I would love to hear others suggestions too.

I struggle with this exact feeling a lot. I've expressed it to DH and I'm not sure he gets what I am telling him. My last approach was to suggest we put our relationship first even with the kids. That he and I need to show a united front and showcase our love for them too. That means we hold hands, walk side by side, sit next to each other at restruants, that kind of thing. And he agreed so we'll see. It also means, and we talked about this too, that if one of the kids tries to butt in between us and manipulate their place where the other spouse should be that we will gently remind them of their place and/or redirect them to a different place.

It gets very tiring to deal with. When we are out and about SD will purposely hang back and mope like she is being left out. So DH then hangs back to comfort her. So me and my kids are off at a normal pace and they are lagging behind. Or SD will race into a room first to be sure she can choose her seat and then tries to convince DH to sit next to her, with all the guilt daddy's girl can muster up. You know, eye batting, sugary sweet smile, 'Pleassssse daddy'. Not to say my bio's don't try it too but it's tiring and it has a really bad effect on our efforts at blending and feeling like any kind of a family.

We are taking a big family vacation soon and I'm especially nervous about how it's going to go.

"So DH then hangs back to comfort her. So me and my kids are off at a normal pace and they are lagging behind. Or SD will race into a room first to be sure she can choose her seat and then tries to convince DH to sit next to her"

Sounds like my SS16 - when my DH, I, SS16 and the baby are all some place, DH and I will be walking side by side - me holding baby - SS walking on his side. Eventually he will hang back, then push in between the two of us, pick up the pace. Guilty daddy doesn't pay attention while he's talking and starts increasing his pace to keep with SS. While me and the baby are 20 paces behind, 3rd world style!

Gotta' love it!

AStepAbove you have the right idea. You and dh need to build a family off of your relationship. If dh is letting sd's moping get in the way, then that is the problem. She is being allowed to control how the family interacts. That is too much power and responsibility for a kid. They need to be taught how things work. I personally hate when parents coddle kids because they're pouting / moping. Let them cope for pete's sakes. If he didn't rush back there to make her feel better, she'd be FORCED to participate with the family and things would improve, but as long as the parents put their kids first the family will never work as a unit because kids manipulate that. They sense the parents desire to make THEM happy first and they use it to isolate that parent from everyone else. Any good therapist will tell you that a marriage (first, second, third, whatever) MUST come before the kids. It is the only way to teach children their place and appropriate boundaries.

"God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy" and you can't change crazy!!

Actions grow the feelings.

I believe that developing closeness in relationships has more to do with personal action than the behavior of others in the family.

I had an epiphany in this arena years ago fairly early in my marriage to my wonderful wife. I was feeling somewhat disconnected and frequently agrivated in my interface and feelings around my marriage.

This corresponded with the publication of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

Though adopted as a professional performance tome by many organizatons I found it to be most powerful in applying many of Covey's recommendations in my personal life. Most powerful for me was his recommendation along the lines (Love is a verb not a noun) not a direct quote. In other words it is an action.

In the book Covey recounts a discussion he had with an attendee of one of his seminars. The individual approached Covey during a break and announced that he no longer loved his wife. Covey responded "then love her" a conversation followed where Covey explained that performing the actions would grow the feelings. As simplistic as this may sound it works well for me. I began e-mailing my wive a couple of times a day. Calling her, texting her, sending her flowers for no specific occassion, taking a long lunch and surprising her by picking her up at her office for lunch. etc.....

Even my Dad, Mr "Engineeric" as my Wife refers to him uses this philosophy. An example is RANDOM FLOWERS. When Dad pulls out a new month on his DayTimer he will randomly flip through and write "Random Flowers" or "Special Dinner W/ show", etc... Mom found this in his DayTimer once and still busts his chops for it but he still does it and she enjoys and appreciates it.

My wife and I used similar tactics to build family closeness between she, our Son (my SS-17)and I. We go hiking together, fossil hunting, etc.... Anything that gets us away from a video screen (TV, computer, game system, cell phones, I-Pod, etc...) and just doing random activities together.

In a situation with Yours/Mine/Ours certainly all of the kids need periodic quality 1:1 time with each and all parents and sibs/half sibs/stepsibs. However, the family needs just as much time as a family participating in family activities. Hikes work well, kick ball games, canoeing at a local lake, rock/fossil hunting, overnight camping trips in a tent (this builds teamwork), etc.... Anything that builds family memories, stories, history, relationships.

Don't sweat it if one or more throw out the "I don't wanna......" Load them all up and drag them kicking and screaming out to have some family fun.

The actions of love will grow the feelings of love, family, unit.

Just my thoughts and experiences of course.

Good luck and best regards,

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

See, it could be an age thing too. Mine lags behind, jumps ahead, whatever(of course he generally isnt pouting about it or trying to get attention), but we seldom spend family time all together. Mine simply doesnt have a lot in common with with little girls (as he shouldnt), and therefore we dont stick together much, at the mall, fairs, events...whatever. Sometimes they have common ground, like rides at a fair or the desire to eat at McDonalds, but it is rare. But I guess ya'll are right, if I really look at it. It is Dh and I, or me and mine, or him and his. But what comes first is US. Then, since me and mine have zero desire to say, spend an hour at the girly girl store and they have zero desire to spend time at the skateshop - we separate... but the kids dont set the pace, its mostly me pushing away saying Um-yeah, I dont want to go to CLAIRES for the millionth time, have fun DH - ENJOY, me and mine are gonna go walk around.