Well, perhaps you should be more discriminating. I would look for sites similar to the below, but that also have a discussion forum/moderation attached to it.
https://blendedfamilyadvice.com/blended-family-advice-on-coping-with-a-toxic-bio-mom/
Now that we get kids on some Thursday/Friday’s, i.e., schooldays, there’s a lot less drama over whether or not bio-mom is gonna try to move them away again, because, well - she can’t. Now I just pretend she doesn’t exist and that’s kind of working for me.
Related - I don’t know when it happened, but at some point the kids started refering to Mom as “their mom” when talking to Dad - like he doesn’t know her or something.
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Yeah, as I slowly process what’s happened… this is more like a toxic person saw an opportunity to f*** with me for sport and jumped at the chance.
In hindsight it could have been a LOT worse, but it’s still painful. I probably did have an angel on my shoulder who helped me see the truth about this person before it got too out of hand. But … couldn’t the angel on my shoulder have revealed the truth from the get go???
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but it also maybe shows the respect you’ve earned as someone who must do some maternal things
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Yeah, someone said something today that really helps. I’m starting to feel better.
I was duped by a lying liar who lies. Lost some hours from my life and a couple dollars (fortunately not too many) and have some hurt feelings, but it will pass. In hindsight, I sidestepped a land mine and got hit by some shrapnel resulting in some relatively minor flesh wounds. It could have been SO much worse.
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You are playing the long game. You are accumulating so many losses during these years so that the step-kids will have good outcomes. Your sacrifice may go unappreciated by them for a long time. But you and your husband know.
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I hope things improve for you in the very near future. 
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one of my favorite tunes
Sunday night I couldn’t sleep so I went on Hulu and at the top of the app there was a movie called “Girl in a Basement” or something close to that. So I stupidly decided that would be good to start instead of going to bed.
It’s a horrific movie based on a horrific true story, and I couldn’t sleep afterward. So of course I have to look up the actual story, only to find out that it was worse than the movie. Anyway, it was a depressing movie and I probably shouldn’t have watched it.
Summary
It’s about a father who traps her daughter in his basement, raping her and making her give birth to multiple children. She was trapped for 20 years. I just can’t believe that one person can do that to another (well, I can believe it, but I wish it weren’t true).
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(not gonna read the description)
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My grandmother fell last week and broke her wrist and pelvis, fortunately does not need surgery but will be in an assisted living facility for the next several months while she rehabs. I visited her tonight, and she was telling me about the other guests she had met so far (she is the lone extrovert in our family and can make friends with a brick wall).
The guy across the hall was in a motorcycle accident and is paralyzed from the chest down. He has been in the facility since 2019 and will probably never leave. He has no family alive, his friends stopped visiting him because they are all into motorcycling and can’t be around him anymore, he is totally alone except for the other patients.
I can’t imagine. Visit your loved ones when they are old or in pain, no one deserves to live and die like that.
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I spent many weekend days driving the hour and back to visit my grandparents in their final years in assisted living and then the nursing home. That’s time and money i don’t ever regret spending with them.
It felt like a chore at the time. I had small kids and things to get done, so it just delayed those things. I probably spent many x more time with them then my cousins did, even though i was 4x as far away.
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Time with loved ones is never a waste. Really that’s what life is all about.
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.
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A good friend’s young adult daughter was killed in a car wreck late Saturday. We knew this girl since she was 3, great kid. Had just graduated and was looking for her first teaching job.
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That’s terrible. Condolences all around.
That is truly heartbreaking.
Thanks for the condolences, folks.Their employer is having a memorial tonight.
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I wish I could call my mom.
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