probably not the best time on earth to bring up the topic. But he could have at least said things were encouraging to me, such as of course we'll have kids but not right now.

Instead the things that he said to me left me feeling like he did not want to have kids with me at all. Sometimes he said that the way that I interacted with sd showed that I was not ready for motherhood. Like I would have had to deal with half the crap I had to deal with sd if I had a biochild! Plus by that time I highly resented sd as the reason that I did not/would not have a child of my own. Dh said that I did not know how to handle children. Even though I work in the field of education and practically every child that I have ever met loves me.

I used to keep a log of all the things that he ever said to me about kids. I had pages and pages of his flip-flop statements, always contradicting himself. At a couple points he even told me that if I ever brought up the topic of kids again he would leave me. I was very resentful of all of this and it came out in every interaction I had with him and and sd because I resented them both so much.

Now he's saying that the only person I have to blame for being childless is myself. He says that we should have already had a 4 year old and a toddler, but because of me and my actions we don't have any and with sd being almost a teenager it is very upsetting to him that there will be such a huge age gap if we were even going to have kids. He says that he really wanted to have kids already and this stuff that I've never even heard before! What is all this about? We've had so many problems in our marriage BECAUSE he has told me over and over that I don't deserve to have kids. Now he says that we don't have kids because of ME? Now he's making it sound like he wants to have kids with me...but only if I kiss his patootie.

When dh and I were going through pre-marriage counseling the counselor asked me point blank, "how many children do you want to have?" I replied, "two of MY OWN." Then the counselor looked at dh and said, "can you do that?" and dh said definitely. Since we have been married he's been all over the board about this one. Shortly after we married he said that he would have never agreed to having 2 kids with me because he already has one. I was livid, to put it mildly. Then later he said he didn't even want to discuss kids that I needed to leave the topic alone. Then he reverted to the old "you're not a good enough mom to MY kid so you can't handle being a mom". Then more recently he told me never to bring up the topic of kids again or he would leave me. Even more recently he told me that *I* was at fault for me not having any kids because I have been such a pain in the but to live with that he could never trust me to have a kid with me. (If you want to know the honest truth, I *have* been very difficult for him to live with because I have resented him for not letting me have kids.) He says that I have nobody to blame but myself.

He has constantly been telling me that he can't risk having kids because he doesn't want to be screwed over again like bm did to him. How nice it would have been to know this information before marrying! I don't know what his real issue is because his reasons for not wanting to have kids with me keep changing.

For me, having kids of my own was a non-negotiable. If he would have told me prior to marriage that he didn't want kids I would have said goodbye. That would have been my choice.

Oh, I forgot to mention where he currently stands on the kids issue (as of last weekend anyway...it could be completely different today!) The lastest thing that he told me about his willingness to have kids with me is this: if I don't bring up the topic and if I kiss his backside then he will probably change his mind.

Ok. *deep breath* Here goes. I am very jealous of the attention that dh pays to sd. Married all this time and I am still jealous of this! I have been denying it so long, blaming other things, but nothing will change until I can get past this. I know in my *head* that it makes no sense to be jealous of the attention that he pays to sd. I know that he needs to express affection to her and that she needs to receive it. I don't know if I am jealous because he's paying attention to her and not me. I don't know if it's because I am jealous that he has a child to give affection to and I don't.

Sunday mornings have traditionally been very difficult for us. Here's the scenario: dh and I get up early to get ready for church. As I am in the bathroom beautifying myself he goes in to wake up sd and help her get up. While I am in the bathroom I am in direct hearing of the two of them. Every single Sunday morning he goes through all this effort to tell her, "I love you so so so much...I am so glad that you are here...You are the best...Did you have a wonderful night's sleep...It's so good to see you this morning...I love you...What can I do for you today......" Usually I end up getting very upset after listening to such a conversation. I am frustrated because he usually barely gives me a gruff greeting in the morning and says that it's time to get up. Sd has been with us since Friday, he's had lots of time with her since then and he gushes over her like he hasn't seen her in years. And she stays with us 9 out of 10 weekends!! Sunday mornings always ends up in a fight. Sometimes Fridays and Saturdays end up in fights, too. But never like they do on Sundays. He's about ready to leave me over these Sunday conflicts.

I hate to admit that I'm jealous, but denying it sure hasn't made anything better. I'm not jealous of *her*, when dh is not around we get along great! I have no problems with her personally, usually I enjoy her company and we have a lot of common interests. But when the three of us are together, I get so jealous!

Being a childless stepmom is the hardest thing that I have ever done. My husband doesn't understand, he is truly stuck in his own pain and fears. He has been very adamant lately about not having kids, he has many excuses but that is all that they are: excuses. He has a couple reasons that I consider to be valid, but he is clinging unrealistically to those and also anything else that he can get his hands on.

He says that if he lets me have a child there would be nothing keeping me from leaving him and messing him over like his ex did. Even though I am not her and he knows that she has serious mental issues that I do not have. He knows that she had those issues long before they ever had a child together. To him having a child is a very negative thing, he sees my dreams as silly girlish fantasies. He says that he is just looking at the world in a realistic standpoint because he has to protect himself. What about the vow to cherish and protect me? Gone with the wind...like all of my other dreams.

Being a childless stepmom entails so many things and it is even more complicated than the complicated issues of a stepmom who has children of her own! Stepmoms as a whole are largely misunderstood by the world that we live in. It is hard for someone who has not walked in our shoes to know how it feels to be treated badly by your husband's kids, his ex and your husband himself. We are pushed into corners, forced to fight for our basic rights such as privacy and sense of belonging. We get married thinking that we will be united with our partner and that he will back us up and expect his kids to treat us with respect. What we get is a load of mistreatment from his kids and his ex and he won't stand up to any of them for us. We are forced to disengage in order to save our sanity. Disengaging makes no logical sense until you have been so badly mistreated and taken advantage of by your "family" that you are backed into a corner and are forced to try disengaging before you kill someone or leave the marriage.

All of that is incredibly difficult and painful. It sends many women screaming from the man that they love. It's more than many of us can take. But when you throw into the mix wanting children so badly and being denied for whatever reason it makes everything so much more complicated and harder for the outsider to understand. Some women marry men who have already had the big "snip" done. Other women marry a man who has been so burned by the ex that they are scared to death to try *that* again (such as is my case). Other women have fertility issues. Other women come into it not wanting children but then decide that they want children with their husband. We all have our own story. Being a childless stepmom is a very painful thing if it was not part of our plan -- and let's be honest here, being a stepmom was in NOBODY'S life plan...much less being a childless stepmom.

It is so incredibly painful from such a deep place in the heart to watch your husband have a relationship with his children while you do not have children of your own and you want them so desparately. Each time they have a birthday it stings because you are reminded of the children that you cannot have birthday parties for. Every Mother's Day is a dreaded and emotional day. Every time that you hear about the ex you are reminded with a painful sting that she shares something very special with your husband that you may never share with him. You feel as though something very big has been stolen from you. Sometimes all that it takes is your stepchild coming for a visit to throw you into a depression. You do everything in your power not to start crying or to go ballistic when people ask when you are going to have children together. That question hurts very deeply.

There is nothing that can make the pain go away. Nobody can give you a magic pill and make everything better. Once we pass childbearing age we will struggle with the loss all over again and everything that we missed: buying baby clothes, first birthday, first steps, first word, getting them ready for their first day of school, being a parent volunteer on their field trips, hosting sleep-overs, helping them get over the first broken heart, helping them get ready for dances, cheering them on at their little leagues and karate classes, graduation, crying when they leave for college, another graduation, first real job, first real place to live on their own, engagement, marriage, and grandchildren. Sure we can share in many of these activities with our husbands children but it just isn't the same. Our stepchildren have a mother already and we know that we are not her. We are quite aware of that and she surely does not let us forget.

We can love our stepchildren, but nothing will ever replace our own biological children in our hearts. I love my stepdaughter and am happy to help her out in any way that I can. I am glad to be a part of her life and I want to be able to give her many great things. But, I am not her mother and I long so deeply for a child of my own. She is an enhancement in my life, but not a replacement for my own children. I doubt my husband will ever understand.