the begining

I am sure that when you meet Mr. Right you dont expect him to have 2 boys and an over bearing mother. And once you fall in love with him there isn't much you can do after that.
I met my husband 10 years ago at work ( yes BIG no no). He was married to another woman when we met as well. He left that woman and then started our relationship.
He is 10 years older than I am and he has 2 boys from a previous marriage. I have 2 children as well 1 boy and 1 girl. At present his boys are 26 and as of April 30th the other will be 22. My children are 16 year old boy and 12 year old girl.
The 26 year old has some learning and social delays and a year and a half ago his girlfriend lost a baby boy due to neglect but was ruled accidental. The 22 year old and his girl friend 19 have a beautiful baby girl 8 months old.
Up to this point our lives haven't been smooth and easy going as I presumed it would be. Being a step-parent isn't an easy thing to be by any means. I honestly thought it would be hard but I never dreamt that it would be like this.
The boys have a mother who has bi-polar disorder. She also has the inablity to let my husband go. So up until a year ago 2 o'clock in the morning visits or phone calls were not unheard of. It has always been over revisiting the past or something the boys had done or hadn't done, or something made up I may have done. Either way a year ago.........we finally got a restraining order. That has been my saving grace. I have never had so much peace of mind in my life. I call this woman the hand that rocks the cradle lady. I am sure that some day I am going to wake up with her standing over me. It has been hard on the boys because she uses them against my husband who had never even now said one bad word about her to them. They are grown as far as I am concerned. But because of these circumstances I find myself here......
The youngest boy is staying with us on our couch because we only have three bedrooms and at present counting the girlfriend and baby we have 7 people living here. Yes I said 7! Its over crowded and my kids hate that we always have to bail out these boys because they never learned to job hunt or even bother to get an education( not that I didn't attempt to help them with that).
My husband feels guilty for the lives these boys had but he is part of the problem in the first place. He just gave them whatever and never made them accountable for their actions not taught them how to be men. So now here we are April 9th 2010 and the youngest boy has a job through the temp agency ( which is a start) he has to work for Im not sure how long til they can qualify for low-income housing. Support enforcment is looking to locate him and where he works because I have the sinking susprision that the girlfriend isn't claiming they live together.

On the other hand I have a 16 year old boy who just got his license and is in the last quarter of his sophmore year in high school and is looking for a way to pay for his own car insurance. The 12 year old daughter is the spitting image of me and fights me every step of the way but they both are good kids stay out of trouble and are on the honor roll.
I am writting this blog in hopes this might help someone else that has step children as well as their own get through the madness.