I am quite sure you get a lot of "I should have listened to you" emails, but here is another one.  I divorced my daughter's dad and five years later, I remarried. Every day prior to the wedding, I would wait in the car line at my daughter's school listening to you tell stories of how second marriages with stepchildren usually end in divorce and the step-parent would not treat the child as his own. I thought it would never happen to me.

A few months after the wedding, it became obvious that my new husband was extremely jealous of my relationship with my 8-year-old daughter and, therefore, treated her horribly. He would say he was counting down the days until she was 18 so she would leave, and I would only pay attention to him. I would never have thought this person I married could say such mean things to a child. It was a living nightmare. We tried counseling for several months, but it was apparent things would never change. Because my daughter is the most important thing in my life, I divorced him.

The good news is I am taking your advice and not dating until my daughter is 18. My friends think I am crazy, but I don't care. My daughter is now 12 and for the next 6 years my goal is to raise her to be a well-adjusted, moral adult. No man will ever come between my daughter and me, because I won't put us in that position again. My daughter loves that she gets me to herself. To make life even better, when she is at school, I am at work and when she is out of school, I am with her.  I truly have become my kid's mom again.

Jenny