Topic : 11/22 "Yours, Mine & Ours"

I hope this message will set the record strait.  It is true that i am very close to my daughter and my son.  My children are every thing to me......but so is the marriage i have with my wife.  I would do anything for them.  What you do not know is that i was close to my children before my divorce from my first wife.  What you also do not know is that i lost two children from my first marriage, one child at 4 months and then another at 1 month of age.  Could this be a reason for my close relationship with my children or why i try to protect them,.......it might have some thing to do with it.   So for all the messages posted that carried a perverted slant to them.....i suggest you get the facts before assumptions are made. My interaction with my children has not changed from the first marriage to the next.  It seems that my wife sees my relationship with my kids as me favoring them over her own......and that is not true.  It is true that her children have not bonded with me as of yet so it may look to my wife that i am favoring my own.  But i must be honest, i some times feel the same way towards my wife and the way she babies her son........she would probably say that it does not happen, but it does.  I believe that it is only human nature to try and protect your children, and try to make each day a happy one for them. I have a great wife and some great kids, but I do agree that my family needs some work........but don't we all.  Good luck to those who stick with it. 

Mark 

I am in the same situation as the woman who feels like the "other woman".  I am going thru my 2nd divorce and had had it with men when I had run into an old "friend" from 20 years ago and he pursued me and we hit it off and are now engaged.   I have 5 children (son age 16 and 4 girls - 13, 11, 8 and 4) from 2 previous marriages and he has one daughter who is 12.  She has done everything she can to come between us.  She was living with her dad when we first got together and moved back with her mom after she found out her mom was having a baby - who is not married and not even with the guy....anyway, their marriage wasn't much of one to begin with and they were just divorced a year ago.  Instead of fiance doing the things with his wife like he should have he did them with his daughter instead. 

Now that we are together she gets jealous and comes around to hug her dad or kiss him to make me jealous.  If we are hugging or something she will come around to get her share - one incident she came in and we were hugging b/c one of us had just gotten home and she got pissed and said "I LOVE YOU TOO DAD!"  She calls her mom in the middle of the night when she is here on the weekends she is here and even on Wednesday nights for her to come and get her.  I think it is because she is used to sleeping with them and doesn't like to sleep by herself or without her mom or dad.  I keep telling fiance not to allow her to call or leave and he does everytime.  I have had panic attacks when she is here and have to leave because of the stress and he ends up leaving taking her to his moms and has her stay there or whatever. 

She likes to dress trashy and is proud to look like a "slut" and talks about wanting to be one.  She was always undressing in front of him and lifts her shirt up to show him her bra - she hasn't yet started to develop but still inappropriate.  She talks about her "boobs" to him all the time.  She walks in on him in the bathroom and shower - glass shower doors, and walks in on us all the time when we are in the bedroom. 

When she is here she talks bad about me and gets my oldest daughter against me and do the things she knows I don't like or aprrove of.  As soon as she leaves to go back home my daughter is her old self.  My other kids don't like her because of her attitude but especially the way she has treated me.  She has really hurt my 11 year old by the way she has treated me and talked to me and about me. 

She was supposed to walk home with my daughter from school and would never show up and go somewhere else and no one would know where she was.  But there was no discipline and she just kept doing it.  She now doesn't come here - she has everyone running all over the place to pick her up whereever she is.  She hasn't been here for a few weeks - mostly b/c her mom had her baby and now she is really treating her dad bad.  She was talking bad behind his back too and being rude to him to his face.  She can't keep friends.  She lies constantly and has been stealing (stole cash and checks from my daughter- which she gave her back the checks but not the cash) and finace doesn't even confront her about any of it.  When he does confront her about anything she lies to him and he lets it go.  They had taken one of my credit cards and used it for a dating site on the internet and they were both confronted about it and I still don't know what happened for sure but he ended up taking his daugher for "a ride" and talked to her about it and got the "facts" from her and then it was dropped.  My daughter was saying one thing and his daughter said she didn't even know anything about it and didn't want to talk about it - she just kept doing her homework. 

My finace has told me he wants me to help and he wants his daughter to be able to come to me for anything.  I can talk to my kids about anything and his ex has never been able to talk about "delicate" issues with their daughter.  She had no idea what puberty even was.  He wants the help but he just doesn't seem to get it.  He knows about this show and I told him about it and that that is exactly like our situation and he didn't see it as that way.  I told him it is and that I have told him that since we first got together. 

My kids love him to death and don't give him problems - sure they are kids and they act up but not to this extent.  My kids have not had much of a dad - even with their step-dad, and they like the way he wants to be with them and do for them.  But he does "discipline" them and makes them go by rules.  But it doesn't ever apply to his daugher.  He tells me he doesn't want to because she isn't here that much....One of my daughters (11 year old) doesn't live with me right now either and I see her a lot less than he does his daughter but she still has rules... 

He also sneaks off almost every night to go call her and talk to her.  I don't like the sneaking around and I have brought it up.  He hasn't talked to her much the past week or two since the baby was born - she gets pissed at him for something and hangs up on him all the time. 

I wish I knew what to do.  We are wanting to move out of town and he thinks it would help with some of the problems but to me he is just running from them and not wanting to deal with her and have to treat her like the daughter/child that she is.  She is very childish too and acts like a 2 year old--when she doesn't get her way or get what she wants she cries and blames me and then she will call her mom crying to her.  Which she sneaks off to do that too.  Especially at night when she goes home in the middle of the night - shw will sneak the phone and call her mom then come in all ready to go and just tell her dad she is leaving and make some stupid excuse.  I think a lot of it is for attention.  And she is getting it thats for sure.  She is very conniving and manipulative and fiance says he just can't believe she would do things.... 

HELP!!  I could go on and on and on... 

I was reading through alot of the posts and am floored that this many families have this kind of a problem to this much of an extreme! 

My two daughters are good friends four kids from the same family.  Dad has five kids from the first marriage, four of which live full time with him and his second wife (he's 36, she's 26).  They have one child together.  Fact is, I don't know what their secret is (they should write a book!), but these kids ADORE their stepmom.  All of the kids are well adjusted, happy, respectful, and well behaved.  Stepmom (they don't even consider her to be anything other than their secondary mom, and the kids still see their bio mom all the time) has been in their lives since they were very young.  Both parents are strict but balance that with alot of love and understanding.  I think these people should have been on the show to demonstrate the right way to make this work.   I think partly why this works so well for them is that bio and step moms are friends.  Bio mom has said many times that as far as she's concerned stepmom is mom to them because she does an excellent job.  She says this in front of the kids, showing support for stepmom.   

I think it's great that these people have made this situation work so well.  It's not easy to get along with your ex.  But it's best for the kids when the parents put their differences aside and show a united front in raising the children.  It's a shame that more people aren't able to do this! 

 I couldn't of said it better myself.  You hit the nail on the head in All the areas. What is is with girls and their dad's?  What is it with dad's and their daughters.  It would creep me out when my husband would let his daughter put and leave her hand in his front pocket of his jeans.  Of course I was the one with my mind in the gutter.  He definitely does have a ego problem.  How sick is that to ruin your daughter and marriage because it.  He is not teaching her about male female married adult relationships.  I hope they have a updated too.