I married the love of my life in 2008.  I met him back in 2004 when I was 24 and he was 29 (going on 29.95).  But he had a much more complicated history than I did.  I was an honor student, graduated college early and was phi beta kappa.  He was accepted to college (and extremely bright) but due to abandonment by his mother at 18 and a stepfather who couldn't handle keeping him as family when his mom had left them all, he was unable to attend the college he was accepted to attend.  From there he got into technology and was successful.  He also enjoyed some pot and the crowd around that.  He met a girl, she got pregnant and he found himself with a baby and baby mamma.

The first time I met my husband's daughter and her mother, I hit it off right away on both counts.   Baby mamma (BM) had hated my husband's previous girlfriend and by the time I met BM she was remarried and had a one year old with her new husband.  My stepdaugther had some adjusting to having another woman in her daddy's life and did challenge me along the way, but we always loved each other and still do.

That was 9 years ago and water long under the bridge.  This blog is my way to express my feelings regarding feeling like the outsider amongst the parents.  Parents who once tolerated and even liked each other to a degree.  The thing is the other side messed up and messed up bad.  We followed their when we didn't act on the opportunity to  gain custody of our daughter due to their mistake (we thought the trauma to BM and our daughter would be too great but sadly hindsight is 20/20).

By the time they tried to relocate in 2012, their mistake was far removed and not enough for us to win.  We blocked their move and tried to get custody.  Since then, the parenting of our daughter has been highly contenious.  As the parent who was the last to join the party, I am relegated to the big outside.  Here is my story of being a party of 1 when there really should be a party of 4.