My WH is planning on moving out, and we're both getting lawyers involved at this point .... A D may be very close on the horizon.

We have two children, 10 and almost-14 who are both his from a previous marriage, but who I've raised most of their lives. I don't have any custody rights to them in this state.

Is there anyone here who has maintained a relationship -- particularly a parenting relationship -- with step-children after a divorce?

I love my kids with all my heart. The fact that I didn't give birth to them doesn't make them any less mine. So I'd really, really like to hear any stories of people who were able to maintain that contact and relationship with a step child after a D.

Thanks.

-AmI.

Ami,

I've been following your most recent threads. From my side of the screen you seem like such a smart, giving, loving person; I can't imagine why any man would do this to you.

I have never been in you situation--my H is a sweetheart. But my mother's baby brother could have been your husband. In fact the situations are eerily similar--that is my attraction to reading your threads.

My uncle was a police officer who worked the night shift. He was a smart, funny man and attracted lots of OW over the years. Being a police officer and good friend of the courts, he had no trouble getting his kids away from his alcoholic wife when they divorced. He remarried a 'perfect' mother for his kids and in no time was running around on her.

Years passed and all his philandering caused marriage problems but the wife loved the kids and stayed with him because she knew she had no claim to the kids. He came and went as he pleased, sometimes not returning home for days on end.

I remember her calling my mother in tears and my mother calling my uncle to the house to try to talk some sense into him.

One morning his wife, wondering why he was sleeping so long, went to check on him and found him dead in his lazy boy chair. He died of a brain aneurism.

The step mother ended up getting custody of the children. Their bio-mother was too sick to care for or about them; and the kids petitioned the court, with the help and support of blood relatives, to stay with their stepmother.

All should have ended well but another woman who had a very young biological child with my uncle and was receiving child child support payments tried to sue the wife for a lot of money for what she thought should be her child's share of the house etc. She didn't get any money but caused a lot of hardship and legal bills for the stepmom.

My stepdaugher is now 21. She was 3 when I met her father and we had pretty close to joint custody. We had my son when she was 13 (who is now 7). My son assures everyone knows she is also my child. I, like you, love her just as much as I do my son. In retrospect my husband is the one who kept asking for the divorce and acting that way, but it was me who finally broke down and said, well, he just doesn't want me anymore, and filed for divorce. I sat with my stepdaughter and told her how much I loved her and how there will always be a place in my heart and home for her. But I chose not to even begin to fight for custody because she was already in a complicated schedule with her parents. I did invite her to be welcomed into my home anytime. She remains distant with me. She is angry for the hurt she blames me for when she watched her Dad go through the divorce. After all, I was causing the tears, and she sort of replaced me in my absence wiping them from his face. I continue to try. But we reached a point where it is really her decision if she chooses to continue a relationship with me and not mine. I wish it all was different and I had something more positive to share. Just try not to file too quickly. Be sure you do a trial separation before making things permanent to be sure it truly is the only option to divorce.

Hi, Pieta.

I suppose it would be awful for me to wish a brain anneurism on my WH .... sure might make things easier. I've been wondering recently if it's a law enforcement thing .... tripping on the power or something .... it's sad that so many law enforcement marriages end this way. I've seen some really sobering statistics recently.

SFD --

Thank you for your input, although it makes me really sad! I don'thave any living biological children with my WH, so no siblings to keep me connected to the step children. I can really imagine my DD doing what you said yours did ... stepping in to take care of daddy ... she already does that so much. I hope that she doesn't get too bogged down with that and can enjoy being a kid.

Thanks for the input -- I'm really sorry about how it's turning out for you. That's my biggest fear!

-AmI.