All of the above is wise advice.

The only thing I can add is that these feelings (annoyance, resentment) may not go away, and may even intensify over time. You will have to face these issues for the rest of your life if you stay married to this man.

You may think these kids love you, and you them, but that can change very rapidly. There are plenty of stories about how stepmoms/dads devoted their lives to skids, only to get kicked to the curb during teen and adult years. Even using grandskids as weapons!

Before you married, what did your parents/family/friends think of this situation? Did anyone tell you that you would have your work cut out for you?

I know if you were my 25-year-old daughter, I would have advised you not to step into such a situation as it would be a very rocky road and probably filled with heartbreak and disappointment. Of course, as an adult you get to make your own decisions so you may have been given such advice and chosen to go ahead with the marriage anyway. Now you are experiencing the reality of it.

Keep in mind. This is a big world. There are literally MILLIONS of young men out there who are good, decent, hard-working ... and have no children. There could be THOUSANDS of them who are a short driving distance from where you are right now. There could be HUNDREDS of them who have all the qualities you are looking for in a mate. And there is MOST CERTAINLY at least one of them who would be a perfect match for you, who would love to be your husband, place you first, and start your own family together.

Remember this when you are scuttling about, trying to get away from the skids and the situation you find yourself in now.

I am in your exact scenario. 3 stepkids, no children of my own.

I've been married to my DH for 7 years, with him for 9...and the skids are now 17, 19, and 20.

It has gotten easier as they've gotten older, for the most part, but the fact that I never got to have kids of my own never got easier and I have a lot of resentment about it. I am 10 years younger than my DH and I am not too old to have kids, so I plan to start looking into artificial insemination this year.

My DH once thought like yours...that we should all be one big happy family and I should be replacement mom while the kids were here...that the kids belonged to all of us. I jumped in eagerly with both feet...cooking, cleaning, packing lunches, planning family outings. And it went well for a while...but then I also started noticing horrible feelings of resentment and even disgust for his kids. Like, everything about them annoyed me and I started retreating. Granted, my OSD was a total witch and nobody liked her at that time...but the other two were basically fine.

When I first started expressing my feelings to my DH, he got very defensive and it was unpleasant...and I would cave and backtrack. But the hurt and resentment would still be there and would bubble up again. Like you, I found ways to be gone when the kids were there, which I know hurt my husband's feelings. But it was a million little things that made me feel out of place and even somewhat unwelcome when the kids were around...and he didn't see any of it. Slowly, he started to better understand my perspective and understand that I didn't hate his kids at all...I just hated my role as a stepparent. (Incidentally, I started understanding this, too. It's very natural to displace your resentment and anger onto the children, which is what makes you feel awful, because in your head you know they're fine but in your heart and your gut...you kind of heave at the sight or mention of them. When I started better understanding WHY I was feeling the way I was feeling, my DH also started to come around.) He started making some much-needed adjustments to how he parented and started clearly putting our marriage first, and everyone actually got happier. I also often have created opportunities for him to do cool things with the kids alone. He always texts me and says he wishes I was there, too...but I think the kids need alone time with their dad and I get a day or several days to unwind by myself. Like you, I can take the skids in small spurts, so when I feel up to hanging with skids, I will often be proactive and suggest something out of the house to DH...this helps me feel better about it and ensures that we see skids at a time when I'm feeling up to it. (I still don't like them in my home, but I deal. Only one still comes for visitation and the other two are both moving several hours away within the next couple months. Hallelujah!)

I guess I say all this to say...there is hope. But only if your DH is willing to try to see the situation from YOUR perspective and empathize with you at least as much as you see it from his perspective and empathize with him and his kids. I don't know why, but men are often unwilling to do that...or it's difficult for them. Maybe they think it's weakness? When I talk about DH SLOWLY coming around and taking on my viewpoint...I really mean that. This was a process of several YEARS, not weeks or months...and it was painful.

Interestingly, I mentioned artificial insemination above. One chink in DH's defensive armor came about because of a conversation about AI. I mentioned pursuing it and DH said: "I just don't know how I'd feel about being a dad to a child that's not biologically mine." I just looked at him and told him I'd give him a few minutes to process what he just said and see if he could possibly see any parallels in my life.

This is the crux of the issue for me. I think it may be simpler when BOTH partners bring children from a previous relationship into the family unit, because then there's a kind of equality. BOTH partners are making sacrifices and learning to live with someone else's kids. I'm sure there are plenty of challenges depending on personalities and other factors, but at least theoretically you're starting out on equal footing. Being a childless stepmom means there is an automatic inequity and imbalance of power in the relationship that can never be cured. You are providing something for your DH that he can never repay and that he will never fully understand...even if you have a child or children together, those are his kids, too. So, he'll never understand what it's like to regularly care for someone else's children in your home. He'll always have a built-in family unit that you're not really a part of. And it's even worse when there's not even any gratitude, understanding, or empathy on his part. When he just ASSUMES that this is part and parcel of loving and marrying HIM. It's a kind of narcissistic attitude, frankly, and it's totally wrong-headed.

The only thing that saved my marriage was my DH's willingness to rethink his assumptions on this and make changes. You know your husband - can you see him doing this? And you know yourself? Do you think you can handle the long, slow, painful process of being honest with your DH and making these changes happen?

If not, in all honesty, I would separate. You are young and have plenty of time.

Your children will be completely different. Even though you want to strangle them sometimes there is still so much unconditional love that it overshadows the bad. As for feeling out of place, instead of trying to jump into the pre-existing "family" things, try making something that's just you and the kids. Like every Saturday you and the kids cook a big breakfast together, that way you make some traditions that are you + kids instead of dad + kids + whatever you can be included in.

When my DH and I first moved in together, I was 24 and SD was 10. It was very hard and got a lot harder before she turned 18. None of my friends could related to being a SP because most were newly weds or unmarried and none were SPs. Neither could my family because no one had ever divorced in my family. I got a lot of crappy advice from people who had no idea what I was dealing with and I too withdrew from everyone because I felt very, very alone. Unfortunately, my DH was not a good person to talk to about my feelings (like you might any other issues) because he wasn't capable of separating his feelings, view and expectations of me and the SD-relationship to hear me out. I suppose this is normal. For instance, I can talk crap about my family, but if anyone else does, I'll defend them to the hilt! Same goes for the bio-parent, they all wear rose-colored glass where their kids are concerned. I have heard my DH complain about other people's children and then blindly ignore his SD doing the same thing the other children were doing. Pointing that out NEVER goes over well.

Finding step talk helped a lot. I also read a lot of books, Stepmonster by Wednesday Martin is a very good one to read. And I just had to figure it out by trial and error. I too found other things to do EOW weekend. I do think the vast majority of men with children are very relieved and happy to re-marry and then (openly or subconsciously) relax on parenting/household responsibilities because they think the new wife will take over. This is a very normal theme here. You need to draw the lines and boundaries of your time, money, and effort that work for you. They aren't your kids and never will be. As teens they will likely shout this at you many times in many hurtful ways, so prepare yourself. There was a time I thought if I could achieve "favorite Aunt" status with SD, that would work for us. If I could be a respected and well liked other adult figure that SD could come to for life advice and activities we both enjoyed, I could live with that. That didn't turn out of us (very long story many, many years in the making there).

You signed up for a harder road than your peers. Hopefully your DH will see and respect that his baggage has a huge impact on your life and happiness. This will be hard, often very hard. You might be one of the lucky once where you reach a balance and have good relationships with the skids, but there will be many times that it is just hard and unrewarding.