by Lara Lawrence

Created on: December 08, 2008   Last Updated: March 09, 2009

We have six children. Ten years ago, that would have scared me to death. Now, it doesn't even phase me. We are the typical "his, mine, and ours" family. When my husband and I married, we each had two daughters from our first marriages. Together, we made two beautiful boys. So we have four girls and two boys. Here is our story....

In the beginning, we just had four girls. The oldest two were from my first marriage and the younger two, who live with their mother, were from my husband's first marriage. When we married, the oldest was seven and the youngest nineteen months. One of the biggest conflicts was between the oldest of each pair of girls. The oldest child most always takes charge and is very bossy. The problem was, when all four girls were together, there was only one "oldest" child. The two of them butted heads more times than I can count.

Starting a new life together can be very challenging; marriage takes a lot of work. Add to that four headstrong girls who each want their parent's total attention, and our other big conflict becomes evident. At first, my girls did not really care much about having the attention of my husband, their stepfather, until his girls came to visit. Then they would try to be the center of his attention as long as the other girls were around. His girls would notice any extra attention given to my girls and respond with aggressiveness. At such a young age, they didn't really know how to express their feelings and would misbehave instead.

In addition to the sibling rivalry that was happening, my husband and I did not have very good relationships with our ex-spouses. We kept that from the girls as much as possible, however, my two girls got an earful every time they visited with their biological father. He would talk badly about me and my husband and tell the girls they didn't have to listen to anything that their stepdad told them. The girls really struggled emotionally with this. They desperately needed a stable father figure, but found themselves caught in the middle.

My husband and my daughters had a hard time getting along for the first year of our marriage. It seemed that my ex-spouse's goal was to make our lives miserable, break us up, while turning the girls against us. It could have worked if my relationship with my husband had not been strong. He was patient with all of us, and we were both very committed to making it work.

Eventually, we took my ex-husband to court because of the emotional abuse that my girls had to endure

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