u/f-difIknow

LONG emotional rant.

Let me just begin by saying my step kids have been through it. Biomom is alcoholic, bipolar, narcissist (no, really) and physically and mentally abusive. So much so that my husband has 100% physical custody.

It took biomom 3 years after a court order to set up group therapy to see her kids because she said she shouldn't have to and we just needed to let her have the kids. Now we are allowing her to have 2 sessions of 1hr professionally supervised visits and 1 group therapy session a month.

Mom terrorized us. Mom beat the kids, kicked down doors. Mom abandoned the kids at my house an hour from their home before I was ever introduced to the kids because she put a GPS tracking device on my now-husband's truck and realized that he had begun seeing someone after she filed for divorce. She denied access to the kids. She refused to accept them during her time. It was so bad somewhere along the way I developed an autoimmune condition. The cherry on top is how quickly the kids forget and pretend she never did anything.

My stepdaughter is delayed. Sweet as pie but it has been extraordinarily challenging to get her behaviorally stable. Mom insisted sd was completely dependent and incapable. I think she wanted to feel like a marter. Well, sd is delayed but not like that. We have been breaking through terroristic meltdowns for years. Things like hours of screaming because she won't put lotion on her itchy butt cheek because someone should do it for her because she "can't do it". The learned helplessness is receding now. She is working really hard to do well in school. I feel guilty for that too because I insist that trying her best is how she will get praise and approval from me and she so desperately wants that. It feels manipulative but I see no better way.

Her brother is a teen and boy oh boy he is struggling. He reminds me so much of his mom. It feels like he lives and breathes entitlement. After he started seeing his mom in group therapy, he decided he liked what mom had to say- he didnt need to listen to me or respect me. He doesnt need to listen to his dad. Curfew is now optional to him. He went through my drawers, stole things from my underwear drawer (not underwear). I watch him call his mom and manipulate her for clothes and money. He stares into your eyes and lies. His dad always wants to believe him but 9/10 he is lying. Refuses to go to personal therapy. He just.... walks the hell away. His dad got him into a new therapy place but it remains to be seen if he will go. I'm just... so over it. Yes. He has had a really shitty mom. But Jesus christ, I sold my house that I had half paid off, moved to a more expensive area with a much higher interest rate so these kids could live close to their grandmother's and the people they cared about. I moved because his mom was randomly refusing them and we had to get them to school even though I had lived an hour away and we both work starting at 6 am. I was childfree. Now I feel like a prisoner in the home of a brat with zero human decency. He can't even form a sentence to his dad without being a shithead. The kid pisses on the toilet seat because he can't be bothered to lift it.

Dad is at his wits end since I went NACHO with my stepson. He doesn't know how to curb him and I was taking all the fights before. Now he is the punching bag but don't worry, to stepson, any rules are my fault.

I want to kick him out. If he wants to be a people user, he can live with his mom. I am so tired. I am so beat up. I've never had enthusiasm for kids. I take care of my stepdaughter because she deserves the chance to see functional mother daughter relationships. To be taught how we treat those around us and how we should expect to be treated. But do I love it? No. I feel like a failure of a step parent. I don't enjoy caring for my stepdaughter and I actively dislike my stepson. He isnt a biological attachment. He is only a burden with a bad attitude whom I can't even trust in BASIC things. Like not starting a fire inside my house or not putting orbeez in my drains. I am so freaking tired.

That's all. Just shouting into the void.