Giving Up On Step?

In the first five years or so of my marriage, I read any stepfamily book I could get my hands on looking for any kind of help I could find on how to deal with a difficult ex and violent stepchild. I scoured the internet as well looking for the same type of information and for a place to vent freely and safely as well as find advice from others who have "been there, done that". Yesterday, I took all those books and I packed them away.

No, all the "kinks" (that's putting it mildly) in our stepfamily didn't get worked out. My answers (help!) can't come from any book. I have realized that unless the people involved WANT to have a good relationship, it's not going to happen and my reading 20 books, or 100 books, isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. I can hope for a cooperative, functioning relationship between the homes all I want to but unless the other home wants it, my hopes are, well, hopeless.

Did I give up? I don't know if I'd call it giving up. I call it being realistic. I can't change other people...and I can use that space on my overflowing bookshelf for something that has meaning to me.