[luckystarmom]

If you read about it, step-parents from households where there is a death usually do better. In fact, children from households where a parent has died usually aren't as screwed up as kids from divorced parents.

Dying isn't a choice, and I think kids can accept that better.

[spikeytx86]

I can agree with that. I am from a divorced family, though flaws and all I obviously prefer my parents to be alive, I can see how it is easier to accept your parents passed do to disease or something like that as a posed to your parent being a adulterer or wife beater etc. etc.
In my case, My step mother really was a rhymes with witch. She would constantly bad mouth my mother and sister, was constantly rude and verbally abusive to me. She was the spitting image of what not to be as a step parent.