My story

I married my husband ten years ago and started helping raise my two stepkids. They are now 15 and 13 and we have two little girls together that are 6 and 5. During these ten years of marriage, it has not been easy. Not only was there the stress of getting used to being a new wife and starting my family but also taking care of my stepkids. Then there is dealing with the ex-wife. That has not been easy at all.

Most couples live in their own homes so that they can get away from the ex but when you have to deal with an ex that would not work and was homeless, you feel like you have to do whatever it takes to make sure that the kids are taken care of so there was a period of about seven years where she lived with us off and on because she would not work and she had custody of the kids (on paper) and would take off with the kids anytime that she didn't get her way. We wanted them to be stable.

After a few years we took her to court and was awarded custody because she didn't have a stable place to live. We told the judge that she was not an unfit mother but that she just was not in a position at that time to take care of them and it would be easier for her to get on her feet if it were just her and this way the kids were with us and taken care of. It was put in the custody papers that she was to have visitation every other weekend but she didn't see them. She would only be there for them if she was living with us. Not only was she sponging off of us but she was trying to come in between my husband and I. She was doing everything that she could to start fights with him and I. She would tell me that he was still her husband and that she was the first wife and would always come first.

Fast forward to present day. She is living in her own apartment, not working, living off of benefits that she is getting claiming my stepdaughter. My husband let her move in with her mother a couple of years ago and after a few months she called us to come get stepdaughter because she could not control her. She lived with us for about a year and she never gave us many problems. She would pitch the occasional fit and one night she told us that she wanted to be with her mother. My husband told her to call her mother and that she had an hour to get here to get her and if she did then stepdaughter could move with her but if not then she was going to shut up and quit pitching these fits. She called her mother and her mother told her that she could not come get her.

There have been so many times where stepdaughter would disrespect me and my husband and when we get on to her, she calls her mother and her mother calls me and threatens to come to my house and jump me because I got on to her daughter. I tell her everytime to bring it on and she never shows up and then calls a few days later telling me that I don't need to be telling her daughter what to do. I don't remember her being there at the parent/teacher conferences with me while I was there for "her" daughter being nine months pregnant. I don't remember her being in the bleachers at my stepson's football games or stepdaughters games where she was cheering and helping pay for any of it while I was there having contractions in the stands. I was the one that was there doing all of it while her mother was putting her boyfriends first.

Well, she is back with her mother. She came up this weekend wanting her daddy to help her make a guitar for a school project. He spent all day helping her make it and even bought the materials to make it. He even took her shopping. Then she starts screaming at her daddy that night telling him that she wished he would die and that the only one that cares about her is her mother. The same mother that was never there for her. She started telling him that he doesn't love her and that she only has one parent and that he never does anything for her. I told her that he does love her and that he was the one not only putting a roof over her head all of these years but putting a roof over her mother's head too because she would not work. She started yelling at me telling me that I better not talk about her mother like that.

Then later she posted on Myspace calling her father names and telling everyone that all that she wants is a father that loves her. I commented on there that he does love her but that he doesn't know how to have a relationship with her. Then she commented back to me telling me that I need to keep my mouth out of it and that it doesn't concern me. I told her that I was not going to stand by and let her disrespect her daddy like after how he has catered to her this weekend. her grandmother took her back to her mother's house today and I am expecting a phone call from her mother telling me the usual about that I don't need to be talking to her daughter like that and that she is going to come jump me. We will see what these next few days hold.

I will update this blog as often as I can with issues that a normal second wife goes through in the hopes that it will help show other second wives that they are not alone. There will never be names but will be details of events. Thanks for listening.