IMO, your father is playing both of you like a fiddle. As long as each of you are complaining about the other one, all focus is off of him. Brilliant! Golddust.. I agree. I've started replying 3 times and deleted all of them. I think there's more to the story & doubt it's just the girlfriend. Reading her letter, she probably thinks she's helping her man. Danielle, the best advice I can give you is to try to understand where she is coming from; but don't let her walk all over you. This is a very touchy situation; you know what your dad was like when you were growing up & she came into the picture after he was out of his "unhappy" marriage. While he's probably told her his side; she's never going to know what really happened because she wasn't there and IMO.. she needs to respect your feelings & how hurt you were by him but try to respect her for trying to be there for your dad now. I have issues with my step son. He likes to go back to his father & say that I said this or I said that. When my hubby fell off of his truck I sent him an email because he stopped speaking to my hub & wouldn't you know it, he twisted my email around trying to start a fight between my hub & I. Thankfully my hub knew about the email before I sent it; it was a rude awakening to my hub of just what his son would do to get me out of the picture. This is all in SS's head, not mine because I can be grown up about it & smile like nothing ever happened but he can't. The best advice I can give you is to try to have a relationship with your dad without the GF around every time. You still need father/daughter time. I encourage hub to call his son or go golfing with him because even though we can't see eye to eye, it's still his son. My hub does not talk about me when they are together & if the kid starts, he says it's between you 2 and not me. SS's mother was an alcoholic - probably why he hates me so much because we have the life he never had growing up & his father has been raising my 2 kids for the last 10 years.. so he's bitter; but he's also an adult man in his 30's & a divorced father. I don't feel that the GF was trying to place "blame" on any of the kids for the marriage/drinking problems, I read it as her just stating why he was drinking. My dad stayed in a bad marriage because "It was cheaper to keep her" & we kids suffered with the fighting. Dad was not around most times, he chose to work as much as he could.

serenity, the reason they try to dig up old posts of mine is to justify their own wrongdoings in regards to chidlren/stepchildren(kind of like "your SO is this or that so it is OK for me to do XYZ", but one has nothing to do with the other). I expressed my opinion in one of the threads that when divorced parents (and stepparents are often behind that or at least involved in that) enter power struggle with each other dragging each other to courts etc, they subject their minor children/stepchildren to uneccessary drama and suffering. iamommy and others didn't like it (I guess it hit the nerve) so they had to find excuses for their and their spouses behavior by pointing out that I had these or those irrelevant problems some time ago. lol It is childish. People feel defensive and cannot think of anything more than come up with irrelevant stuff. It is like once imamommy gave me a lecture why my exhusband does this or that. LOL i have been divorced for 17 years and what my exhusband does or doesn't do is not in my control, like I care or like I can divorce him one more time LOL I think the reason some stepparents feel so defensive is because they know I am right. One of the major reason of their stepchildren being that dificult or being so emotionally disturbed is because of a power struggle between parents/soemtimes stepparents (both parents, not just BMs). They know I am right, but they don't want to admit it so they dig up some stuff out. My life is not conflict free or perfect of course not. But i raised a well adjusted succesful adult (raised by divorced parents) and I can offer some pointers how to raise children with less drama. Did I ever feel like throwing something at my X's head yes, but did I? No. Not worth traumatize my child. People want drama and power struggle, then they deal with consequences. When I offer my opinion instead of paying attention to someone who did pretty succesful parenting/coparenting, people get defensive . By the way imamommy said i was a single parent. No I never was. That's incorrect. majority of our divorced time we lived close by and we had 60/40 split. Then later on when we moved further away from each other, our arrangement was 70/30. It did involve travelling and effort but we co-parented so it worked. Now when DD is in college there is no custody of course but her time off is split about 60/40 (60 wiht dad, 40 with me, she lives closer to dad now). So i can offer pointers on dealing wiht exes wihtout drama. But people are welcome not to listen and be defensive. Do i care? no. I do care though about those children... As about relationship with SO's grown children, it is nice and of course it improved (I do not even have much to post about it because there are no current issues). As about my relationship with him, I do not know where it goes, I like to take things slow, having a man is not my life priority. It's never been and as i am getting older it is even less so.

Thank you, everybody, for your comments. It's nice to know that I'm not the one who is nuts. Sweeby, what you said about DH and how he sees his role is absolutely true. He is the "provider." He comes from a very modest background, and has the best work ethic and drive of anyone I know. He is a very good father and a great husband. While he is out of town during the week, the weekends are spent exclusively with the family. However, he does this kind of thing that just drives me crazy, and it's the only thing we ever argue about. It truly makes me doubt his judgment as a parent. His sister thinks, because he can be stoic and reserved, that maybe he is attempting to forge a stronger father/son bond, and sees buying a car as a way to do that. Or that son is unhappy, and this is his way to try and make son happy. Dana - you're right - DHs don't know how to bond with wayward sons without buying them big ticket items. The home contract that SS had to agree to before we allowed him to come home explicitly states that he understands that he "will be required to EARN an element of responsibility and trust before he will be allowed to go outside the home, school or pre-approved functions." That probationary period is 4 weeks, and is up next week. Maybe he has earned enough trust to be outside the home for limited periods. His curfew is still pretty early, it will slide up to no later than 9:00 pm on weekdays and 11:00 pm on weekends over a three week period - although I guarantee you we will get some arguments on such an early curfew, and I'll let you all know when that happens. But I don't think he has earned enough trust to take a loan from us to buy a newer car, not after the debacle of the Jeep, and especially since the Jeep will work just fine for his needs for the next several months. I love my SS, and I want him to be happy. I'm glad he decided to come back home to our house. It does seem like DH is allowing son to pick and choose from the contract (doesn't want to attend AA meetings, DH did let son go fishing with some friends last weekend for 3 hours, and there was an incident where I thought son was getting a ride straight to work, but turns out his ride to work had to stop at home, and they ended up hanging out there until work, for 2 hours, with no parents at home, and it's someone he used to get high with. DH willingly accepted his explanation that it was out of the way for friend to bring him to our house, and he was doing homework there, not drugs. One of my friends said I need to let this one go - it's a car, and it's between DH and his son, and I won't "win" this one. I don't want to "win" anything - I simply want DH to realize that this is all wrong, and that he's doing more harm to son in the long run than being helpful right now. Another friend, and fellow barn mom, told me, "Screw it. Let them do what they want. Go buy DD14 the jumper of her dreams." I'm tempted, except the jumper of her dreams has a $200,000 price tag.

Thank you everyone I know I am being a bit sensitive and probably a bit insecure and worrying when I should be grateful. Our living situation makes me insecure. I blame my mother lol it's something I deal with in therapy but I still have made any headway on it. I have lived the 'with money' life with my ex and even when I say, id rather have love than money any day, since I've had both, I still wish I owned my own home, in a neighborhood full of kid with my own flowerbed to dig in and my own walls to paint. It's a goal. We are close but it's been a long two years. Mostly because I have legal fees out the you know what... And I married a man that never planned to marry or have a family and so he never planned for the future. At our ages we are just starting and we have two kids to raise... One is half way out the door ... My son will be settled and in a home in a neighborhood before he starts school and he probably won't remember that if it weren't for hand me down clothes, he might have not have been dressed the last two years. Thank goodness for our blessings because we have always been able to pay the bills, afford extras for the kids and cover the little things that come up in life. I come from a home where we never moved. My mom still lives in the home she bought 42 years ago when she married my biodad. Our lives were always very settled and we all went to the same schools, had the same teachers etc. Grew up with the same neighbors and friends. Dd has moved 3 times in her life, has been to 2 schools and I'm just feeling guilty that we aren't as settled as we should be. I know people move all the time but for someone that came from such a settled background, it's hard to justify to myself my unsettled feelings. I know my Dd doesn't care, I'm sure she doesn't. She is too worried about what books she is going to read and what performance she will do at the talent show. With that said, she hears a lot from her dad about how crappy we live. I know he and sm are just trying to upset me and maybe even make her think the grass is greener over there. I would not say I am jealous of them at all but I feel insecure that he COULD provide a more stable environment for Dd as far as a home goes. Nothing more. I provide fine for her mentally, emotionally, financially. He has made comments that with the amount of support he pays we should be living in a better area. Couldn't be further from the truth but I internalize it and I worry that as Dd gets older, she is going to buy in to what he says to her. And she won't want to be with me anymore. It's just a fear I'm sure there is no basis for it but it is my feelings and I can't do anything but accept the way things are and move on. Thanks again for letting me vent here and giving me great advice. I really appreciate it!!!